But the experts said....

Sweden (blue dots) has served as a control group to compare policies intended to decrease deaths from covid-19. Sweden has been unfairly criticized for its policy despite having an outcome more favorable than places with authoritarian lockdown policies. Sweden did not close its schools. Other than stopping gatherings of more than fifty people, the Swedish government left decisions of closing businesses, using masks, and social distancing to the Swedish people. The government encouraged the use of masks and social distancing, but there were no requirements and there were no penalties for those who declined to follow the advice. Mortality attributed to covid-19 hit a peak value of 11.38 deaths per day per million population on April 8, 2020. This mortality was matched on April 15, and mortality has decreased since then. Daily mortality has been less than one death per day per million population for the previous eighteen days. Cases are very low. For all practical purposes, the covid-19 epidemic is over in Sweden. Almost certainly herd immunity has been achieved in Sweden irrespective of any antibody test results.

Several months ago near the beginning of this epidemic I heard a TV interview with Dr. David L. Katz. It was a followup to an Op-Ed he wrote in the NY Times. Haven't heard anything from him since, as it seems he didn't become one of the "experts" favored by the media.

Basically he argued that lockdowns don't work. At best they can only delay some cases and might be useful to avoid overloading medical facilities, but they don't really reduce the eventual number of cases. His reasoning was this: you can never drive the number of cases all the way to zero, so the virus is still out there. When you release the lockdown there will inevitably be more cases because the virus is still around. The only way past it is for enough people to have immunity to block all the pathways for the virus to spread, and there are only two ways to do that: either a vaccine or "herd immunity". We may or may not ever get a vaccine and we don't know when that might be, so the way to minimize the overall damage is to protect those especially vulnerable (i.e. the elderly or those with compromising health conditions) and let everyone else go about their business. Lots of people will get the virus and hopefully most of those cases will be mild, and eventually herd immunity will develop. If we had done that in the beginning, this would probably be over by now.

Unfortunately, there are many "experts" and they don't seem to have any consensus on what should be done, and no one seems to be listening to Dr. Katz. But it seems that is what Sweden did successfully.

Basically he argued that lockdowns don't work. At best they can only delay some cases and might be useful to avoid overloading medical facilities, but they don't really reduce the eventual number of cases. His reasoning was this: you can never drive the number of cases all the way to zero, so the virus is still out there. When you release the lockdown there will inevitably be more cases because the virus is still around. The only way past it is for enough people to have immunity to block all the pathways for the virus to spread, and there are only two ways to do that: either a vaccine or "herd immunity". Originally Posted by billw1032

I agree with the logic, but the idea behind a lockdown was to bend the curve sharply.. a 2 week lockdown would do that. coming out of that, heed the call for social distancing, wear a mask, avoid crowds. hoping the vaccine doesn't take forever to produce and distribute.

it could be herd immunity is and was the best strategy.. we didn't really implement the first idea, so we don't know. we had the lockdown, but we didn't truly follow the other guidelines until it was too late.

A lot of countries are seeing more cases but they’re not chopping off their own balls like America is.

This is about politics. Pure and simple.

We weren't wrong to do the INITIAL lockdown for 2 weeks. Everything beyond that... is stupidity. The purpose was to lessen the burden that a surge would put on hospitals. Even with the uptick in cases with school reopening.. we're nowhere near taxing our hospitals as we were in the beginning.. so the lockdown nonsense needs to stop. Also.. wtf is up with various rules about bars? Does COVID only attack you when you cannot eat a meal with your whiskey? Does COVID only attack after 11pm? (Ohio's current rule is fuck-happy-stupid on every level.. and we have a Republican governor).

I think we should have targeted responses and react where the virus upticks. Masking , hand washing and distancing will all help protect the more vulnerable populations.

I don’t know why there isn’t massive discussion about increasing immunity and just being more healthy to fight off the virus.

The experts said in the beginning before this turned politico the virus was going to
"run its course" Sweden didn't over reach react and they have been better overall

Sweden (blue dots) has served as a control group to compare policies intended to decrease deaths from covid-19. Sweden has been unfairly criticized for its policy despite having an outcome more favorable than places with authoritarian lockdown policies. Sweden did not close its schools. Other than stopping gatherings of more than fifty people, the Swedish government left decisions of closing businesses, using masks, and social distancing to the Swedish people. The government encouraged the use of masks and social distancing, but there were no requirements and there were no penalties for those who declined to follow the advice. Mortality attributed to covid-19 hit a peak value of 11.38 deaths per day per million population on April 8, 2020. This mortality was matched on April 15, and mortality has decreased since then. Daily mortality has been less than one death per day per million population for the previous eighteen days. Cases are very low. For all practical purposes, the covid-19 epidemic is over in Sweden. Almost certainly herd immunity has been achieved in Sweden irrespective of any antibody test results. Originally Posted by texassapper

We should have done it like the Swedish folks did but it feels like we are close to that in Texas now and are getting over the hump...

We weren't wrong to do the INITIAL lockdown for 2 weeks. Everything beyond that... is stupidity. The purpose was to lessen the burden that a surge would put on hospitals. Even with the uptick in cases with school reopening.. we're nowhere near taxing our hospitals as we were in the beginning.. so the lockdown nonsense needs to stop. Also.. wtf is up with various rules about bars? Does COVID only attack you when you cannot eat a meal with your whiskey? Does COVID only attack after 11pm? (Ohio's current rule is fuck-happy-stupid on every level.. and we have a Republican governor). Originally Posted by Grace Preston

Yes, the first two weeks were defensible because of all the uncertainty but the politicians found they loved the control and the moralistic scaremongering gave them a power they lusted for - instead of the freedom to choose we the people should be given - now that we know the risks.

We overreacted because of Facci and Big Pharm and china who are making million/billions now
Big T should NOT have listened to faccis and the always wrong who and cdc
Just my opinion

Not apples to apples.

Sweden has a population density of 64 people per square miles.
Dallas has population density of 3900 people per square miles
New York City has a population density of 27000 people per square miles. Manhattan is 67000 per square miles.

You are talking about 1000 times number of people per square miles in some of these cities compared to Sweden.

Not apples to apples. Originally Posted by dallasfan

Itis apples to apples. The rates have been normalized... Hence the per million rates.

However its fortuitous timing with the push for mail in voting. The numbers are going down but we may never know the true numbers because cities and states have been fast and lose with reporting covid 1984 vs Mack truck the 101 year old etc
Suspicious the china losing money ( sorso rothchilds bidens also ) and the virus hits just at the convergence of voting
The DPST socialists pushing the mail in voting gotto keep the pig flying ( remember 5 states already have it)
Its really all about voting lets move on and maybe deal with voting cities burning

Liars.
Damn liars.
Statisticians.