https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/8d7f-Drug-Alert30Jan2021.pdf
Overdose deaths are so high that Toronto Public Health is telling drug users to violate lockdown, for safety:
"Try not to use alone. Use with someone else and take turns spotting for each other.Wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from people you are using with to avoid passing the virus. A buddy system is safer than using alone"
Lockdowns kill.
@pete ... especially now I know that protesting the virus works ...
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0130/1194009-coronavirus-global/
@orionwl @timp it's interesting how that article is written in a way that assumes you've 100% bought into the ridiculous zero covid strategy. Specifically, in how it's asking for infections to be brought low enough that "test and trace" will keep up.
The sane strategy is to get it over with. That means getting people infected as fast as the healthcare system can handle, with as many of those infections in people who are least likely to be harmed.
@pete @orionwl I mean, sure, it sucks, but if we'd all stop saying it sucks tomorrow then we'd be getting on, but unfortunately, the chance of that happening is near-zero. Robert McNamara explained the process nicely, in how they responded to the Vietnam situation, in his mea culpa. Same process, different day.
@pete @orionwl And don't get me wrong when I say I like politicians right around the ending phase of their lives, because I wish them long and prosperous lives like anyone else, but they often tend to write books and give interviews with insights you can't really find elsewhere. The extremity of the situations often magnify certain aspects that apply elsewhere too, because of how we pesky humans work. Thought it was relevant somehow.
This is the Israeli strategy currently. Hospitals are at 100% for severe cases while simultaneously there's strict lockdown and very rapid vaccination (practically all of the at risk groups already vaccinated w/pfizer). When hospitals regain capacity, lockdowns are loosened. Over and over again.
So far it's not great. Infections don't seem to be coming down despite very high % of vaccinations.
@pox @orionwl @timp No, if Israel is actually practicing a strict lockdown they're not following the strategy I'm proposing. I'm proposing *selective* lockdown, allowing those not at risk to get infected while attempting to protect those who are. That's closer to what Sweden, Florida, etc. have been doing (whether they admit it or not).
@pox @orionwl @timp Though Israel is doing one thing very right: IIUC they've been keeping schools open. Kids don't seem to spread it much in schools. But they *do* get infected. And they probably contribute to spread in other situations, eg at home. So might as well get them infected earlier rather than later. And besides, missed in-person education is an *enormous* problem that disproportionately affects the worst off in society. Both the kids, and their working parents.
@pete @orionwl @timp
Selective lockdown was tried and then abandoned because of political infighting.
School are closed most of the time. Other schools just break the rules. You can the enforcement is selective, but not according to some rational criterion, but rather political pressure groups, owing to a very corrupt PM who's clinging to power at all cost.
@pete in that specific case the cause of death is drug OD. Making such shortcuts is dangerous. Don't blame lockdown for everything.
@stevenroose @roshii @pete funnily enough this exact difficulty has been a topic for heated debate wrt. which covid deaths are "real" and which caused by comorbidities.
@kekcoin @stevenroose @pete we will never know unless we run a double blind studies with large group of people, but that will surely never happen since it would imply purposely infecting a group 🤫
@roshii @kekcoin @pete I think long-term large-number statistics can help a lot. Like a countries average annual deaths of certain comorbidities can be used as a baseline to estimate covid-caused deaths.
People also try to do this on a global level with just counting excess deaths from the average for all causes, but I think looking at certain medical conditions gives way better results.
On a global level there's many deaths that have been prevented by covid as well. Cuz no traffic and no work..
@stevenroose @roshii @kekcoin Though that's hard because lockdown causes deaths to increase too. Eg heart disease: people were concerned that covid was causing heart attacks etc. But now it's looking much more likely that the reason for the increase is a combination of people getting care later, and hospitals taking care of people less effectively.
Even something as simple as taking 60 more seconds to respond b/c of safety gear kills more people.
@pete @stevenroose @kekcoin there is indeed too many factors in play to infer anything from available data. again, without a reference data set there is nothing to compare against.
lockdown is surely a factor of some death, but only a factor, not an actor. this is no direct action-reaction relationship
@stevenroose @pete lockdown may be the cause of some death and may be the cause of saved lives, factually we'll never know for sure.
my point is however strictly on making such reasoning shortcuts which can easily slips to facsim, far stretched but realistic imho. if someone commits a suicide there is surely many more factors in play than just a lockdown.
@pete I'll repost this for as long as I have to.