Some relevant stuff here: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Deaths per 100,000 of population
UK = 62
Sweden = 57
US = 52
Finland = 6
Norway = 5
Denmark = 11
So Sweden are broadly on the same scale as us despite their population density
Some relevant stuff here: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Deaths per 100,000 of population
UK = 62
Sweden = 57
US = 52
Finland = 6
Norway = 5
Denmark = 11
So Sweden are broadly on the same scale as us despite their population density
Last edited by Fellbeast; 18-08-2020 at 01:08 PM.
I'll look at this separately or it will be a very long post.Originally Posted by Dave_Mole
The rest of the world doesn't look that different if you take out the Far East.
Western Europe have all followed very similar profiles.
But it's difficult to read, mostly because the level of spread in all of these countries pre lockdown is unknown.
Testing was so limited in all except Germany.
Your final sentence - I take it you mean allowing life to go on as normal back in March?
I wouldn't have had life as "normal".
We had handwashing.
We had social distancing - I think we should have had called it "physical distancing" but in general it was the right thing to do for a period.
I think a precautionary light lockdown was OK, I think we should be out of it almost completely now.
Some might question that.
Were some of these unfortunate deaths just brought forward a little? Death rates in care homes are down below trend, deaths in home are up despite excess deaths being down.
It's hard to assess at the moment, but if lockdown has saved people (not convinced it has) it almost certainly has cost people their lives.
It is also costing many their livelihoods and what will the outcome of that be?
Interesting to note is that whilst now weekly excess death rate is below trend, it is also below trend in care homes, but it is above trend in the home.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
Maybe check this out.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...itain/june2020
The consequences of lockdown and not yet fully understood.
My daughter (2nd year doctorate in Psychology) would have been seeing people 2-3 days a week for mental health issues. She's seen no one since March 13th and has finally been told she can go back on to a placement from October, date yet to be confirmed.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft....6-d55821f27e78
Now we know what Oracle is doing with his time.....
Bugger! It's behind a paywall.
What's the jist?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ations-FT.html
Try this one Dave....
Ha! Nice one 😃
To take another country which is entirely different to ours: New Zealand. Population 4.9m with a density of 15/km2: even less than Sweden.I think a precautionary light lockdown was OK, I think we should be out of it almost completely now.
BUT it's held up as a success because they eliminated the virus. How? Lockdown.
Two papers (there are others and it's difficult to find credible opinion to the contrary) here and here suggest that early and aggressive lockdown was the key. They took the opposite approach to the majority of countries and have had the most success. But yes, like Sweden, they're nothing like the UK.....
However, something to think about: Johnson/Cummings initially were pro-herd immunity or a very light lockdown along the lines you suggest. They're libertarians at heart and all through this they've been unwilling to put measures in place and unwilling to enforce them once they were in place. I remember seeing him physically recoil at the suggestion that the police might be involved in enforcing lockdown measures! BUT something spooked them and they went for lockdown. So what was that? Perhaps they listened to the immunologists/WHO et al. Perhaps, when it boiled down to it, faced with the choice of crashing the economy or having half a million (and that's what they were predicting, more or less, right or wrong, at the time) dead on your hands, they couldn't face being responsible that sort of carnage. It might turn out that the predictions were wrong (they seem to be off, it's a matter of by how much) but faced with the figures at the time, I think lockdown seemed the only answer. It also seems to have provided a useful source of profit for Johnsons/Cummings friends, the disaster capitalists.
But it seems to have worked. More or less. And it would have worked better with an actual, operative, track and trace system during the height of infections (look at China), perhaps meaning that a lighter lockdown might have been possible.
But this is all hypotheticals. Perhaps the truth will come out in the Public Enquiry. I'm not holding my breath.
Last edited by Dave_Mole; 18-08-2020 at 05:53 PM.
....it's all downhill from here.
I have a bit of a worry about New Zealand, much as I admire JA as we are all contracted to do. It can’t isolate from the world forever and sooner or later its own vulnerable population element is going to come into contact with this virus, unless a vaccine or treatment is found. And then the story might be quite similar to what we have seen in Europe. On that point, I think our own abysmal performance may in part be due to the fact that the NHS has in past years been fantastic in keeping very old, ill, obese and vulnerable people alive. So when something out of left field comes along, we had a larger set of easy targets, as it were.
"we had a larger set of easy targets, as it were."
And I think the negative excess deaths at the moment probably shows that they're the ones who have, sadly, been picked off by the virus. When herd immunity was first mooted, it was described as a cull....seems to have happened anyway, to a degree, which rather gives the lie to the whole idea....
