It’s interesting to consider the extent to which stovepiped and group thinking conditioned the global response to the pandemic. The contrast between the relatively similar public health approaches (masking, social distancing, lockdowns etc) and the much more diverse vaccine development effort is stark.
While there is some debate over the relative efficacy of quarantine-like measures, the vaccines are a resounding success.
‘Real-world’ UK data shows 70% decline in COVID infections after first Pfizer shot
Rapid vaccine rollout in Israel leads to sharp decline in severe COVID-19
This despite the fact that no one knew if vaccines were possible at all. There was no “two weeks to flatten the curve” about them at all.
Even today the WHO feels it useful to explain “why are there so many vaccines in development?“
As of December 2020, there are over 200 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 being developed. Of these, at least 52 candidate vaccines are in human trials. There are several others currently in phase I/II, which will enter phase III in the coming months …
In contrast to the avowed uncertainty of vaccine developers was the apparent scientific certitude of pandemic modelers, summarized by Dr. Ari Joffe.
Early modeling made concerning predictions that induced fear (Table 1). Kissler et al. predicted the need for intermittent lockdowns occurring for a total of 75% of the time, even after July 2022, to avoid “overwhelming critical care capacity (page 866 in ref. 2)” (2–4). In their discussion they wrote that the response “is likely to have profoundly negative economic, social, and educational consequences… We do not take a position on the advisability of these scenarios given the economic burden… (page 868)” (2). On March 16, 2020, the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team published modeling of the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) (5). They wrote that suppression “needs to be in force for the majority [>2/3 of the time] of the 2 years of the simulation (page 11),” without which there would be 510,000 deaths in Great Britain and 2.2 million deaths in the United States by mid-April, surpassing ICU demand by 30 times (5). In their discussion they wrote that “we do not consider the ethical or economic implications (page 4)… The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound (page 16)…” (5). The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team extended this to the global impact of the pandemic on March 26, 2020, and estimated that without lockdowns there would be “7.0 billion infections and 40 million deaths globally this year (page 1)” (6). In their discussion they wrote “we do not consider the wider social and economic costs of suppression, which will be high and may be disproportionately so in lower income settings (page 2)” (6). In a later publication, this group modeled that “across 11 countries [in Europe, since the beginning of the epidemic to May 4], 3.1 (2.8–3.5) million deaths have been averted owing to [NPI] interventions… (page 260)” (7). Another group similarly claimed that, in 5 countries (China, South Korea, Iran, France, US), NPIs “prevented or delayed [to April 6] on the order of 61 million confirmed cases (page 262)”
Once the lockdown narrative was established groupthink ensured it beeame conventional wisdom. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing what we know now, it is reasonable to suppose that the world may have been better off with more emphasis on vaccines and less on lockdowns.
It is perhaps fortunate that covid-19 was not as bad as it could have been. If the world had faced a much more severe pathogen and tried to meet the challenge with the stovepiped, modeled thinking that characterized the public health response to the coronavirus it might have been much the worse for humanity.
It’s important to remember as we start to look back on 2020, that it was the people who didn’t know for sure but were willing to find out that saved the day.