> No, they cratered the middle class while making the rich richer.
Isn’t this economic policy, not lockdown policy? Any government could decide to pay laborers 100% of their salary to stay out of work. They could decide “essential workers” would be paid on top of their salary as compensation for the risk and danger. They could deice that corporate profit during a shutdown would go to support laborers. Lockdowns only hurt the middle class and help the rich because the government chooses to force the middle class to stay home while not forcing the rich to stop profiteering off it.
The lockdowns didn't work because people pushed back against them causing the measures to be half-assed as a way to appease those people.
This happens all the time in politics and it's infuriating.
You can't judge the effectiveness of a plan if the plan is modified as a shitty compromise or just plain ignored. But people do judge them, which makes those compromises an effective form of sabotage.
The last state lockdown orders expired in June 2020. Most lasted on the order of a few weeks.
The economy is not destroyed. Assets are appreciating, GDP is growing faster than it has in a decade and employers are desperate to find workers. The unemployment rate is near 5%.
If there is a weak spot in the economy, it is that rising case numbers of the Delta variant are causing people to voluntarily limit their in-person activities. When you ask business leaders what can help the economy, they say “more people getting vaccinated” because it’s the fastest way to reduce new COVID cases.
In my neighborhood several small businesses are still intact. The businesses that relied primarily on commuters are gone, but the staples catering to the people who live here are still intact. My favorite local bar, coffee shop, drycleaner, and bookstores are still going. I'm a bit sad about my pho place closing down, but they're a small chain, and they have another one a bit further away from me that I can still go to.
Talk to your local lockdown provider if you are not happy with the results.
Done properly, of course a lockdown would be effective. Why? Because of the Germ theory. The viruses exist and they don't teleport.
If anything, I would have much preferred if we had a month of global lockdown instead of years of slow burn battle. We wouldn't have had to convince people for vaccination too. It worked for Wuhan.
I am all in for spreading the population sparsely under the sun for a month(I'll take the Greece beaches or the French Riviera). We can make the immunes ones prepare the food and bring the beer.
Well that's a large swing in the other direction, but I enjoy the hyperbole. You do realize lockdowns are the far other direction though? Do you see my point why lockdowns were bad?
Allowing and encouraging people to go outside is the happy medium.
The idea is to separate people from each other for long enough for the virus to die off. Could be done in many ways. Accommodating people in small separate groups for a month under the sun has it's practicality issues but if someone can pull it off the results would be exactly the same.
do you know what would happen if everybody on earth gave themselves 6 feet of space from each other for 14 days? the same thing that would happen if you teleported the virus to the moon. why didnt anyone think of that!
No, they cratered the middle class while making the rich richer.
Now they know not to lock down to destroy the economy but instead push to destroy personal freedoms.