According to Camilla Stoltenberg, the Director-General of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Folkehelseinstituttet), similar results would have been achieved in her country without a lockdown. She bases that statement on a study by her institution.
The study collected data on confirmed cases of coronavirus registered in Norway, the number of hospital admissions, the reproduction rate, etc. At the beginning of March it was feared that one person infected with the virus would infect four others. Only strict lockdown rules could bring that figure down. This hypothesis came from the Imperial College in London and gave forecasts for a number of European countries, including Norway.
Virus never spread as fast as was feared
In their report, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health now comes to a completely different conclusion: the virus never spread as quickly as was feared and was already on its way back when the lockdown was announced.
‘Our conclusion now is that we could have achieved a similar effect without lockdown. By staying open and taking a series of precautions to prevent the spread. It’s important that we admit that. Because should the number of infections rise again in winter or should there be a second wave, we have to be honest in our analysis whether such a lockdown has proven to be effective’.
According to Stoltenberg, who is herself a doctor and the sister of former Norwegian Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, such draconian measures should only be announced in the future if there is an academic basis for them. And that was missing now, according to Stoltenberg.
https://businessam.be/noorwegen-lockdown-was-niet-nodig-om-c...
Except in the US, in Italy, etc. where it's spreading or it has been spreading exactly as fast as feared.
"The figures are questionable
Angelo Borrelli, the head of Civil Protection, who announces the latest figures every day at 6 p.m., said Saturday night that the 793 new deaths have been caused “by and with” the coronavirus. “We count all the dead, we make no distinction between with and by the coronavirus.” However, one wonders whether these daily figures reflect the situation correctly. The dead are said to have almost all had one or more other diseases, which leaves a question mark as to exactly how deadly the coronavirus is. At the same time, it has become clear that a large number of people who die at home (which is often a retirement home) do not undergo a coronavirus test."
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/03/22/als-italie-het-voorland...
"On Friday, April 24, 2020, Vittorio Sgarbi, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, denounced what he claims are false coronavirus death statistics. Sgarbi feels that fake statistics are being propagated by the government and the media to terrorize the citizens of Italy and establish a dictatorship.
The member of the Forza Italia party slammed the closure of 60% of Italian businesses for 25,000 Chinese-Coronavirus deaths from the floor of the legislature. “It’s not true,” he said. “Don’t use the deaths for rhetoric and terrorism.” According to the National Institute of Health, 96.3% did not die of coronavirus, but of other pathologies stated Sgarbi – which means that only 925 have died from the virus and 24,075 have died of other things claimed Sgarbi, “….the virus was little more than an influenza. Don’t lie! Tell the truth!”"
https://rairfoundation.com/italian-leader-slams-false-corona...
Anyway, in the real world excess mortality in Italy was drammatically higher than even the worst flu seasons especially in the worst hit regions.
For US data, I like how this table compares deaths from covid, flu, and pneumonia against the total deaths for all causes each week. I especially like that they show the ratio of current deaths vs the average of the 3 years prior for the same week.
The downside is how the data is slowly updated as each state trickles in data, so the most recent 4-8 weeks look lower now than if you check back later.
Still if you look back to April, flu deaths each week were in the hundreds, while covid deaths 9-15k. Saying it is 10x or more worse, doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
What really grabbed me is that the total US deaths in April from all causes was +40% compared to prior 3 year average.
Generic "flu" deaths are also counted the same way. Why do you think Covid deaths should be counted differently?
Then more importantly, it looks at the overall death rate. Because even if you completely ignore the covid count, the fact that there are so many more people dying than normal should grab people's attention.
If those extra deaths weren't from COVID-19, what were they from?
The first debunking of it I found:
Some quotes:
“Under these conditions, there does not seem to be a significant difference between the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 in OECD countries and that of common coronaviruses (χ2 test, P=0.11). Of course, the major flaw in this study is that the percentage of deaths attributable to the virus is not determined, but this is the case for all studies reporting respiratory virus infections, including SARS-CoV-2.”
“Under these conditions, and all other things being equal, SARS-CoV-2 infection cannot be described as being statistically more severe than infection with other coronaviruses in common circulation.”
“Finally, in OECD countries, SARS-CoV-2 does not seem to be deadlier than other circulating viruses.”
As of the Mar 19th 2020 issue of the Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.
Even without reading the paper, I can tell you that if this analysis were to be repeated, we would get different results, given that we are now (four months later) at 540,000 (confirmed, which is definitely an underestimate) deaths, rather than 4000.
"less than 4000 deaths for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of writing"
That paper is worthless.
"A report on the coronavirus by the German Ministry of the Interior was leaked on May 9th 2020 by officer Stephan Kohn to the magazine Tichys Einblick, one of the most popular alternative media in Germany. The report, on which a dozen or so doctors and professors from various universities in Germany have worked, states that “the state has failed in the coronavirus crisis in an almost grotesque way.” In a press release, the scientists concerned stated that “the observable effects and consequences of COVID-19 do not provide sufficient evidence that it is more than a false alarm in terms of health effects on society as a whole. The new virus has probably never posed a risk to the population in excess of normal levels […]. The people dying from corona are mainly those who are statistically dying this year because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies are no longer able to withstand random daily exposure (including to the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation). The danger of COVID-19 has been overestimated. (No more than 250,000 deaths from COVID-19 worldwide within a quarter of a year, compared to 1.5 million deaths during the flu wave in 2017/18). Of course, the risk is no greater than that of many other viruses. In all likelihood, we are dealing with a global false alarm that has gone unnoticed for a long time.”
They also didn’t have anything positive to say about the ‘protective’ measures of the German criminal government. “The collateral damage [because of the measures] is now enormous and far greater than any observable benefit. […] Just a comparison of previous deaths due to the virus with deaths due to the protective measures prescribed by the State […] supports this finding. Much of this damage will continue to manifest itself even in the near and distant future. This can no longer be prevented but can only be minimized. […] The shortcomings and failures in crisis management have consequently led to the dissemination of unsubstantiated information, and thus disinformation, to the public. […] The State turned out to be one of the biggest fake-news producers in the coronacrisis.”"
https://www.achgut.com/artikel/das_corona_papier_wissenschaf...
Prof. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, University Professor for Medical Microbiology (retired) University of Mainz
Dr. med. Gunter Frank, general practitioner, member of the permanent guidelines commission of the German Society for Family Medicine and General Medicine (DEGAM), Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. rer. pol. Dipl.-Soz. Dr. Gunnar Heinsohn, Emeritus of Social Sciences at the University of Bremen
Prof. Dr. Stefan W. Hockertz, tpi consult GmbH, former director of the Institute for Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University Hospital Eppendorf
Prof. Dr. Dr. rer. nat. (USA) Andreas S. Lübbe, Medical Director of the MZG-Westphalia, Head Physician Cecilien-Klinik
Prof. Dr. Karina Reiß, Department of Dermatology and Allergology University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein
Prof. Dr. Peter Schirmacher, Professor of Pathology, Heidelberg, Member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Prof. Dr. Andreas Sönnichsen, Deputy Curriculum Director of the Medical University of Vienna, Department of General and Family Medicine.
Dr. med. Til Uebel, General Practitioner, Specialist in General Medicine, Diabetology, Emergency Medicine, Teaching at the Institute of General Medicine at the University of Würzburg, academic teaching practice at the University of Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. Dr. phil. Harald Walach, Prof. Med. University of Poznan, Dept. of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Visiting Professor University of Witten-Herdecke, Dept. of Psychology 4