# Will the US lockdown for the next pandemic? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [September 7, 2022, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139 "2022-09-07T14:05:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2022, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139/41 "2022-10-01T00:19:57Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The vaccines no longer prevent spread, or not very much. They may help keep the symptoms more mild. But going unvaccinated no longer puts others at greater risk of harm, and therefore the government has no business mandating them. There’s your line to draw - are you risking the health of others? If not, it’s your body, your choice. I agree with this. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > General lockdowns were never a good idea. We should have focused on protecting the most at-risk people and making sure they were vaccinated and isolated. Other people should have been free to isolate or not based on their personal risk-reward. But not with this. The most at risk people are physically unable to isolate, because they need care from other human beings. And a lot of the next-to-most at risk people needed to work. We were right to try to prevent spread. We just did it badly. And part of that is because we were totally unprepared. We didn’t have masks, not even half decent masks. But masks are cheap, and prevent spread. Masks are physically cheap to make, but they are also cheap to use. You can do almost all of your economic activity masked. Everything except eating. You can teach, go to school, sell groceries, buy groceries, run electrical wires in someone’s home… all while wearing a mask. But masks work better outbound than inbound, so everyone needs to wear them to reduce spread and to protect the most vulnerable. We should have focused on ventilation and masks early on, as soon as it was clear how covid spread. (And that was much earlier than when the WHO or the CDC admitted it.) That’s what most of the Asian countries did. Japan never shut down, but they wore masks. South Korea, Vietnam, all focused on masks instead of shutdowns. Look at the cumulative death tolls of those countries as compared to ours. They made the right choice. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139/42 "2022-10-03T15:39:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The vaccines no longer prevent spread, or not very much. They may help keep the symptoms more mild. But going unvaccinated no longer puts others at greater risk of harm, and therefore the government has no business mandating them. There’s your line to draw - are you risking the health of others? If not, it’s your body, your choice. This is not true. > Like all vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing infection. Some people who are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations will get COVID-19 [breakthrough infection](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effectiveness/why-measure-effectiveness/breakthrough-cases.html). However, staying up to date with your COVID-19 vaccinations means that you are less likely to have a breakthrough infection and, if you do get sick, you are less likely to get severely ill or die. **Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccination also means you are less likely to spread the disease to others** and increases your protection against new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=Staying%20up%20to%20date%20with%20COVID-19%20vaccination%20also%20means,virus%20that%20causes%20COVID-19](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=Staying%20up%20to%20date%20with%20COVID%2D19%20vaccination%20also%20means,virus%20that%20causes%20COVID%2D19). (My Bold) If you are unvaccinated you are unnecessarily putting others at greater risk, not just yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139/43 "2022-10-08T21:44:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The vaccines no longer prevent spread, or not very much. > [@tofor](#): > > Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccination also means you are less likely to spread the disease to others > … > [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=Staying%20up%20to%20date%20with%20COVID-19%20vaccination%20also%20means,virus%20that%20causes%20COVID-19](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=Staying%20up%20to%20date%20with%20COVID%2D19%20vaccination%20also%20means,virus%20that%20causes%20COVID%2D19) I think the compromise statement would be that staying up to date on vaccinations helps reduce spread. It doesn’t prevent spread, just like it doesn’t necessarily prevent transmission. But it does help limit spread because it does reduce transmission and reducing transmission reduces spread. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139/44 "2022-10-10T13:16:18Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > I think the compromise statement would be that staying up to date on vaccinations helps reduce spread. It doesn’t prevent spread, just like it doesn’t necessarily prevent transmission. It’s also true that vaccinated people can still die of COVID, but it would be equally untrue to say the vaccines “no longer prevent death”. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But going unvaccinated no longer puts others at greater risk of harm This is simply and unequivocally wrong and all of Sam’s conclusions rely on this basic wrongness. Also, you quoted my quote of the CDC as though I had said it. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139/45 "2022-10-10T13:33:31Z")
**Moderator Note** > [@tofor](#): > > Also, you quoted my quote of the CDC as though I had said it. I added the CDC link to the quote. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-us-lockdown-for-the-next-pandemic/971139.md?page=2)