So today marks a year when my local poker room closed down and I considered the pandemic lockdown in full-swing. My local poker room is still not open to this day yet there are poker rooms across the country operating under increased restrictions (less players per table, masks, plexiglass).

So we can say the lockdown is not in full-swing anymore but we are certainly not out of the woods, many restrictions are still imposed that limit civil liberty which is a great concern.

I wanted to see if it was worth it so I started researching empirical data in regards to the last major pandemic - Spanish Flu.


Firstly lets look at length of pandemic:It appears from all my research that spanish flu was a 13-16months ordeal.

Timeline:

April 1917 - U.S. enters World War I with 378,000 in the armed services.

March 1918 - Outbreaks of flu-like illness are first detected in the United States.

October 1918- virus kills an estimated 195,000 Americans during October alone.

January 1919 - In San Francisco, 1,800 flu cases and 101 deaths are reported in first five days of January.

Feb 1919 - Influenza appears to be nearly eradicated in New Orleans as number of reported cases drops.
Illinois passes a bill to create a one-year course to become a “practical nurse,” an effort to address the nursing shortage the pandemic had exposed.

April 1919 - At Versailles Peace Conference, while negotiating the end of World War I with other world leaders, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson collapses. Some historians speculate he was weak from influenza, which was still rampant in Paris.

June 1919 - Consensus is generally that the pandemic was mostly over at this point



Next we can look at total infections and fatality rates:It appears that total population density was roughly 20% of todays numbers. So there were alot less people in 1918, we must consider this.

An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).


Overall fatality rate is eerily similar to Covid (2-3% conservative from researchers who claim 66% of the world was actually infected) (6-10% from less conservative estimates who claim 500mill total infections)

There is hot debate over total infection/death numbers because there was no way to measure asymptomatic cases and scholars debate their existence to this day.

However 500million is the most conservative total infection count I can find.

500million cases total is the estimate for Spanish flu - Timeframe 13-16 months

Covid current total cases as of this post 112million - Timeframe 12 months




Conclusion: The lockdowns worldwide were effective at reducing total infections and deaths despite there being amagnitude 5greater population density compared to 1918.

Unless these numbers are fraudulent the lockdowns were extremely effective. I hate to say it because I hate this lockdown but i'm a math guy and the numbers are quite impressive.





Sources:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291398/

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-res...eline-1918.htm

https://www.britannica.com/story/how...%20two%20years.

https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

https://ourworldindata.org/spanish-f...mic-in-history

Isn't the spanish flu significantly different than covid? Why are we comparing these two?

we can't even reliably depend on these stats as being accurate

Unfortunately it seems as though retardation is still spreading at an alarming rate.

It is actually very similar to covid. Strikingly so


This data is coming from a guy who does not wear masks in public (me) and has also been infected with the virus already (had a mild case). So I would say I am on the overtly skeptical side.

shame that all of the data is false

It's possible; but I can only work with metrics available to me. If these metric are accurate then I stand by my conclusion that the lockdowns were extremely effective.

If someone can provide data to contradict the most conservative estimates of 500million infections SFLU i'd be happy to look at it.

However weighting effectiveness vs a valuation of freedom is another ballgame. There is no metric for civil liberty(freedom).

One must ask is the price paid in freedom worth the results? I cannot answer that for you because as stated before there are no metrics for freedom.

In b4 oppie is seen in public wearing 100 masks and a face shield.

flaTeN thE CuRVe.

up until January 20th, the testing method was arbitrary (and the new one probably is as well)

there's no possible way any of this was worth a totalitarian shutdown of human civilization in order to pretend to prevent the deaths of people who were at death's door anyway

Any false positive test results would actually support the thesis that lockdowns are effective. You actually want to see more COVID total cases in this case when arguing that lockdowns are not effective at total infection reduction.


I'm not here to debate morality or ethics, i'm only presenting the data and my analysis of it in regards to total infections; lockdown vs no lockdown.

Question: Are lockdowns effective at reducing total infection counts?

Conclusion: Yes



That being said: I'm still not going to wear a mask, especially since I already had COVID. I see no merit in myself getting the vaccine either due to already having circulating antibodies and having experienced the most mild case imaginable (no smell/taste 2 weeks - 30 hour low fever).

repped for checking the #s

I know 100+ people that have had it and 0 hospitalizations, mostly all same symptoms you had.

Death rate is not close to 2-3% massive misreporting of information going on.