^ Log scales can be useful for showing the change in exponential growth over time but are very misleading to untrained eye for other things. For example, the difference between the UK's old and new measure looks very small if you're not paying attention to the Y axis, but in fact it's rather large.

 

Also care home deaths attributed to COVID-19 only explain a fraction of the huge increase in additional deaths from the graph posted by Suedehead. Whatever the 'true figures' are, the ones released this week are still not them. It would be completely out of kilter with other countries if only 15% of COVID deaths occurred outwith hospitals.

Edited April 29, 20205 yr by Harve

Apparently the Oxford vaccine trials are promising, with success found on monkey testing already.

Apparently the Oxford vaccine trials are promising, with success found on monkey testing already.

There's still a long way to go yet (despite one right-wing think-tank calling for large parts of the usual approval process being bypassed) but let's keep our fingers crossed.

Disagree. The graphs are very similar, we will end up on the same level as Spain and Italy, at least for this first peak. The only question now is the "true" statistics, as the UK care home deaths are only counting people like in hospitals, who died after being tested. But I think that's the same for most of the countries.

 

I believe Belgium and France are counting suspected cases (e.g. not confirmed by tests) in their death tolls. Not sure why Belgium was included on that chart really, their population is less than 1/6 of the UK so comparisons for per million population seems a little pointless. Actually I DO know why, because our government wants to distract us from the fact that we were one of the worst performing countries..

 

Germany is the clear success story here though.

The U.K. also had a 2 week start on Italy as it watched what was happening there so the uk have messed up that window.

I see the evidence today's showing the R number in Germany is increasing since lockdown was lifted.

I believe Belgium and France are counting suspected cases (e.g. not confirmed by tests) in their death tolls. Not sure why Belgium was included on that chart really, their population is less than 1/6 of the UK so comparisons for per million population seems a little pointless. Actually I DO know why, because our government wants to distract us from the fact that we were one of the worst performing countries..

 

Germany is the clear success story here though.

 

Germany did very well. Surely from everything that has been leaked though in the media it tells you that it took a lot longer for the penny to drop with government ministers as until they saw the Italy data nobody really had a grasp on the situation. Germany have a clear advantage as their leader has a science background so she likely understood the situation much quicker than the UK for example.

 

The U.K. also had a 2 week start on Italy as it watched what was happening there so the uk have messed up that window.

 

Oh we messed up badly, no doubt about that in early March. No doubt about it the large events (and having fans from Madrid over) played a large part in the community spread. But the idea that we are going to have a way higher death toll than Italy and Spain I don't buy. Yes, it probably will be higher but not by thousands upon thousands.

 

The U.K. also had a 2 week start on Italy as it watched what was happening there so the uk have messed up that window.

 

Hasn’t this point been said 1 million times

Still important in this debate though.

 

Why has Sweden not done badly when they don't have a lockdown??

Still important in this debate though.

 

Why has Sweden not done badly when they don't have a lockdown??

 

https://unherd.com/thepost/giesecke-stands-...e-will-go-down/

 

This article is quite good and provides Sweden’s approach and argument as to why it is correct it also implies New Zealand is screwed in the future.

 

Challenged on the apparent success of New Zealand in eliminating the virus completely, with a highly interventionist approach, Professor Giesecke asked whether that will really look like success in the long term:

 

Yes, it seems they have [suppressed the virus completely]. But what are they going to do now? To keep the country virus free, they will have to keep their borders closed. Everyone travelling in must be quarantined for 14 days before being admitted to the country, and if no good vaccine arrives, New Zealand will have to keep that quarantine for a long time. A very long time…

 

What is clear is that extensive lockdowns are not sustainable and we do need to start working ourselves out of this or the future is going to be much worse for future generations.

Tbh I don't see the problem with closed borders and quarantines. Goods would of course be exempt. Quarantine for 14 days is just lockdown that we have currently, for a defined period of start and end. At least certain kinds of trips could institute that, and certain kinds of travel - e.g. politicians to conference - could be eliminated if the norm changes to an international conference call format. At my job I have online international calls with the team across 20 countries every week.

^Closing the borders /shutting down flights just doesn't work when you have a virus so infectious and are in the stage of community spread (which the UK has been at since the beginning of March) - you can see the extensive references to it as being 'laughably useless' by our CMO Chris Whitty in lectures that he has given. Once the virus is under control, there is extensive community testing and tracing to dramatically lower the spread and ONLY then would quarantine measures for those entering the country be worthwhile. Otherwise you are just pissing in the ocean.

 

Still important in this debate though.

 

Why has Sweden not done badly when they don't have a lockdown??

 

Sweden are an anomaly for sure, but they have a population even lower than Belgium and are spread across a much larger area with a population density around 16 times lower - hard to compare fairly but I'd say the fact that they have a much better prepared and functioning healthcare system meant that they were able to take the risk (and perhaps a population that could actually be trusted to social distance) and it payed off.

I wouldn't be looking to Sweden as a success of this weird and very risky theory, compare them to their neighbours Norway and Finland, each slightly more spread out with lower populations sure but not enough to account for both those two having 1/10th the death numbers of Sweden. And per million, they're doing worse than the United States. Yes, you can say they still have an open economy but that's not worth the lives that are being lost over it.

 

The advantage of being in a position like New Zealand is that now they can control it, their borders will have to be controlled for a long time, but they're not having their population dying with no control over how bad it gets, and they can reopen domestically. Which is just a better position to be in.

 

https://unherd.com/thepost/giesecke-stands-...e-will-go-down/

 

This article is quite good and provides Sweden’s approach and argument as to why it is correct it also implies New Zealand is screwed in the future.

 

This is one Swedish professor criticising an academic rival and positing a death rate of as low as 0.1%, which doesn't fit with any of the evidence we've had so far, it does not seem convincing.

^Closing the borders /shutting down flights just doesn't work when you have a virus so infectious and are in the stage of community spread (which the UK has been at since the beginning of March) - you can see the extensive references to it as being 'laughably useless' by our CMO Chris Whitty in lectures that he has given. Once the virus is under control, there is extensive community testing and tracing to dramatically lower the spread and ONLY then would quarantine measures for those entering the country be worthwhile. Otherwise you are just pissing in the ocean.

Sweden are an anomaly for sure, but they have a population even lower than Belgium and are spread across a much larger area with a population density around 16 times lower - hard to compare fairly but I'd say the fact that they have a much better prepared and functioning healthcare system meant that they were able to take the risk (and perhaps a population that could actually be trusted to social distance) and it payed off.

 

How do we know Sweden are an anomaly when no other country is trying this strategy?

 

Even if they have a lower population density, would you not expect Stockholm to have a much more tragic death rate than it currently does.

I wouldn't be looking to Sweden as a success of this weird and very risky theory, compare them to their neighbours Norway and Finland, each slightly more spread out with lower populations sure but not enough to account for both those two having 1/10th the death numbers of Sweden. And per million, they're doing worse than the United States. Yes, you can say they still have an open economy but that's not worth the lives that are being lost over it.

 

The advantage of being in a position like New Zealand is that now they can control it, their borders will have to be controlled for a long time, but they're not having their population dying with no control over how bad it gets, and they can reopen domestically. Which is just a better position to be in.

This is one Swedish professor criticising an academic rival and positing a death rate of as low as 0.1%, which doesn't fit with any of the evidence we've had so far, it does not seem convincing.

 

I think one of the points Sweden are arguing is they will end up with similar comparable death rates without locking down as the virus is just going to come back when the lockdown are lifted.

 

It is also hard to compare life with life when you do not know the end numbers of who will die as a result of extensive lockdowns versus who would die as a result of the virus, we have already seen the unexplained increase in deaths as a result of our lockdown. There is not really any winning in this situation.

 

We won’t know which strategy was right until the pandemic ends.

 

I do think New Zealand have backed themselves into a corner though, say no vaccine does appear what then they cut themselves off from the world for the rest of our days? I have read another article that goes into detail about how they are now in economic purgatory and as they will have to close off for a minimum of 18 months 20% of their workforce will be unable to work, they may look good now but we do not know the position they will be in in terms of the future.

 

A positive point away from all the doom and gloom, 1 million people have now recovered from coronavirus and the closed cases rate from recovery versus death has moved from 21% to 18% in the past couple of days after being stuck at 21% for several weeks. There has been a vast increase in recoveries which may be good news as experience with treating patients might be helping to treat future patients better and save more lives and or increase in testing.

How do we know Sweden are an anomaly when no other country is trying this strategy?

 

Even if they have a lower population density, would you not expect Stockholm to have a much more tragic death rate than it currently does.

Over half of Swedens deaths are from stockholm county? Thats over 1000 deaths in a county with 2 million inhabitants

Over half of Swedens deaths are from stockholm county? Thats over 1000 deaths in a county with 2 million inhabitants

 

Have they not announced they are close to reaching heard immunity in Stockholm which would mean the peak has been and gone with a second wave not likely.

 

1,000 deaths in population of 2 million is a 0.0005% death rate.

 

I’m failing to see your argument on that point.

I think one of the points Sweden are arguing is they will end up with similar comparable death rates without locking down as the virus is just going to come back when the lockdown are lifted.

 

It is also hard to compare life with life when you do not know the end numbers of who will die as a result of extensive lockdowns versus who would die as a result of the virus, we have already seen the unexplained increase in deaths as a result of our lockdown. There is not really any winning in this situation.

 

We won’t know which strategy was right until the pandemic ends.

 

I do think New Zealand have backed themselves into a corner though, say no vaccine does appear what then they cut themselves off from the world for the rest of our days? I have read another article that goes into detail about how they are now in economic purgatory and as they will have to close off for a minimum of 18 months 20% of their workforce will be unable to work, they may look good now but we do not know the position they will be in in terms of the future.

 

If they have the healthcare system to afford that, then yes, but it is very risky and a strategy that I wouldn't condone repeating should it overload them - and we have seen that you can control this thing far easier with lower numbers. This is the whole point of flatten the curve.

 

Also, I'm sorry, but deaths as a result of a lockdown versus virus deaths are nowhere near comparable. The former can be prevented with moral government policies, redistributing wealth to ensure no one starves, or creating aid packages. It is within human control. Deaths as a direct result of the virus are an inevitability while there is no vaccine, so while there is none, measures should be taken to reduce infection.

 

That is an extreme hypothetical with New Zealand, but that still puts them in a better position than most other countries, as when the virus does come back when the lockdown is lifted, guess what happens? Straight back into lockdown and quite possibly even more restrictive.

I see the evidence today's showing the R number in Germany is increasing since lockdown was lifted.

 

Germany has said its coronavirus reproduction rate is 0.76, well below the growth level of one, despite fears over easing of curbs.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/business.fin...at-0-76-rki/amp