Obesity a driving factor in COVID-19 deaths, global report finds

[Peter Denis]

2 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Please, post those links.  I'd love to see them.  Seriously.

> The word 'seriously' that you used put me on the wrong track thinking you would be genuinely interested in science-based sources that do not blindly follow the common narrative.

Boy was I wrong.  I did PM you 6 articles < 1 from the Lancet, 1 from the BMJ, and 3 by John P.A. Ioannidis, THE world expert on epidemiology > and you dismissed the whole lot straight-way. 

Sorry for wasting your (and my) time responding to your 'serious' request. ????

[Jeffr2]

4 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

> The word 'seriously' that you used put me on the wrong track thinking you would be genuinely interested in science-based sources that do not blindly follow the common narrative.

Boy was I wrong.  I did PM you 6 articles < 1 from the Lancet, 1 from the BMJ, and 3 by John P.A. Ioannidis, THE world expert on epidemiology > and you dismissed the whole lot straight-way. 

Sorry for wasting your (and my) time responding to your 'serious' request. ????

What you gave me wasn't science based sources.  Sure, a guy had a Phd.  But wrote a book about racism.  Come on...seriously?

I didn't look at the others after that one.  and if they can't be posted here, then they are not legit.  If they are from the Lancet, post it here!

[Peter Denis]

1 minute ago, Jeffr2 said:

What you gave me wasn't science based sources.  Sure, a guy had a Phd.  But wrote a book about racism.  Come on...seriously?

I didn't look at the others after that one.  and if they can't be posted here, then they are not legit.  If they are from the Lancet, post it here!

Why do I need to post it here?  I did PM you the Lancet-article and you just admitted you didn't read it.  Stop wasting my time with your BS

[Jeffr2]

18 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

Why do I need to post it here?  I did PM you the Lancet-article and you just admitted you didn't read it.  Stop wasting my time with your BS

It was an unsolicited comment, a manuscript draft.  And NOT published in the Lancet.  Jeez...talk about BS and wasting our time.  You really fell for this?  Seems you are trying to find info to deny the virus and measures used to combat it?

Focus on research that actually gets published. LOL

Quote

 

The Lancet

Significant flaws in the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial--Manuscript Draft--

Manuscript Number:

Article Type:Unsolicited Comment

Keywords:Covid-19; mRNA vaccineCorresponding

Author:Michal Haran, M.D.Hebrew University Medical SchoolISRAEL

First Author:Michal Haran, M.D.

Order of Authors:Michal Haran, M.D.Yitshal Berner, M.D., M.P.H.Moshe Royburt, MD, MHA.

Manuscript Region of Origin:ISRAEL

 

Quote

 

 

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, Peter Denis said:

 

I don't think you understand what sarcasm is. My comment would have been sarcastic if I had said something like "Thanks for the explanation." That would have been sarcastic. But  I simply posted a statement of fact: you claimed your assertion was misread but offered no explanation of how.

Edited March 14, 2021 by placeholder

[Peter Denis]

12 minutes ago, placeholder said:

I don't think you understand what sarcasm is. My comment would have been sarcastic if I had said something like "Thanks for the explanation." But  I simply posted a statement of fact: you claimed your assertion was misread but offered no explanation of how.

I was or course referring to my own comment, not yours.  Jeez...

[placeholder]

29 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

I was or course referring to my own comment, not yours.  Jeez...

The only way that explanation makes sense if you is if you were conceding the point i. E that your post in fact was not misread and the criticism was valid.

[johnnybangkok]

22 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

Show me some empirical evidence of this.  I have looked and I can find no unbiased studies that prove that countries with severe lockdown measures have fared any better than those with less strict measures. 

Mask wearing is largely ineffective because the majority of people are only wearing cheap drugstore masks, not N95 respirators that a surgeon would wear in an operating room.  I'm not saying you shouldn't wear one.  I always wear one in public, but let's be honest...if you are wearing the cheap drug-store type, which most people wear, it is really not doing much at all to protect you or others.  It's only to make others around you feel better.  I think we all really know this on a gut-level.

As for lockdowns, there is no such thing as an effective lockdown unless you are in a state-controlled country like China.  In most democratic countries, lockdowns are highly selective.  Not everybody has to play by the rules.  Powerful politicians dining out at five star restaurants with their lobby partners are free to do so, while ordinary citizens are banned from family gatherings in their own homes.  How many ordinary citizens really abide by such draconian rules...not many!

When you finally throw in the economic repercussions of lockdowns, this so-called remedy is proving to be FAR more devastating than the virus itself.  Take Thailand for example, sure the entire country has been in a lockdown from foreigners for a year now.  Of course, there is minimal spread of the virus here as a result.  But what about the economic health of the country?  THAT has yet to be fully realized, but in the end it will be far more devastating than the virus could ever have been.  It will be at least a decade before Thailand recovers from the economic devastation, according to many experts.

 

You go to great pains to try and undermine the validity of lockdowns when the evidence for their effectiveness is right there in front of you. Taiwan (984 cases, 10 deaths), South Korea (95,000 cases, 1667 deaths) and of course the one right in front of you Thailand (26,000 cases 85 deaths), All these (and more) countries acted early and decisively when Covid hit, quickly putting in travel restrictions followed by screenings, identifying, tracing, strict quarantining and of course lockdown. They didn't wait around for the right politics or the right optics, all they did was follow well known and trusted doctrines/methodologies that had been put in place after the likes of SARS, H1N1, MERS and Ebola. Even though every other country also had the ability to mimic these methods, many dithered in the crucial initial weeks and allowed the virus to reach such proportions that anything done thereafter would have a diluted effect. Once the pandemic took hold, it was just damage limitation time of which lockdown is by far the most effective. For countries that pride themselves on their esteemed scientific credentials, both the UK and the US have done abysmally with C19 and the blame must lay with politicians who initially dithered (Boris) and downright denied (Trump). To say lockdown is ineffective is completely disingenuos; if tracing, isolating, lockdown was done properly (like in Taiwan, S. Korea, Thailand, New Zealand etc), then you would have seen far fewer cases of infection and far fewer deaths. Lockdowns work if done quickly and country-wide but at least when they were done, they absolutely reduced the amount of infection and therefore the number of deaths.  

Also, there are plenty of extrapolated numbers out there for how many deaths would have happened without lockdown, an example of such being https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52968523. You'll probably lable the BBC as biased but the study is from Imperial College London so hopefully they pass muster for you (although I get the feeling nothing will disuade you from your confirmation bias).

[Peter Denis]

40 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

...

Also, there are plenty of extrapolated numbers out there for how many deaths would have happened without lock-down, an example of such being https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52968523. You'll probably label the BBC as biased but the study is from Imperial College London so hopefully they pass muster for you (although I get the feeling nothing will dissuade you from your confirmation bias).

Two quotes from that article >

1 - Lock-downs have saved more than three million lives from coronavirus in Europe, a study estimates.

2 - ... the work comes from the same group that guided the UK's decision to go into lock-down.

Yes, the same Imperial College London where Neil Ferguson's study predicted the Zombie Apocalypse that got the whole world in panic-mode. 

Did you know that Nobel-prize winner professor Michael Levitt, looked at the model Ferguson had used to come to his conclusions and recommendations and that he urgently contacted Ferguson's team 2 weeks after the publication of that infamous study.  Levitt provided Ferguson with data which demonstrated that Ferguson's model was flawed and that it exaggerated the number of deaths 10-fold, and he wanted to discuss this with him.  Ferguson refused to reconsider his 'model' without any response and later it turned out that Levitt was obviously correct, but the damage was already done. 

And now that same Ferguson group claims that their ill-advised study that led to the lock-down did 'save 3 million lives from coronavirus in Europe'.  Talking about an unbiased follow-up study...

Edited March 14, 2021 by Peter Denis

[Jeffr2]

18 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

Two quotes from that article >

1 - Lock-downs have saved more than three million lives from coronavirus in Europe, a study estimates.

2 - ... the work comes from the same group that guided the UK's decision to go into lock-down.

Yes, the same Imperial College London where Neil Ferguson's study predicted the Zombie Apocalypse that got the whole world in panic-mode. 

Did you know that Nobel-prize winner professor Michael Levitt, looked at the model Ferguson had used to come to his conclusions and recommendations and that he urgently contacted Ferguson's team 2 weeks after the publication of that infamous study.  Levitt provided Ferguson with data which demonstrated that Ferguson's model was flawed and that it exaggerated the number of deaths 10-fold, and he wanted to discuss this with him.  Ferguson refused to reconsider his 'model' without any response and later it turned out that Levitt was obviously correct, but the damage was already done. 

And now that same Ferguson group claims that their ill-advised study that led to the lock-down did 'save 3 million lives from coronavirus in Europe'.  Talking about an unbiased follow-up study...

Guess Levitt isn't always right.  You cherry pick to make your point. 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122618622/nobel-prize-winner-weighs-in-on-nzs-covid-strategy-from-a-poolside-in-portugal

But in July he also predicted the pandemic would be over by now, and later admitted he got that wrong.

US COVID19 will be done in 4 weeks with a total reported death below 170,000. How will we know it is over? Like for Europe, when all cause excess deaths are at normal level for week. Reported COVID19 deaths may continue after 25 Aug. & reported cases will, but it will be over. https://t.co/lnpxZ3bHIy

— Michael Levitt (@MLevitt_NP2013) July 25, 2020

[Thomas J]

5 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

Ahh the much vaunted Swedish model. Hasn’t this been done to death already? Didn’t their own king say they failed? 

Again, if lockdowns IN YOUR WORDS were so effective why did Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands have virtually the same infection rate.  The fact that the king opines is irrelevant.  The stats are the stats. As you say, right there in front of you. 

 

[Jeffr2]

Seems he was wrong again.  Hardly a credible source.

https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2020/09/21/the-lethal-nonsense-of-michael-levitt/

 

Michael Levitt, a Stanford University Professor of structural biology and winner of  the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2013, wants you to believe the COVID-19 pandemic is over in the US. He claimed it ended on August 22nd, with a total of 170,000 deaths (there are now over 200,000 with hundreds of deaths per day). He claims those 170,000 deaths weren’t even COVID-19 deaths, and since the virus is not very dangerous, he suggests you infect yourself. How? He proposes you set sail on a COVID-19 cruise.

[Jeffr2]

3 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

Again, if lockdowns IN YOUR WORDS were so effective why did Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands have virtually the same infection rate.  The fact that the king opines is irrelevant.  The stats are the stats. As you say, right there in front of you. 

 

It's not right to compare Spain to Sweden.  Just doesn't make sense.  Compare Sweden to Norway and Finland would be better.  More similar.  And if you do, Sweden failed.  As their King admitted, and many other health professionals.

[placeholder]

5 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

Again, if lockdowns IN YOUR WORDS were so effective why did Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands have virtually the same infection rate.  The fact that the king opines is irrelevant.  The stats are the stats. As you say, right there in front of you. 

 

The question you should be asking is why Norway and Finland countries bordering on Sweden and most similar to it had a much lower rate of infection and death.

Edited March 14, 2021 by placeholder

[Thomas J]

1 minute ago, Jeffr2 said:

t's not right to compare Spain to Sweden.  Just doesn't make sense.  Compare Sweden to Norway and Finland would be better.  More similar.  And if you do, Sweden failed.  As their King admitted, and many other health professionals.

It makes perfect sense.  After all the post said the FACTS are right there in front of you.  Or are you saying that the people in Norway, and Finland are biologically different than those in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands?  Or that the geography is different, in which case DISAPARITY in covid deaths might be due to factors OTHER THAN LOCKDOWNS.  

[johnnybangkok]

29 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

Two quotes from that article >

1 - Lock-downs have saved more than three million lives from coronavirus in Europe, a study estimates.

2 - ... the work comes from the same group that guided the UK's decision to go into lock-down.

Yes, the same Imperial College London where Neil Ferguson's study predicted the Zombie Apocalypse that got the whole world in panic-mode. 

Did you know that Nobel-prize winner professor Michael Levitt, looked at the model Ferguson had used to come to his conclusions and recommendations and that he urgently contacted Ferguson's team 2 weeks after the publication of that infamous study.  Levitt provided Ferguson with data which demonstrated that Ferguson's model was flawed and that it exaggerated the number of deaths 10-fold, and he wanted to discuss this with him.  Ferguson refused to reconsider his 'model' without any response and later it turned out that Levitt was obviously correct, but the damage was already done. 

And now that same Ferguson group claims that their ill-advised study that led to the lock-down did 'save 3 million lives from coronavirus in Europe'.  Talking about an unbiased follow-up study...

A typical straw man argument.

I posted a great deal of information regarding Taiwan, S. Korea and Thailand but you pick up on the fact that a somewhat questionable individual was present at the same college the numbers were taken from. Straw man to the max.

The nub of all this for yourself and all other lockdown deniers (you even have a name now) is do you genuinely believe that worldwide figures would have been the same as they are now (119 million infected, 2.65 million dead) if everyone was allowed to go about their business as normal? You don't think the high infection rate and subsequent mortality rate would have seen these numbers escalate to truly horrendous proportions? Even if they were just double that would see 5 million dead and again most statiticians say the number would have been much, much higher https://www.businessinsider.com/covid19-model-predicts-40-million-people-could-die-without-interventions-2020-3

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/09/872441984/modelers-suggest-pandemic-lockdowns-saved-millions-from-dying-of-covid-19

No one is denying the economic impact and subsequent problems that lockdown has produced (I personally have had to half my staff) but when you are talking deaths of biblical proportions I would argue that if you didn't have the foresight to nip it in the bud at the early stages (like most western countries), there really was no choice other than lockdown to mitigate the potentially huge numbers of deaths that would have occured. The boat has well and truly sailed and thankfully most governments agree with me so you really don't have an argument any more. Lockdown saved lives; it's a fact.

 

[johnnybangkok]

26 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

It makes perfect sense.  After all the post said the FACTS are right there in front of you.  Or are you saying that the people in Norway, and Finland are biologically different than those in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands?  Or that the geography is different, in which case DISAPARITY in covid deaths might be due to factors OTHER THAN LOCKDOWNS.  

We all (apart from you obviously) know what he is saying.
When comparing Sweden, you are better served by comparing like for like and as far as most demographics are concerned Sweden compares much better to the likes of Finland and Norway for things like overall demographics (age, gender etc), climate, and population density. I don't know for sure but I would also hazard a guess that even their obesity levels are very similar. Therefore they provide a good yardstick to Sweden and as we all know, Sweden does not come out of this comparison very well at all.

Infections rates are approx. 10 times those of Finland and Norway   https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102257/cumulative-coronavirus- cases-in-the-nordics/   and deaths are 17-20 times higher than these countries   https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-nordics/

That's why their own king and many of Swedens top health professionals have come out and said their policy of no lockdown has been nothing short of a disaster.

Can we give this a rest now? 

[stevenl]

3 hours ago, Peter Denis said:

> The word 'seriously' that you used put me on the wrong track thinking you would be genuinely interested in science-based sources that do not blindly follow the common narrative.

Boy was I wrong.  I did PM you 6 articles < 1 from the Lancet, 1 from the BMJ, and 3 by John P.A. Ioannidis, THE world expert on epidemiology > and you dismissed the whole lot straight-way. 

Sorry for wasting your (and my) time responding to your 'serious' request. ????

Just post the links, in stead of arguing about non posted links.

[placeholder]

37 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

It makes perfect sense.  After all the post said the FACTS are right there in front of you.  Or are you saying that the people in Norway, and Finland are biologically different than those in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands?  Or that the geography is different, in which case DISAPARITY in covid deaths might be due to factors OTHER THAN LOCKDOWNS.  

Sweden, Norway, and Finland are similar in terms of the high quality of their health care system, population density and climate. These are all highly significant factors.

[Jeffr2]

1 hour ago, Thomas J said:

It makes perfect sense.  After all the post said the FACTS are right there in front of you.  Or are you saying that the people in Norway, and Finland are biologically different than those in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands?  Or that the geography is different, in which case DISAPARITY in covid deaths might be due to factors OTHER THAN LOCKDOWNS.  

It's been explained to death why you can't compare Sweden with Spain.  Kinda like comparing Kenya to Brazil.  Doesn't work.

[Thomas J]

1 minute ago, stevenl said:

Multiple factors as you're indicating now is far from the same as the earlier claims that lockdown and masks are ineffective.

I never said they were ineffective .  I was replying to the fact that quarantines were effective and the stats proved it.  They don't.  They are inconclusive.  Some countries even those that border each other have huge variances in their covid infedtion rates.  That does not mean that they were not effective.  But it also does not show they materially impacted the rate either.  

 

[Jeffr2]

15 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

If you are saying that somehow "geography" plays a difference in Covid infection rates than you are being disingenuous when pointing to Quarantines being the primary or sole factor in limiting Covid infection rates.  

If Quarantines which were mandated in Czezia Germany and Belgium were the determining factor in 'LOWERING' covid infection rates. 
Why it that Czenia which adjoins Germany has a covid infection rate over 4 times as high.  And Belgium which also borders Germany a rate 2.5 times as high.  

The point being that there is a 'MYRIAD' of factors in why some regions of the world have lower rates of infections.  The facts clearly show that quarantine mandates in various countries do not similarly impact the rates of infection.  

Look at the USA.  Florida has the laxest quarantine rules.  New York and California the toughest.  Their rates of infection are virtually identical. 




 

You need to look at recent data, not from the beginning of the pandemic.  California and NY were the first to get hit.  We had no idea what was going on, and a president who lied about things.

Florida is doing terrible right now.  Just compare the past few months.  I love to see what you come up with. 

In the end, no easy answers.  Politicians are trying to make mask wearing, social distancing and lockdowns political.  They should be censured.  It's a very complex, and evolving, issue.

[Thomas J]

1 minute ago, Jeffr2 said:

You need to look at recent data, not from the beginning of the pandemic.  California and NY were the first to get hit. 

That is current data on Florida, New York, and California.  Look it up on World O Meters. 

[WaveHunter]

7 hours ago, placeholder said:

You could produce a list? But for some reason you chose not to? It is to laugh.

Look, you seem to have missed my point TOTALLY!  I have no issue with the use of masks or SELECTIVE lockdowns that are appropriate for a given situation.

1) The use of masks will NOT contain this virus:  First of all, the efficacy of masks all depends on whether or not they are N95 or the cheap drug store masks.  Most of the public wears the cheap drug store masks; very few wear the N95 ones.

The cheaper masks are worthless as far as preventing contamination from airborne viral transmission.  The only good they do is minimize the chance of contact contaminations (i.e.: touching your face, mouth or nose, and so that is why I use them in public.

Even N95 masks are not 100% effective.  One need only look at how many healthcare workers have been infected to figure that out.

2) As for the efficacy of lockdowns: I have no issue with LOCALIZED lockdowns that are addressing a specific outbreak potential and are administered in a rational way

What I have an issue with is mass lockdowns motivated by emotional hysteria.

For instance, entire US states being locked down by tyrannical state governors when there is no science-based reason to do so.  The result has been an economic catastrophe far more devastating than what the virus itself has caused. 

These mass lockdowns of US States were motivated purely for political considerations, and not based at all on science or what was best for the people.

People who truly believes that masks and lockdowns are the means to contain this virus are living in a fool's paradise!  Until vaccines are able to reduce the R-naught and allow herd immunity to take place, this virus will continue to spread.

You don't need any studies to figure this stuff out!  Use your god-given common sense, and use Google Search intelligently to search for facts and the truth, instead of just accepting the word of politicians and media talking heads most of whom seem to be spewing biased nonsense.

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by WaveHunter

[itsari]

On 3/5/2021 at 1:11 PM, John Drake said:

 

Obesity is the thin end of the wedge. 

Obesity has shown to be a main contribute to fatalities with covid 19 . Hardly the thin end of the wedge . 

[stevenl]

20 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

I never said they were ineffective .  I was replying to the fact that quarantines were effective and the stats proved it.  They don't.  They are inconclusive.  Some countries even those that border each other have huge variances in their covid infedtion rates.  That does not mean that they were not effective.  But it also does not show they materially impacted the rate either.  

 

And I never said you said they were ineffective, but even the claim 'inconclusive' is not correct.

[stevenl]

14 minutes ago, WaveHunter said:

Look, you seem to have missed my point TOTALLY!  I have no issue with the use of masks or SELECTIVE lockdowns that are appropriate for a given situation.

1) The use of masks will NOT contain this virus:  First of all, the efficacy of masks all depends on whether or not they are N95 or the cheap drug store masks.  <snip>

2) As for the efficacy of lockdowns: I have no issue with LOCALIZED lockdowns that are addressing a specific outbreak potential and are administered in a rational way

What I have an issue with is mass lockdowns motivated by emotional hysteria.

<snip>

Point 1. has been proven to be not true, also the cheap masks are effective.

Point 2., lockdowns are effective, but I do agree with you that the half assed lockdowns from the west only have a limited effect.

[cubism001]

On 3/5/2021 at 8:05 AM, itsari said:

Old and fat , double jeopardy

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html

 

Speak for yourself. (I  weigh the same as I did when I was 16.) But had I known how dangerous it is, I don't think I could've got on all those planes lately...

[candide]

2 hours ago, Thomas J said:

It makes perfect sense.  After all the post said the FACTS are right there in front of you.  Or are you saying that the people in Norway, and Finland are biologically different than those in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands?  Or that the geography is different, in which case DISAPARITY in covid deaths might be due to factors OTHER THAN LOCKDOWNS.  

Of course, there are other factors of disparity, but it doesn't negate the role of lockdowns. They all have an impact. It makes sense to compare only comparable countries characterised by similar situational factors.

The other point is that it must be appreciated according to the aim of a lockdown: it is not intended to have a permanent effect, it is intended to stop/slow down an outburst before the health system is overloaded. It does not prevent another wave to occur later. It may have a longer term effect (people are more likely to survive when they are not dead already), but It's not the main objective.  So in this respect, there is absolutely no doubt about the impact: in all cases, lockdowns have interrupted outbursts.

[johnnybangkok]

58 minutes ago, WaveHunter said:

What I have an issue with is mass lockdowns motivated by emotional hysteria.

For instance, entire US states being locked down by tyrannical state governors when there is no science-based reason to do so.  The result has been an economic catastrophe far more devastating than what the virus itself has caused. 

These mass lockdowns of US States were motivated purely for political considerations, and not based at all on science or what was best for the people.

People who truly believes that masks and lockdowns are the means to contain this virus are living in a fool's paradise!  Until vaccines are able to reduce the R-naught and allow herd immunity to take place, this virus will continue to spread.

 

 

You obviously need this explained to you even more than has already been attempted. 

Obviosly the only solution to the virus was always going to be the vacine. No major pandemic past and present has every achieved herd immunity without a vacine. This is obvious stuff. But what do you do when there isn't a vacine (which has been the situation for about a year)? Well you could just leave things they way they are and let it run rampant as I hope we all know where that would have ended up. So you try and prevent the spread of the virus by making it harder to pass on, hence masks and lockdown. 

Now your argument seems to be based on a few US states who probably didn't need to lock down as extensively or as long as they did. Well you could argue this in both directions. There were/are plenty of US states that didn't lock down quickly or as extensively as they should have (mostly GOP) and they are now suffering from some of the worst infection rates and subsequent death rates. A full list of them can be found at  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

So maybe you can tell me what states you are actually talking about and I'll raise you an Alabama, a Mississippi, a South/North Dakota, a Texas and an Arizona that didn't lock down enough and are now suffering massively for their hubris. For every '`tyranical state governor' insisting on lockdown, you had as many if not more essentially denying the problem. The inconsistencies from state to state (coupled with a POTUS that essentially denied and deflected) is the reason America is in such a state with 550,000 deaths and counting. 

And finally, yes masks and especially lockdowns are definately a way to contain the virus. You can't catch something from someone if you never meet them! This is also self-evident when looking at countries that have done lockdown effectively (Thailand for example) but obviously there are many more mitigating factors to consider (closing borders, demographics, obesity levels etc) and once the genie is out of the bottle, things get expodentially worse VERY quickly and thats more of the issue than anything else. Those countries that acted quickly and effectively have spared themselves the trauma of thousands (if not hundered of thousends) of deaths. Those that dithered or flat out denied the problem are the ones that suffered the most and are still suffering.

Lockdowns are not the panacea for everything Covid related but with nothing left in the arsenal, they were/are certainly a whole lot better than doing nothing.