> which were successfully tamped down with lockdowns, masks, and contact tracing, the tools you earlier decried as useless
Not true. That's what you want to believe, and what you've been led to believe. Show me the science that proves this isn't all a load of horse shit. Show me literally anything that remotely proves any of this had a meaningful impact. Anything. Oh yeah I forgot, people here aren't a fan of science and data when it goes against their fragile leftist beliefs.
If what I said is in fact true, it would all appear the exact same.
I live in Melbourne, the city that had the worst outbreak in Australia, and I have followed the news and scientific discussion across the political spectrum very closely from when the virus was first identified in early 2020.
Melbourne really did suppress the virus, after it started spreading wildly in July/August (mid winter – Melbourne is the only large Australian city that has a cool winter climate comparable to Europe and Northern US) last year, particularly in aged care homes. By November we were getting zero daily cases, and it has mostly remained that way until the past few weeks, when winter weather and hotel quarantine leaks have led to another small outbreak, which is again successfully being suppressed.
The measures used to achieve suppression: lockdowns of varying severity, masks, and smartphone-based contact-tracing.
That said, Australia's isolation from other countries, spread out geography, lower population density and climate absolutely make it easier to achieve suppression. I don't believe what we've done would have been possible in the Europe or the US, though I believe the evidence that these measures slow the spread anywhere they're implemented.
There's many more. At this point there's a pretty good set of studies on transmission data. It seems to all indicate that proximity to other infected people increases risk of transmission, and that contact of contaminated surfaces or others is not necessary. Then you can see that transmission in the air in aerosol and droplets are both possible, and then you can reason about this with the physics on them. The closer to someone else breathing the more virus particle is in the air for you to breathe, the further away, the less of it. The more ventilated the place you are in, the less you breath in other people's air.
The CDC also does a great job at being transparent about their assessment and sources. Read those, and if you scroll down on each page you'll see large list of reference to the studies they've based their assessment on.
Not true. That's what you want to believe, and what you've been led to believe. Show me the science that proves this isn't all a load of horse shit. Show me literally anything that remotely proves any of this had a meaningful impact. Anything. Oh yeah I forgot, people here aren't a fan of science and data when it goes against their fragile leftist beliefs.
If what I said is in fact true, it would all appear the exact same.