I'm finding the reaction to covid utterly bizarre

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

If anyone had told me that healthy, fit people would willingly put their livelihoods at risk and deny their children an education for months on end, that they would send the country into recession putting healthcare, education and public services at risk for years and years to come to avoid getting a disease that had a very very small chance of killing them I wouldn't have believed it. If you'd said people would be afraid to talk to their healthy siblings I wouldn't have believed it.

I had measles in the 1980s as small child - the vaccination programme where I lived was slow to get off the ground - and it nearly killed me. In 1980 2.6 million people worldwide died of measles, a very large proportion of them children. No one ever considered a lockdown, it was never even suggested.

I think all the analysis of this situation in the coming years won't be about the pandemic, but about the contagion of fear that made people so terrified of something that wasn't a real threat to them that they created huge, long-lasting, in some cases devastating problems for themselves, problems that were nothing to do with their virus and everything to do with their reaction to the virus.

The 'Sweden is different' is total bunkum used to appease idiots who can't seem to understand that Stockholm is a densely populated city, just like the cities of the UK

Omg youre so right Again op. Amazing.
I mean look:
Stockholm 942,370.
London 8.982 million
That's just the same isn't it? Like exactly as densely populated as London.. you're right.. if you ignore 8milon people..

London has 1 miIlion less than the whole Sweden which is twice the size of UK,so it's a perfect comparison.
No really. We are just the same and shoukd be doing things just like them. You've convinced me. Honest.

Sweden is a living model of how the virus can be controlled without preventing people from working and without locking people away from their own families.

What - with the 8th highest death rate in the world (on a per capita basis)?

TheMagiciansMewTwo and Inkpaperstars - thank you for your kind words.

He was a medical professional and had predicted an upcoming pandemic. He would have been horrified at the sort of postings by the OP.

Whatever happens with responses to a global pandemic there is pain to bear and a price to pay: medical, economic, personal, loss of life, long term ill health, emotional and more. We cannot go into denial mode - that will compound an already impossible situation.

I never used the word childish, just to be clear.

I said population density @MonkeyToesOfDoom. Population density, not population numbers. I even said it in my post.

Stockholm is a densely populated city that kept restaurants, schools, bars and shops open. And didn't have anywhere near the surge in cases predicted by the same model that that UK is using.

Why is that hard to understand? Why are people so keen to focus on a model and ignore the actual real life outcomes?

Yes @Aridane - 8th highest with nothing near the lockdown we have. Surely if lockdown were vital they'd have the highest number of cases?

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Yes 25% of NYCs have Covid antibodies - that’s 2.1 million people. However, around 20,500 have died, that’s 0.24% of the population... that makes the death rate just below 1%, rather than “well below 1%” as you’ve just written.

I’m fine with people arguing that the lockdown wasn’t a sensible public policy decision - I can see both sides - but at least don’t try and justify the position with downright wrong statistics. Have the courage of your convictions and argue based on the actual numbers.

I think you will find Sweden have a much better health care system than us 9per capita), so can cope with large numbers of ill people.

But whatever.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

The prime minister of Sweden vigorously disagrees with the characterisation you depict of the Swedish approach

Still, you know better

STOCKHOLM, May 15 (Reuters) - Impressions conveyed abroad that Sweden has adopted a "business as usual" approach to the coronavirus are wrong, its prime minister said on Friday, adding that strong cooperation between nations was key to combating the epidemic.

Rather than declaring a full lockdown, Sweden has adopted a mix of legislation and recommendations in response to the virus that foreign newspapers and broadcasters have widely labelled a relatively soft policy.

^Stefan Lofven said he rejected that narrative, "the image that Sweden is doing so totally different than other countries. That's not the case."

The Swedish model for managing society was built on trust between citizens - who had "a responsibility to do the right thing" - and lawmakers and other authorities, he told a briefing with foreign media.

"Life is not carrying on as normal in Sweden. It is not business as usual."

The government has banned large gatherings, high schools and universities are closed and authorities recommend social distancing, protecting the elderly, working from home and staying at home if unwell.

Elementary schools however remain open, people have not been obliged to stay indoors and can meet in small groups, and stores have not been forced to close.

Sweden has registered more than 3,500 coronavirus-linked deaths - a toll far lower than many large EU countries but around five times higher than Denmark and more than ten times that of its other Nordic neighbours.

Maybe the Swedish wash their hands more

I don't understand your point about coping with numbers @Oakmaiden. How does healthcare capacity have any impact on how the virus spreads?

Sorry @Smilethoyourheartisbreaking I picked you up wrong.

I already said that Sweden had measures in place @Aridane. My point was that they have allowed businesses to stay open and they have not banned people from seeing friends and family.

Comparisons with Sweden aren’t great.
Culturally Scandinavians tend to respect their personal space more than those in the UK (was told that by someone who lived in Sweden and Finland for several months to study their education).
Also Sweden’s BAME population is much lower than the UK’s.
BAME people are, for whatever reason - genetics, social reasons, more likely to die from covid19.

Healthcare capacity would surely affect numbers of deaths rather than the spread of the virus.

Again I will state that the model the UK is using predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths in Sweden, based on their actual population. And that didn't happen. Because the model is wrong.

There are some differences between Sweden and the UK. But they are still human beings, who interact with each other. They are not robots who never touch or stand close to each other. And yet they have controlled the virus without stopping people from seeing their own families. Because there is no need to do that.

Daily you are the one who doesn't seem to understand either Sweden's death rate or their population differences.
Look at Sweden's rates of obesity and diabetes. Compare them to the UK's. That is only one area where a similar approach would have yielded different results. But Sweden is not a success story and anyone who understood numbers or models or statistics would understand that. Perhaps your distrust of all types of modelling is due to your limited understanding of how they work and the assumptions they are based on.
Anyway, if you're fighting against 'fear' are we to assume you were at the rally today? Because your posting has been very consistent for someone who is 'passionately' committed to the cause you're pretending to espouse.

Yes @PinkyAndTheBrain and while the NHS was under pressure at some points, capacity has never been a major issue here - the Nightingale hospitals were closed because they were not needed. Therefore capacity hasn't come into play at all (capacity hasn't been a problem in Sweden either)

Someone up thread made a great point that the word 'lockdown' is too broad because it means different things to different people.

It's one thing to disagree with a particular measure because of x, y, z.
It's quite another to moan about measures in general, as though the principle of slamming on the brakes when you are about to smash into a wall is somehow a ridiculous notion.

I do not expect any policy maker to get everything right when faced with an unknown threat. I expect them to seek the best informed experts, and be decent enough to actually want to minimise damage, of every sort.
I do think it is childish to expect professors of microbiology, for example, to know instantly what they cannot possibly have had time to find out. To expect one size fits all message to 65m people to hot every individual right on target. Obviously there are people who are terrified, there are others who dont give any bit of a shit at all.
I do think it's common sense to realise that in a situation of so many unknowns, some initial policy has to rely on Best Guesses, and it's common sense that in hindsight it will be clear which turned out to be accurate.

Again, it's a numbers game, with so many variables. There will be damage done in a pandemic, because that's the nature of it.
But there are steps that have to be taken to minimize the damage. Its shit but that's infectious disease for you. Doing nothing at all would cause more damage to the economy, mental health, social unrest.

Agree completely!
I have a healthy 29 year old friend who has literally been too terrified to set foot outside since Day 1. It is kind of scary.
I don't understand why people don't get that this was to prevent everyone from getting sick at once, thereby preventing excess deaths because of lack of hospital beds availability and so on? At no point did anyone say, stay at home until the virus has gone away. It's not going to, realistically. The measures are aimed at reducing its impact.

I guess you haven't anyone close to you suffer badly or die from this disease yet. I have. I am also vulnerable and very much appreciate the effort other people are making to keep me safe.

Sorry that it's such an inconvenience.

My distrust of models is down to the fact that one of my jobs is cleaning up the huge damage they cause. They result in decisions being made without any real regard for the outcome 'because the numbers say so.'

As long as you don't get covid, fuck everyone else eh? Anything it takes to keep you safe.

What would you base your response on so?
A hunch?

Do you believe that policy makers are not actually aware that whatever measure they put in place will have negative side effects?? Doesnt the dog on the street know that, it's not a revelation.