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[–] septenary [S] ago 

I think what I assume are obvious connections you're not making. So this is my last attempt - I think the IQ gap is too large to effectively communicate.

Let's say, theoretically, that the lockdowns had actually been really effective at stopping the spread of the virus. If that was the case, and only a couple percent of the population had been exposed at this point, what would you expect to happen when restrictions were lifted/loosened, and the number of people going out and their range of activities was expanded? (Which has happened in many states.)

You'd expect something noticeable to happen, right? You'd expect to see a big reaction in the data, comparing before and after the change in policy, right? There's still 98% of the population to infect in that scenario. The number of people hospitalized and/or dying to the disease should closely follow the behavior of the population in terms of how locked down they are.

So if that's not what the results show, logically, that means that theory can't be true. I don't know if you've ever played Sudoku, but the premise of the game is that you figure out what the value of an individual square is not by figuring out the answer directly, but by eliminating all of the other possibilities. In much the same way, while we have not tested enough of the population - and do not have a reliable-enough test - that can tell us most everyone has had the virus already, all the other possibilities have been eliminated by the data that we do have. So the one that's left has to be the correct one.

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[–] heygeorge ago 

I think the IQ gap is too large to effectively communicate.

Ha, perhaps. But you are trying hard, and I appreciate that. I have also played Sudoku a couple times, but don’t find it a particularly interesting pursuit.

Your argument leaves out time and the raw number of actively infected/communicable persons. Over the time of the lockdowns, people ‘went through’ the virus, maybe passing it along to close contacts, but a great number of transmission chains came to a conclusion. So if very few people have it, because the spread was stopped, then...

How are they going to spread an infection they do not have?

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[–] septenary [S] ago 

Just like the transmission started with just a few people, we should expect to see another ramp up on loosening of restrictions just like there was when the virus was first introduced to the population. A couple percent of the population having immunity would not be enough to make much of a difference in terms of how the virus spreads, so we would see a return to exponential/parabolic spread.

Looking at it on a chart, it would appear like the vertical part of a 2nd step in a set of stairs forming. And if there was still so far to go - herd immunity requires at least 70% infected - that 2nd step could be many times larger than the first one. But we're not seeing that. Anywhere.