[Pam]

Originally Posted by Major

I am so sick of the science and facts arguments. If there are science and facts involved, and you are so confident that quarantining, social distancing and masks work, please answer for me --

How many lives have been saved as a result of quarantining a/k/a destroying our economy?
How many lives have been saved because of social distancing?
How many lives have been saved because of wearing masks?
How many cases of Chinese coronavirus have been prevented as a result of quarantining a/k/a destroying our economy?
How many cases of Chinese coronavirus have been prevented because of social distancing?
How many cases of Chinese coronavirus have been prevented because of masks.

You can't answer any of these questions. There will never be any way of knowing. For all we know, these actions may have made the situation worse. All we know is the raw data which is as follows:

Worldwide cases of Chinese coronavirus - 8,621,747
U.S. cases of Chinese coronavirus - 457,338
Worldwide deaths attributable to Chinese coronavirus - 2,265,400
U.S. deaths attributable to Chinese coronavirus - 120,723
*from Worldometer

By contrast the Swine flu, which was not accurately tracked, resulted in the following estimates:

Worldwide cases - 700,000,000 to 1,400,000,000
U.S. cases - 43,000,000 to 89,000,000
Worldwide deaths - 284,000 to 575,000
U.S. deaths, 8,870 to 18,300
*from Wikipedia

From the raw data, an argument exists that what we did in the U.S. caused more deaths than if we had handled it the same way as the Swine Flu. Clearly, given the average age of death from the Chinese coronavirus (82), we did a poor job in protecting the elderly.

Anyway, the raw numbers do not support our over-the-top response. Destroying tens of millions of lives for what?

In the meantime, I'd appreciate answers to my first questions if you have them.

There's an error with one of the numbers. According to Worldometer, there have been 2.2 million covid cases in the US, which is a good thing- otherwise the death rate would be far, far higher than it is! Also it should be noted that the numbers for swine flu are for a year, whereas the covid numbers in the US are only for about 3 months.

I think it's too bad that you're equating the severity of the lockdown, plus all your other grievances with the simple public health measure of wearing a mask in the grocery store, something that could possibly tide us over until some kind of treatment is available. But there's no point in arguing since we don't see it the same way. I sincerely wish you and your family (and all the rest of us) good health and hope you're right that there's no need for so much precaution.