If you go by the doomsday forecasts of what will happen if nothing is done, then yeah, everyone did great. But the US and GB could've done better, which we know by seeing how things played out in other countries.

Countries locked down based on such doomsday scenarios. Millions have lost their jobs or had their businesses destroyed as a result of these doomsday scenarios. Why are we changing the rules afterwards?

It's been a while since i read about the SAGE / Imperial College Model, so I'm rusty on the details. However, my recollection is that a. there were serious technical issues with it, in terms of quality of construction, stability of results from run to run, and with the assumptions that went into it, and b. it predicted a much higher number of deaths even with a full lockdown.

I don’t think the IC model considered social distancing. It was a worst case. However: New York State (about 1/3 the population of the UK) has a cumulative total of 1700 deaths per million, and the UK is close to 600 per million. There are some differences between those populations, but it does seem there’s good evidence that things could have been much worse in the UK without relatively early social distancing.

The question then is why lockdowns were based on this model? Sweden demonstrated that it wasn't needed. Why are we still listening to Neil Ferguson when his track record is absolutely abysmal?

The reason is that the U.K. is not Sweden. Nobody knows why Sweden was so relatively mild, but the fact that the U.K. had a worse outcome even with a lockdown strongly indicates that their no-lockdown outcome would have looked more like NYC or Lombardy than Sweden.

it's not over yet. too early to say we have avoided the deaths.

Fair point, but looking at the curves, deaths rates the virus seems to have run its course in many countries. Sweden didn't bother with lock down and the virus appears to have run it's course there.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

No, it's not a fair point.

It's the same crap they have been spewing for months in order to justify the lockdowns and lifestyle restrictions.

We just don't know = lock down the world for months or years with no tradeoffs, no discussion of how to end them, and no questioning the lockdowns because > 1 people will or have died.

This "we just don't know so we're going to restrict the entire world and pretend individuals can't choose for themselves" argument is the reason that lifestyles have been restricted.

I'm not anti-mask I'm pro-choice.

Let individuals choose, not government.

How would that work? You go to a grocery store because you have to, and there's someone spewing out aerosols, potentially infected, while your mask protects them? Are you all for freeloading like say, making taxes optional?

What happens if people infect their elders? Who pays for the hospital costs if not the public? What if ICU capacity is taken up by anti-maskers and people who were taking precautions got unlucky and then have to die?

The trouble with that argument is that it leads to people who choose not to care, infecting those that do, which can lead to deaths, which many people dislike.

Historically, pandemics are one of the few acceptable reasons for such restrictions in the US, and it's very odd to me that it's been so controversial in that country.

The same as every flu season that we have had for years.

If the flu had no pre-existing immunity and 8x the mortality rate along with unknown side effects lasting months/years, then yes, exactly like the flu.

How can you say that coronavirus has unkown side effects lasting years when the virus has been around for less than a year? You are obviously being hyperbolic.

key word "unknown."

we do not yet know the long term consequences. there are people not feeling recovered after 6+ months. and children having heart inflammation problems after an a-symptomatic covid infection.