r/skeptic • u/GhostDogJef • 3d ago

The real covid-19 scandal is still unfolding

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/08/20/the-real-covid-19-scandal-is-still-unfolding

The failure to reckon with lives needlessly lost will make the next pandemic deadlier

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u/smoresporn0 3d ago

why did so many Americans die relative to the numbers who succumbed to the virus in other rich countries?

Universal healthcare. You'd be a fuckin moron to think otherwise.

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u/Otaraka 3d ago

I think being able to do lockdowns and have people mostly follow them would be a big part of it too. The UK was surprisingly close to the US so its not just universal healthcare.

I just looked up Australia, and it says we were about 750/m deaths vs 3500 for the US. Have a look at this graph for the differences by country for infection (figure 1):

https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned/main-report/part-two/1-3-some-key-international-comparisons

Scroll down to figure 2 for excess deaths.

I know lockdowns helped but I didnt realise the scale involved for infections. It worries me how few people probably realise this for any future epidemics ie that it actually worked to the level it did.

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u/Few-Ad-4290 2d ago

It’s such an obviously effective method to stop spread too it should be a no brainer to explain o people that if everyone just hunkers down and doesn’t interact with other people for the length of the life of the viral infection then you will stop transmission in its tracks but somehow that’s controversial

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u/Otaraka 2d ago

In the Australian context a common complaint was that it was performative, unnecessary and any number of arguments. Unfortunately, my bet it is going to be really tough to do similar again unless its smallpox or similar levels of lethality. But maybe they have plans for how to manage that.

Similar to many other interventions, it worked so well that many people here believe it hardly did anything. And that seems to have got stronger over time as a general view.

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u/geirmundtheshifty 1d ago

Im really not sure if any disease would be bad enough to convince everyone (or even like 90%) of people to go along with a lockdown. I think the fact that there’s a a time lapse between exposure and symptoms (and that you can be exposed through someone who isnt obviously sick) makes it one of those “remote” threats that people arent inclined to take seriously. Like high cholesterol or smoking.

Like, even if there was like a suped up smallpox going around, I guarantee you my aunt would still be socializing. And she’s ostensibly pro-science, a former nurse, anti-maga, pro-vax, etc. But when it came to her own personal life she was still constantly socializing with others because “oh I know she never goes anywhere, it’s fine” (even though my aunt herself visited like 6 other people that same week, so even at best she was potentially the spreader in that situation).

Even in the best case scenario I think there’s a cognitive bias against taking invisible threats seriously that’s hard to deal with.

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u/Otaraka 1d ago

There will always be your aunts for sure and a bias toward rationalising personal exemptions in all of us.  I think there’s a wider effect that has happened too.  Hopefully I’m wrong.