Yesterday in Colorado the "red level" restrictions ended which went from November 20th to January 4th. The restrictions included a long list of things including no indoor dining (here's the info for my county: https://www.bouldercounty.org/families/disease/covid-19/state-dial-framework/). The restrictions are not the same for every county but it's pretty consistent across the state (https://covid19.colorado.gov/data/covid-19-dial-dashboard).

 

Below you can see hospitalization comparisons to 2 other northern states which had very minimal if any restrictions, and despite that their hospitalizations followed the same trend as Colorado (that did heavy restrictions). Wyoming is particularly interesting because it's directly north of Colorado.

 

Here's the full trend. Colorado went from "Orange" to "Red" restrictions during the winter resurgence but notice how the curve didn't change at all. The governor should have seen this if he was paying attention but he doubled down instead while the curve trended down in SD and WY all by itself without the governor doing anything.

 

 

That's conclusive enough for me to say these "lockdowns" don't do anything except destroy businesses and ruin already stressed lives. There never was any evidence that lockdowns can prevent the spread of a virus but now we have concrete examples. Thailand has all the information they need to make the right choices but I suspect they will follow the lead of China and the United States. 

 

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Here are Wyoming and South Dakotas COVID restrictions to see what they did:

https://doh.sd.gov/COVID/

https://health.wyo.gov/publichealth/infectious-disease-epidemiology-unit/disease/novel-coronavirus/covid-19-orders-and-guidance/

 

Here are the active hospitalizations for all states in nice graph form. Look at the entire date range to see how human regulations have had no effect on the trends.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-19-hospitalizations-us/

 

I wouldn't expect the trends to be affected (winter it will go up) but I would expect the actual numbers to change.

 

Do these states have comparable population numbers?

 

Also, winters just getting started, it's far from over, in fact you could say this is just the beginning.

2 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Do these states have comparable population numbers?

 

Also, winters just getting started, it's far from over, in fact you could say this is just the beginning.

Colorado is 5.8 million and the others are less than 1 million believe. The point is the restrictions didn't change the TREND. The virus moves in and moves out regardless.

In the local paper today. The hospitalizations in the state directly north of us did nothing, and yet the rates have fallen by the same relative amount. There is no evidence whatsoever that the restrictions changed the trajectory of the virus.

 

Thailand should be paying attention to all the bad ideas the rest of the world has been trying so they don't go down the same path.