COVID-19: an overview of the evidence

[savethegrannies]

www.hartgroup.org/covid-19-evidence/
Key take-away: "The data is in: lockdowns serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms. They must never be repeated in this country."

@1dayatatime

Secondly you are of course correct that "worst case/alternative scenario is forever unprovable" . However there is a useful comparison between Florida and California which adopted very different approaches to dealing with Covid but gave surprisingly similar results.

The Florida versus California argument is often touted but not valid. People who quote these figures are conveniently cherry picking outliers that prove their hypothesis (e.g., there are 52 states, and many example of those with strong restrictions that did well, and those with less restrictions that did badly).

The Florida population is not exchangeable with California, which means you cannot make direct comparisons about deaths without trying to control for additional factors.

These include the fact the Cali has a much higher population density, higher proportion of ethnic minorities, higher rates of poverty, and lower proportions of individuals who are retired (and are therefore able to minimise contact with others) when compared with Florida. All these confounders are confirmed risk factors for worse COVID outcomes.

@savethegrannies

www.hartgroup.org/covid-19-evidence/ Key take-away: "The data is in: lockdowns serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms. They must never be repeated in this country."

Tell the Brazilians that lock down isn't important as they bury their dead.

Here’s an excellent round up of why Florida v California isn’t a fair comparison.

www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-09/florida-vs-california-who-had-better-covid-response

As I previously said or more accurately completely agreed with @Cornettoninja comment that "worst case/alternative scenario is forever unprovable" .

But whilst recognising there are many many other factors at play there is no direct correlation between the strictness of lockdown measures taken in various countries to the levels of Covid cases or deaths as you might expect and as shown in a recent Lancet article:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32007-9/fulltext

Sorry @1dayatatime I can’t agree that lockdowns don’t achieve a reduction in cases when there is an imminent threat to hospital capacity. At that point (which I obviously believe was reached on at least two occasions in the UK) other measures lose their effectiveness completely and you’re effectively waiting for the virus to reach a saturation point and decline naturally. I see the word ‘theatre’ on here a lot and any measures at that point at exactly that; they’re just something to make people feel like something is being done and there is an element of control.

I’ve only briefly glanced at your link (sorry, I will give it the proper attention it deserves when I get chance) but the countries that jumped out at me (mostly Japan) haven’t, as far as I know, reached the same critical point that we did. Please feel free to direct me to specific examples.

As it goes, I think vaccination programmes are going to be the decider in eventual outcomes at the end of the pandemic and it’s going to be hard to pick out ‘good’ and ‘bad’ responses outside of that.

@Cornettoninja

Sorry for the confusion but I seem to be violently agreeing with what you say😀

I completely agree that lockdowns and restrictions do impact the number of Covid cases. But what I can see from the Lancet report (and yes Japan is the stand out example) is that the strictness of the restrictions doesn't correlate to the number of cases / deaths. For example a country with really really strict lockdown measures will have fewer cases than a country with laxer restrictions but the differential is not as great as one might expect.

Lastly I also agree with your view that the vaccination programme will be a big deciding factor here although Boris Johnson's recent announcement on this seems to contradict this view.

@1dayatatime - that’s going to be on me - I’ve half an eye on MN and half an eye on dd! I need to learn to accept I’m no juggler!

(Violently agreeing )

I dont think we need look any further than Brazil or currently India to see what happens when there is no lockdown.

@Porcupineintherough

I dont think we need look any further than Brazil or currently India to see what happens when there is no lockdown.

India deaths per million 124 United Kingdom deaths per million 1,898 www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ 🤔

@savethegrannies and so? Do you think all the people in the uk who died would somehow not have died if the virus had been spreading exponentially? And all those whose lives have been saved by medical treatment? Do you think they'd still have survived if there had been no hospital beds for them and our hospitals had run out of oxygen?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/13/older-drinkers-risk-discrimination-says-charity-pub-refuses/

digitalhealthrewired.com/the-new-normal/

@savethegrannies
But there are issues about the way India count their deaths. And in some rural areas very few people are tested so many could die of COVID without this being registered. The figures in the U.K. are likely to be more accurate.
There are other theories as to why death rate may be lower in Asian countries due to higher levels of immunity within the population.
www.bloombergquint.com/coronavirus-outbreak/can-new-mortality-data-explain-indias-low-covid-death-numbers