Baby boomer payback

[noel]

Should we trust the government figures???

I think you should treat the government figures with the same level of trust as you do the moon landings.

[Stagger]

I think you should treat the government figures with the same level of trust as you do the moon landings.

Brilliant, thanks, now I know it just a joke.

To say so many people have passed away, which is very sad, hardly anyone knows people who have had it.

[Witton Park]

It never fails to amaze me how different people view things so differently. For me the 45,000 deaths show the government policies were not an overreaction. And regarding Sweden, they didn't lock down, but have seen over 5000 deaths in a population of 10 million. Indeed, the people who took the decision have publicly admitted it was a mistake. Compare these numbers with Norway (256 deaths in total), Finland (331 deaths) and Denmark (616 deaths), all countries that did lock down.

5,000 deaths in a population of 10 million - compare them to Belgium, Spain, Italy, UK...

"The people" have acknowledged the mistake of the care homes policy which has been the main issue for Sweden and if you want to get it from the horses mouth, the Chris Whitty equivalent from Sweden has done a full interview with Unherd.
https://unherd.com/2020/07/swedens-a...-me-in-a-year/

For me the 45,000 deaths is not a confirmed figure that can be attributed to Covid, but even taking that figure, there's a huge swathe of evidence that this was already fixed pre lockdown, and not reduced because of lockdown.

Peak deaths 10th April, so peak infection around 10-15th March and already declining by the 23rd March full lockdown measures.

[Muddy Retriever]

I think you should treat the government figures with the same level of trust as you do the moon landings.

You certainly can't trust PHE's death figures.

[bigfella]

Brilliant, thanks, now I know it just a joke.

To say so many people have passed away, which is very sad, hardly anyone knows people who have had it.

I know 4 or 5 people that have had it and believe me I don't have many friends.

[noel]

Brilliant, thanks, now I know it just a joke.

To say so many people have passed away, which is very sad, hardly anyone knows people who have had it.

I know about ten people who think they've had it, and I think I had it. Having said that, I don't know anyone who's died from it. But then that's probably around right. The number of deaths equates to about 1 in 1500 people.

[noel]

For me the 45,000 deaths is not a confirmed figure that can be attributed to Covid, but even taking that figure, there's a huge swathe of evidence that this was already fixed pre lockdown, and not reduced because of lockdown.

Please can you share some of this swathe - I'm genuinely interested.

[Witton Park]

Please can you share some of this swathe - I'm genuinely interested.

Read back on the thread you lazy sod. There's been much discussion and several links.

But to give a couple I can quickly lay my hands on

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/maths/news...-lockdown.html
But here's a piece that shows peak infection pre lockdown.

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/747/html/
also confirmed by Chris Whitty on 21st July at the Select Committee hearing.

So if peak cases occurred before peak lockdown then the only real issue is policy on moving elderly back in to care homes from hospitals.
That has been responsible for the heightened level.

The lockdown itself has done very little except cause economic collapse and jobs, which in itself will most likely create more life threatening situations than Covid.

Of course Noel, there is a huge caveat. This is based on the official figures and do you trust them? They still don't have a bloody clue how many have it and how many have had it, hence all the discrepancies in their reasoning.

But if you go off the factual figures that we have, it's seems lockdown has done nothing to make a significant contribution to reducing the spread - let's face it the worst hit Western nations have all had pretty robust lockdowns.

[noel]

Read back on the thread you lazy sod. There's been much discussion and several links.

But to give a couple I can quickly lay my hands on

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/maths/news...-lockdown.html
But here's a piece that shows peak infection pre lockdown.

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/747/html/
also confirmed by Chris Whitty on 21st July at the Select Committee hearing.

So if peak cases occurred before peak lockdown then the only real issue is policy on moving elderly back in to care homes from hospitals.
That has been responsible for the heightened level.

The lockdown itself has done very little except cause economic collapse and jobs, which in itself will most likely create more life threatening situations than Covid.

Of course Noel, there is a huge caveat. This is based on the official figures and do you trust them? They still don't have a bloody clue how many have it and how many have had it, hence all the discrepancies in their reasoning.

But if you go off the factual figures that we have, it's seems lockdown has done nothing to make a significant contribution to reducing the spread - let's face it the worst hit Western nations have all had pretty robust lockdowns.

Thanks. Sorry, I thought you meant new data.

Even if you assume there was a peak before lock-down, that doesn't mean that the decline would have happened at the same rate if the lock-down measures hadn't been introduced. If we'd have had several more months of 800 people dying a day, that would have had a large impact.

And you're forgetting that there are many studies showing that the speed of lock-down was a major determinant in how many people died. Indeed the scientists who provided the government with advice have said as much.

And you're right about official figures. In that we weren't routinely testing until recently, the number of cases is very hard to interpret. I think the death rate stands up better to scrutiny.

I don't think it's reasonable to say lock-downs have done nothing. In most countries I interpret that there was a rising trend that was reversed by lock-down measures. In Sweden, they tried to avoid a more strict lock-down, but this didn't work. You're right they haven't had proportionally as many deaths as many other European countries, but they are a more sparsely populated country without a mega-city like London. So a more reasonable comparison would be other Scandinavian countries.

It would be great if we could say "there's no point in lockdowns", but I don't think the data support this.

But you're right - the lockdown will create more life-threatening situations. I just don't think any UK politician could seriously say "We're not going to lock down. And although hundreds of thousands will die, in the long run, we'll be better off"

[Dave_Mole]

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/747/html/
Whitty says:

"To be clear, multiple steps were taken along the way. If you look at the R, and the behaviours, quite a lot of the change that led to the R going below one occurred well before, or to some extent before, the 23rd, when the full lockdown started.Let us be clear. I am very much in favour of the fact that the lockdown happened, but some people argue that R had crossed one even before that point in time. Lots of people are going over the numbers retrospectively.."

Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar also said that he "believe(s) lockdown was too late. It should have come in earlier".


If you want to look at a paper, have a look here: its key premise is "its reliance not on hypothetical modeling but on actual data". There is also a study of the effectiveness of the Italian lockdowns here.

So if peak cases occurred before peak lockdown

it's not possible to know that, though is it, as lockdown meant that infection rates went down (i.e was effective)? Have a look at the US, where it's supposed to be "going away" and isn't.