At the level of "What should government recommend?"--that's a fundamentally different question from "What should individuals do?" because governments have secondary effects such as people throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Policy decisions have to take into account this effect, so saying that this effect is the real cause of a sudden spike in cases after lockdown ended, is irrelevant. At a policy level, lockdown is more effective than social distancing and masks, and that's because when you lift the lockdown, people don't social distance or wear masks.
I live in a town where businesses that attract tourism have reopened. People are wearing masks as chin straps and congregating, and that wasn't happening during lockdown.
And to be clear, there are other factors: a country which creates numerous hurdles to access for even the miniscule aid it provides to the poor cannot be surprised when the poor don't want to give up what little income they have to comply with a lockdown. But we have to admit, lockdowns work. That's a fact. The fact that our economy is so fragile that it can't handle the only effective countermeasure to this virus is a separate fact.
And I'm saying, if you don't lock down, distancing doesn't happen.
It's more complex than just that, but that's the gist.
First - our lockdowns were mostly unenforced (except against businesses).
Bars were closed but house parties raged.
Second - Sweden didn’t do lockdowns and yet people did practice social distancing.
Second: If your goal is to demonstrate that lockdowns aren't appreciably better than social distancing, Sweden is a great example of why you're wrong.
"As time has gone on the numbers don’t seem to have borne out this strategy, as Sweden is seeing more deaths from the virus than it might have otherwise."[1]
"The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, controlled for population. By contrast, Denmark has recorded just over seven deaths per 100,000 people, and both Norway and Finland less than four."[2]
Sweden is, in fact, an example where relying on social distancing and masks rather than lockdowns has resulted in more than three times the number of deaths per-capita that were experienced by countries with similar demographics.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/05/23/swedens-...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-loc...
In places with much lighter lockdowns (or no lockdowns at all) we still had significant social distancing. It turns out most people don’t want to catch a deadly disease.
So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing.
There are strong arguments to be made, and we will have to see how they play out over the next 12-18 months, that strict lockdowns actually resulted in more deaths because the fear they induced stopped people from doing regular health checkups etc.
> The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people
There is endless misinformation being put out over COVID.
Comparing the other Nordic countries to Sweden is misleading because it was on a different trajectory before any lockdowns were implemented.
Note if you compare Sweden to the US it’s around half of the US rate per 100,000 despite lack of lockdowns.
Now the nice thing about Sweden is they have open data and accurate reporting of data - and so you can dive in and see that their total deaths haven’t changed significantly compared to prior years.
They have had ~100 excess deaths/week - and if you remove the older population (>65) then it’s basically 0 excess deaths/week.
It will be interesting next year to see if (as typically happens with the flu) we see significantly fewer total deaths - which would indicate for those 100/week excess deaths this year the total life lost per death was 1 year. But that’s just my speculation for now.
Edit: A clear trend is emerging that a countries deaths come down to two factors:
1) Ability to properly protect the old
See the failures in Italy and NYC as examples.
2) The overall health of your young population
See for example Singapore where the majority of infections were in young healthy men - and their corresponding tiny 26 deaths for ~45000 positive cases.
No, we are not comparing lockdowns with sensible social distancing. We aren't comparing lockdowns with doing nothing, either. We're comparing lockdowns with what people actually do when you don't have a lockdown, which is in some cases sensible social distancing, but in other cases traveling 150 miles to wear your mask as a decorative chin strap and cough in a waiter's face.
Yes, some people sensibly social distance. But given the opportunity, many people don't.
> There are strong arguments to be made, and we will have to see how they play out over the next 12-18 months, that strict lockdowns actually resulted in more deaths because the fear they induced stopped people from doing regular health checkups etc.
Didn't you say, just one paragraph back, that "It turns out most people don't want to catch a deadly disease."? Wouldn't this cause them to not do regular health checkups, etc. as well?
I suppose it's possible that Covid itself causes just enough fear to cause people to social distance but not skip preventive care, and lockdowns just happen to tip people over into too much fear so they skip preventive care. But I don't think you have the evidence to claim that's what's happening.
That's a long way of saying, [citation needed].
> Comparing the other Nordic countries to Sweden is misleading because it was on a different trajectory before any lockdowns were implemented.
[citation needed]
> Note if you compare Sweden to the US it’s around half of the US rate per 100,000 despite lack of lockdowns.
Comparing Sweden to the US is misleading because the US doesn't have socialized medicine and is much more densely populated in the major cities where the disease spread. You can [citation needed] me on either one of those claims if you want and I'll provide links, but I think they're well known enough to not need citation.
> They have had ~100 excess deaths/week - and if you remove the older population (>65) then it’s basically 0 excess deaths/week.
Well, there it is. The age of the people dying is only relevant if you don't care about the elderly. You should be ashamed of yourself. Grow a conscience.
> 1) Ability to properly protect the old
Lockdowns protect the old.
As long as we are comparing with what people actually do when there is a lockdown.
This is what makes the data analysis so difficult - perhaps in some areas people actually followed lockdown rules - where I live basically nobody did.
Yet on paper we had similar lockdowns.
> Wouldn't this cause them to not do regular health checkups, etc. as well?
It doesn’t seem so - but it’s hard to know for sure because you are comparing different cultures and demographics.
Swedes kept going to routine checkups whereas Californians didn’t - but was that caused by the lockdowns or differences in culture?
Like I said in 12-18 months the data will be a lot clearer.
> [citation needed]
Follow Michael Levitt on Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013
> Comparing Sweden to the US is misleading
Yes, and so is comparing Sweden and Denmark - but you were happy to do that.
Latest excess deaths show Sweden is doing better than the European average - https://mobile.twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/12838142549...
> Well, there it is. The age of the people dying is only relevant if you don't care about the elderly. You should be ashamed of yourself. Grow a conscience.
Nonsense - a 5 year old dying is completely different from an 80 year old dying.
That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the elderly.
> Lockdowns protect the old.
That’s not clear.
NYC for example has had a ruinous number of deaths in nursing homes.
Maybe you meant “Lockdowns are intended to protect the old”?
We are.
> This is what makes the data analysis so difficult - perhaps in some areas people actually followed lockdown rules - where I live basically nobody did.
Really? People in your area showed up to closed businesses and did what, congregated outside pointlessly? I'm gonna have to say, I don't believe that.
> Swedes kept going to routine checkups whereas Californians didn’t - but was that caused by the lockdowns or differences in culture?
[citation needed]
> Follow Michael Levitt on Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013
[citation needed] still, because I have no idea where you're seeing anything there which you're claiming, and more to the point, a biophysicist is not the same as an epidemiologist, and even more to the point, even an epidemiologist needs evidence to back up their point.
In short, link a study, or you are just making crap up.
> > Comparing Sweden to the US is misleading
> Yes, and so is comparing Sweden and Denmark - but you were happy to do that.
No, it's not.
The difference is that I gave reasons why the US and Sweden are different, whereas you don't seem to feel that a lack of evidence should prevent you from saying things.
Again, provide evidence for your claims, or you're just making crap up.
> NYC for example has had a ruinous number of deaths in nursing homes.
NYC didn't lock down until the disease had already been widespread.
>the end of lockdown unleashed pent-up frustration and disregard*
The debate totally set aside, realize that you proposed a causal relationship one sentence after saying "correlation not causation."
I wish we could be done with this absolutely false misinformation. Case in point, New Zealand is COVID free.
We also basically shut down our borders, which I don't think is that feasible for a lot of other countries.
Currently, there are 2, apparently new, according to this:
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/...
This is about as close to "eliminated" as you can get; the new cases are all from incoming international travel.
This directly refutes the OP's statement that lockdowns "won't stop the virus."
Early on when New York was surging and Trump suggested limiting inter-state travel Cuomo suggested that would be akin to a federal declaration of war. [1]
It can be true that strategies that might work for New Zealand could never possibly work for the continental US.
Hawaii has a similar situation, got new case count down to zero for a few days, but are dealing with a few cases per day recently.
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/donald-trump...
Unlike many countries, they can easily close their borders, many people live in isolated communities and they aren't a major transport hub.
Unlike NZ, the US can’t control its borders - as decades of uncontrolled illegal immigration has shown us.
that's how the hysteria concerning corona has crashed all over our economy and social infrastructure.
as in, lockdowns won't stop the virus and they're immaterially better than distancing (with masks for when you can't), but the economic and social costs (including the politically motivated backlash) are massive, and yet we keep imposing that enormous cost on ourselves to make us feel like we're doing something about it, no matter how trivial the effect or how great the costs, to assuage our irrational fears.