Sweden: 8% GDP drop

countries that locked down early:

China: 3% GDP increase

Vietnam: 2% GDP increase

New Zealand: 2% GDP drop

Croatia: 15% GDP drop

Denmark: 7% GDP drop

Norway: 6% GDP drop

(obviously, the numbers cannot be easily compared since they might refer to slightly different periods, but all of these include Q2 2020)

From these numbers, it's not obvious at all that not locking down would actually be beneficial for the economy. In fact, except for a few outliers like Croatia (disproportionately impacted by the drop in tourism revenue, I presume) it seems that locking down prevented even steeper losses.

These numbers need to be compared to the numbers in the same country for the previous year. For example, in China a 3% increase is actually a regression, because they did 6% in 2019.

Even that isn't enough, because we don't have the numbers for each country if it didn't lock down. It's all hypothetical. What would Norway's GDP growth rate have been without a lockdown, for example? The answer is a number. It's unknowable. People claiming that things would have been as bad, or worse, have zero evidence to back them up. People like me who say it would not have been as bad have evidence based on observed consumer behavior which was clearly curtailed during the lockdown and improved after.

I hate break it to people, but C19 is not going anywhere and this is not over yet, especially in countries/locales where there were very few infections. Meanwhile, Sweden had no new cases yesterday.

There are definitely people who think both of those things are true, but you could also argue that the economic damage would have been the same and also that there would have been other costs (e.g. losses to individual autonomy, lost social connections / harms to community, resulting stress and trauma, etc. etc. )

> but you could also argue that the economic damage would have been the same

I really doubt that. Look at how people were behaving until the day the lockdowns began. Look at how people are behaving now. They aren't afraid of going to bars and restaurants and shops. There is no good reason to believe that they wouldn't have behaved the same way the entire time, if the lockdowns had not intervened.

It's obviously true that the economy would have been damaged with or without the lockdowns. It's entirely different to claim that the damage without lockdowns would have been as bad as the damage with lockdowns.

Restaurants are waaay emptier then they used to be. What are you talking abou?

They aren't entirely empty though, are they? Yet during the lockdowns it was illegal to go to restaurants. Some customers are better than no customers. Ask any restaurant owner if they would prefer lockdowns to the current state of affairs.

Again, it's not like the economy would not have been damaged either way, but it's obvious that the lockdowns made the economic damage worse.

OTOH we're ordering in like never before

@twblalock - can't reply to your reply so replying here instead.

I also doubt it and wouldn't argue it myself, I was just pointing out that making that argument need not imply that you think there are no other costs, i.e. those arguments are not equivalent.