Lockdowns work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/c ... G-M8TmnmRIThat gathering, three days before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic last March 11, set off a rush to contain the virus that included some of the country’s earliest orders to cancel large events, shutter restaurants and close schools, all in the hope that the dire possibilities in front of them would not come to pass.
One year later, the Seattle area has the lowest death rate of the 20 largest metropolitan regions in the country. If the rest of the United States had kept pace with Seattle, the nation could have avoided more than 300,000 coronavirus deaths.
During a year in which the White House downplayed the virus and other political leaders clashed over how to contain it, Seattle’s success illustrates the value of unified and timely strategies: Although the region’s public health experts and politicians grappled behind the scenes about how to best manage the virus, they came together to present a united front to the public. And the public largely complied.
The restrictions that have been in place off and on for the better part of a year have brought widespread disruption to lives and the economy. But as governors elsewhere have cited the economy as a reason to ease lockdowns, Seattle’s success showed that an alternative pathway was doable: Amid widespread economic turmoil, the state’s unemployment rate has been about average nationally, outperforming some places that have pressed ahead with wider reopenings, including Arizona and Texas.
There are numerous factors that have shaped the trajectory of the pandemic both locally and nationally. In part, public health experts said, Seattle may have benefited from its demographics: a healthy population living in small households and a lot of workers able to do their jobs from home. The city may have also have won more public support for the crackdowns from the shock of experiencing the nation’s first publicized deaths. The high humidity may have helped, scientists say, although the cold weather and gray skies probably did not.
Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he was convinced the Seattle model could have been replicated, positively affecting the trajectory of the virus across the country.
Instead, he said, state after state reopened sooner than appropriate and members of the public ignored health advice that at times was undermined by conflicting messages from political and business leaders. Seattle, he said, shows what could have been.
“We have so many lessons we have learned here,” Dr. Mokdad said. “Unfortunately, not many people were listening
