How do you feel when people compare the us Covid cases to New Zealand or Europe?

What is a "proper lockdown"? Most of the US has been through serious lockdowns. Lockdowns are a last resort to minimize deaths and keep hospitals from being overloaded when things are already fucked; they are not the optimal way to fight a pandemic.

The countries that are often held up as having the best responses like Japan and South Korea didn't rely on lockdowns. But they were very good at early intervention and advice, targeted restrictions and contact tracing... all things the US and Europe have been shit at. Japan was telling people to stay out of poorly ventilated, indoor spaces as early as March; this advice was being reported in US/European media as late as autumn as some sort of revelation! The early sluggish testing was a big US screwup as well; NYC was getting 80,000 cases a day on March 15th and we had no clue.

Masks absolutely help but the shitty surgical and cloth ones that most people wear are far from a holy grail; there has been a ton of spread even in places with strict laws and widespread mask use. Hard to say that much could have been done to reduce spread this way.

/r/AskAnAmerican Thread Parent