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So, Sweden may well have been right.....

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thejuggler

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Nightingale hospitals were a very high profile easy capital spend to try and give some positive PR and demonstrate something was being done, in reality they could never operate due to staffing and supply chain resources.

It is being repeated with Nightingale Courts. Government are blaming Covid for a backlog of cases, when in reality there were already tens of thousands of delayed cases due to the number of courts which have been closed over the last ten years. Covid has added an extra few thousand.

Opening Courts for longer hours doesn't increase the number of staff. I read yesterday of one case which was adjourned last week and relisted for a date in 2023!
 
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AdamWW

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This thread is repeating the same arguments as done in previous threads. This claim was debunked on this forum before. I will see if I can link to the thread, to save us the hassle of saying the same things again ;)

Here we go, found it: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...nged-our-attitude-to-risk.206012/post-4649217

Well being pedantic, I made three statements which I believe to be true - I didn't suggest a correlation (though I think the best guess is that they are correlated).

We'll have to disagree over whether previous discussion has indeed debunked the idea that the lockdown prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed or not.

Voulantary changes != mandatory restrictions

I think the whole idea of whether Sweden brought in mandatory or voluntary restrictions is a bit of a red herring. What matters is how many people actually followed them - in one country non mandatory rules might get more compliance than mandatory ones in another.

I believe in Sweden while the rules were on the whole not legal requirements, they were expressed as instructions not guidelines.

I also saw an argument that existing law means people have to take reasonable precautions to avoid spreading disease and the government instructions were explaining how this law should be complied with for coronavirus. But I don't think that is particularly relevant.

I'd also point out that I think Tegnall has said that with hindsight they would have been stricter (but not to the extent of a full lockdown).
 

AdamWW

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If linked to a Government information campaign noting that noone under 40 had anything at all to worry about, and even under 65 the risk was tiny unless in a very small number of categories, the effect would have been drastically smaller than what we got.

Well I suppose there would be nothing new in a government campaign based on a lie.

The chances of someone under 40 without an underlying health condition (and that doesn't mean being at death's door) are pretty low so if all you're concerned about is surviving then maybe you shouldn't worry too much. But it's a bit early to say to what the long term effects may be.
 

scarby

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What I will say about Sweden is that it decided very quickly that it was going to have to live with the virus for a very long time. My experience, being there, is that the objective was to allow people to carry on with their lives and professions as normally as possible while introducing restrictions to stop the virus running riot.

People I know in Sweden seem maybe a bit fed up with it, but not overwhelmingly so, which means it is more sustainable - in fact, apart from relaxing travel advice and the resumption of professional sport, the restrictions / advice are still the same as they were in April.
 

AdamWW

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True to an extent - but theese hospitals had at least a workable staffing level anyway, so it would have taken a major spike to have overwhelmed it

OK if that's true I take it back. I didn't think they did have sufficient staffing and it never actually mattered.
 

HSTEd

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The chances of someone under 40 without an underlying health condition (and that doesn't mean being at death's door) are pretty low so if all you're concerned about is surviving then maybe you shouldn't worry too much.

Even with underlying health conditions the risk of dying under 40 is pretty negligible.

We have had less than 600 dead so far under 45.
And a large fraction of those are above 40!


But it's a bit early to say to what the long term effects may be.

So we are causing huge known health effects on the population to maybe avoid hypothetical long term health impacts?
 

Yew

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Was social distancing in the U.K. really mandatory?

My question to you is this: what do you think the effect on economic activity would have been of letting the virus rip through the population?

Doubtless some people would have carried on as normal, I’m not so sure that would have been the case though for many.
I feel it would have still been effected, but significantly less so. Furthermore, there are plenty of activities that improve the quality of life of individuals that would have remained available. I feel the effect of this would be mainly dependent of if the Government continued down its "deadly killer virus" path of misinformation, or provided realistic statistics about the actual danger for various age groups.
 

Socanxdis

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The government didn't need to impose restrictions. The people did it themselves. Wouldn't work in the UK. :D
 

Richard Scott

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The government didn't need to impose restrictions. The people did it themselves. Wouldn't work in the UK. :D
I'm not so sure, think it was pointed out earlier that people started to stay away from certain places before lockdown, went to a Restaurant before lockdown and very few people there. Not comparable numbers to a normal evening.
 

Yew

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I'm not so sure, think it was pointed out earlier that people started to stay away from certain places before lockdown, went to a Restaurant before lockdown and very few people there. Not comparable numbers to a normal evening.
Indeed, I think any lack of following the guidance can be attributed to it taking less than a week to change from "Wash your hands and sing happy birthday" to a full lockdown. People weren't given a chance, and Boris's buffoonery undermined the seriousness of the whole situation.
 

yorkie

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We'll have to disagree over whether previous discussion has indeed debunked the idea that the lockdown prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed or not.
That isn't quite what I was saying, but it's covered in the previous thread so no need to repeat it.
I think the whole idea of whether Sweden brought in mandatory or voluntary restrictions is a bit of a red herring. What matters is how many people actually followed them - in one country non mandatory rules might get more compliance than mandatory ones in another.
We've already been through that multiple times; people were working from home here before the lockdown and many were about to do so even if a lockdown had not been implemented. Again it's all been covered before.
I'd also point out that I think Tegnall has said that with hindsight they would have been stricter (but not to the extent of a full lockdown).
He has recognised mistakes were made regarding care homes; the same mistakes many countries made; we are again covering old ground. If you think there was anything else, feel free to provide a link and quote.


The government didn't need to impose restrictions. The people did it themselves. Wouldn't work in the UK. :D
Complete myth, as discussed before in previous threads, and again in this thread.
 

sjpowermac

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I feel it would have still been effected, but significantly less so. Furthermore, there are plenty of activities that improve the quality of life of individuals that would have remained available. I feel the effect of this would be mainly dependent of if the Government continued down its "deadly killer virus" path of misinformation, or provided realistic statistics about the actual danger for various age groups.
The evidence of the weeks leading up to lockdown would suggest that many had already made up their own minds and were working from home/not going to the pub/not going to restaurants.

I think you are falling into the trap of assuming that people always behave rationally. As I mentioned earlier, you can tell people that they have to go to work/school but you most certainly can’t mandate that they continue going to pubs/restaurants/other leisure attractions.

Do you think that some people might have been cautious because they didn’t wish to pass the virus on to other people who were more vulnerable than themselves?
 

DB

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I'm not so sure, think it was pointed out earlier that people started to stay away from certain places before lockdown, went to a Restaurant before lockdown and very few people there. Not comparable numbers to a normal evening.

Same with trains. As others have said, they were very empty from early March.
 

sjpowermac

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If linked to a Government information campaign noting that noone under 40 had anything at all to worry about, and even under 65 the risk was tiny unless in a very small number of categories, the effect would have been drastically smaller than what we got.
I wonder how many people under 65 never interact with anyone over 65?

Do you not suppose that at least some people for whom the virus poses little threat might have been just a tiny bit concerned about passing it on to someone for whom it might be fatal?

I note on the masks threads there are many jumping up and down that they have been banned from trains/shops, I wonder how we then square this with a lockdown for anyone over 65 or with a health condition?

Again, you assume that all people are completely rational. How do you square this with the trains/pubs/restaurants steadily emptying in the weeks prior to lockdown?

I suppose ‘Carry on as normal, the NHS might get a tad busy, some people will die’ might have been a success...
 

yorkie

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I'm not sure if that's a criticism of Sweden's approach or not, but if it is, my answer is that it's too early to say, but the early indications are that Sweden have a long-term strategy that appears to be working, whereas countries like Spain and France had a short term approach that has no exit strategy.

I think we will continue to go around in circles as people are unlikely to change their mind until more data becomes available.
 

Bletchleyite

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So, lockdowns are of questionable effectiveness at best.

What lockdowns achieve (and the reason I agree we were right to have one) is that they reduce the number of cases down so you effectively get to start again from scratch and correct any errors you made - essentially a big reset button. That doesn't make them ineffective, but it's clear that you do need an exit strategy of some kind because just throwing everything back open will just make the same thing happen again. The "hammer and dance" (lock down then release enough to keep R=1 roughly) is one such strategy, and very much appears to be what England is following, whether intentionally or not.

I'm not sure if that's a criticism of Sweden's approach or not, but if it is, my answer is that it's too early to say, but the early indications are that Sweden have a long-term strategy that appears to be working, whereas countries like Spain and France had a short term approach that has no exit strategy.

I think we will continue to go around in circles as people are unlikely to change their mind until more data becomes available.

A fair bit of the issue with this debate is that in many ways it is "which approach should we randomly take based on not having a clue what it will do", and there's a spectrum of conservativeness (small C) surrounding that. As data improves and we learn more about the disease, we can make more informed decisions and they are thus more likely to be right long-term, but we do need to do something in the interim too!
 

sjpowermac

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I'm not sure if that's a criticism of Sweden's approach or not, but if it is, my answer is that it's too early to say, but the early indications are that Sweden have a long-term strategy that appears to be working, whereas countries like Spain and France had a short term approach that has no exit strategy.

I think we will continue to go around in circles as people are unlikely to change their mind until more data becomes available.
What do you feel would have been the economic impact of ‘let it rip’?

I’m trying to look at things in relation to their impact on the economy, rather than just deaths or infections.

Could the U.K. really have ‘done a Sweden’? What was the prevalence of the virus in the U.K. compared with Sweden? I’m asking because I’m actually not sure and I think it’s hugely relevant.
 

yorkie

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What do you feel would have been the economic impact of ‘let it rip’?
That wasn't Sweden's strategy and I am not aware of anyone proposing such a strategy.

I think there is misinformation about what happened in Sweden but a forum member based there has clarified in this thread, and in previous threads, so hopefully the position is clearer now.
I’m trying to look at things in relation to their impact on the economy, rather than just deaths or infections.
They've done reasonably well
https://markets.businessinsider.com...wn-stronger-rest-of-europe-2020-7-1029415101#
  • A report from Capital Economics published on Tuesday found that the Swedish economy was the least harmed in Europe, describing it as the "best of a bad bunch."
  • Though Sweden was not immune to the pandemic's economic impact, it was the only major economy to grow in the first quarter of the year, the report noted.

Could the U.K. really have ‘done a Sweden’? What was the prevalence of the virus in the U.K. compared with Sweden? I’m asking because I’m actually not sure and I think it’s hugely relevant.
We were doing it and people were complying; arguably given what we now know, we should have acted sooner. We should have moved to a sustainable long-term set of measures. If we had done that, we could have kept schools open, as Sweden did.
 

Bletchleyite

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Was social distancing in the U.K. really mandatory?

That depends on what you'd call "social distancing". Other than in Welsh workplaces 2m never has been, but some measures have been e.g. group sizes and settings.

My question to you is this: what do you think the effect on economic activity would have been of letting the virus rip through the population?

That is in itself an interesting question. While it's a very different economy to ours, Mexico is probably worth a study in terms of the effects of that, or India. India did lock down, but the demographic of its population probably means that a very large proportion of people didn't actually know that they had. Some US states may also provide a comparison.

We were doing it and people were complying; arguably given what we now know, we should have acted sooner. We should have moved to a sustainable long-term set of measures.

One thing that would be very interesting to know would be what would have happened if we had done this:-

1. Everything closed immediately - so stricter than we did, even supermarkets; people would have coped in some way for a few days. The only businesses remaining open would be pharmacies for urgent deliveries only plus basic public services i.e. water, electricity and gas, plus BBC TV and radio on a skeleton "wartime" programme.

2. Any business can reopen as soon as they have put anti-COVID measures in place and have documented them and had the local Environmental Health sign off on them. While the disease wasn't as well known then, I suspect those measures would have looked a bit like they look now. Obviously businesses would be well motivated to get those measures in place quickly; I suspect a closure wouldn't for most have lasted much more than a week or two, possibly only a day or two for supermarkets.
 
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yorkie

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....India did lock down, but the demographic of its population probably means that a very large proportion of people didn't actually know that they had....
The India lockdown was a total mess and a complete disaster. They made the UK Government look half decent!
 

yorkie

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sjpowermac

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That wasn't Sweden's strategy and I am not aware of anyone proposing such a strategy.

I think there is misinformation about what happened in Sweden but a forum member based there has clarified in this thread, and in previous threads, so hopefully the position is clearer now.

They've done reasonably well
https://markets.businessinsider.com...wn-stronger-rest-of-europe-2020-7-1029415101#



We were doing it and people were complying; arguably given what we now know, we should have acted sooner. We should have moved to a sustainable long-term set of measures. If we had done that, we could have kept schools open, as Sweden did.
I’m actually not convinced that the net result of some elements of Sweden’s strategy was massively different from here: as you’ve already agreed many in the U.K. were already working from home/not going to pubs/reducing contact with others. Yes, mandatory and advised are different but as has been pointed out it’s the end result that matters.

I’m fully aware that ‘let it rip’ wasn’t Sweden’s strategy. I’m merely trying to establish where on the scale you personally believe we should have been/should be.

What would you describe as sustainable long term measures?
 

HSTEd

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Do you not suppose that at least some people for whom the virus poses little threat might have been just a tiny bit concerned about passing it on to someone for whom it might be fatal?

Perhaps, but by far the easiest way to protect those people is to protect those people, not driving the economy off a cliff for the benefit of htem.

I note on the masks threads there are many jumping up and down that they have been banned from trains/shops, I wonder how we then square this with a lockdown for anyone over 65 or with a health condition?

Why would we have a lockdown?
Why do you resort to state coercion?

The a very large fraction of people over 65 don't have jobs, they have no pressing need to mix with the general population.
Furlough for over 65s with jobs and people with well defined health conditions like diabetes etc would have cost very little.

And if it burns through the general population this would be over by mid-late August.
A single two week shutdown at the height of the epidemic would cut that drastically (once R drops below 1, you hit it with a ~1-2 week shelter-in-place advice to interrupt transmission and kill momentum)

Again, you assume that all people are completely rational. How do you square this with the trains/pubs/restaurants steadily emptying in the weeks prior to lockdown?

If people were locking down themselves why was it necessary to threaten anyone who refuses to obey with state violence/punishment?

The fact remains that the drastic reduction in travel, crowding and such only started after the lockdown happened.
It is also unlikely that the damage from some people partially isolating themselves would have been negligible next to this.

Especially with a public health campaign about educating the public about the actual risks.
 

sjpowermac

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That is in itself an interesting question. While it's a very different economy to ours, Mexico is probably worth a study in terms of the effects of that, or India. India did lock down, but the demographic of its population probably means that a very large proportion of people didn't actually know that they had. Some US states may also provide a comparison.
Indeed, I think shifting the focus to a purely economic perspective is interesting.

Even moving back from the ‘let it rip’ scenario, I fail to see how ‘doing a Sweden’ as many seem to be advocating, I wonder if that would have led to the NHS being overwhelmed.

I think by mid-March there was going to be significant damage to the U.K. economy chose whether we locked down or not.
 

yorkie

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I’m actually not convinced that the net result of some elements of Sweden’s strategy was massively different from here: as you’ve already agreed many in the U.K. were already working from home/not going to pubs/reducing contact with others. Yes, mandatory and advised are different but as has been pointed out it’s the end result that matters.

I’m fully aware that ‘let it rip’ wasn’t Sweden’s strategy. I’m merely trying to establish where on the scale you personally believe we should have been/should be.

What would you describe as sustainable long term measures?
As mentioned before, I believe the Swedish approach will be the most sustainable model, and the posts I referred to earlier are by @scarby, including:
You are correct. Domestic travel was advised against “unless you must” but one was free to define “must”.

Don’t forget all mass events cancelled (still are and they haven’t even let spectators back into sport yet) and no people jetting away on holiday, plus all office workers at home where possible - so all mass congregations of people ruled out. Universities distance learning too.

However shops, bars and restaurants being open gave an impression of normality out on the street.

People were encouraged to exercise and sports train outdoors in small groups. Gyms mostly remained open.

Youth sport continued, professional sports people continued training and horse racing continued with no spectators.

Schools remained open.

So in short a lot of restrictions but at the same time allowing people to get on with their lives as much as possible.
What I will say about Sweden is that it decided very quickly that it was going to have to live with the virus for a very long time. My experience, being there, is that the objective was to allow people to carry on with their lives and professions as normally as possible while introducing restrictions to stop the virus running riot.

People I know in Sweden seem maybe a bit fed up with it, but not overwhelmingly so, which means it is more sustainable - in fact, apart from relaxing travel advice and the resumption of professional sport, the restrictions / advice are still the same as they were in April.
 

sjpowermac

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Perhaps, but by far the easiest way to protect those people is to protect those people, not driving the economy off a cliff for the benefit of htem.



Why would we have a lockdown?
Why do you resort to state coercion?

The a very large fraction of people over 65 don't have jobs, they have no pressing need to mix with the general population.
Furlough for over 65s with jobs and people with well defined health conditions like diabetes etc would have cost very little.

And if it burns through the general population this would be over by mid-late August.
A single two week shutdown at the height of the epidemic would cut that drastically (once R drops below 1, you hit it with a ~1-2 week shelter-in-place advice to interrupt transmission and kill momentum)



If people were locking down themselves why was it necessary to threaten anyone who refuses to obey with state violence/punishment?

The fact remains that the drastic reduction in travel, crowding and such only started after the lockdown happened.
It is also unlikely that the damage from some people partially isolating themselves would have been negligible next to this.

Especially with a public health campaign about educating the public about the actual risks.
I have a very simple question for you: what do you think would have been the impact on the U.K. economy even if we hadn’t had a lockdown?

It’s hard to see that not having a lockdown would have produced fewer deaths than we had, what impact do you feel that would have had on the economy?

It’s materially untrue that reduction in travel only took place after the lockdown.

What state violence are you referring to?
 

Yew

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I think by mid-March there was going to be significant damage to the U.K. economy chose whether we locked down or not.

I think there would have been a noticeable, difference between the two situations.
 

Huntergreed

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I have a very simple question for you: what do you think would have been the impact on the U.K. economy even if we hadn’t had a lockdown?

It’s hard to see that not having a lockdown would have produced fewer deaths than we had, what impact do you feel that would have had on the economy?

It’s materially untrue that reduction in travel only took place after the lockdown.

What state violence are you referring to?
I do think that the economy would still have suffered significantly as people felt less comfortable going out, arguably many businesses will have fared better with a lockdown due to furlough and the business support scheme. Now we know more about the virus and the associated risks, it’s time to advertise these accordingly and allow those who are at practically no risk to start building the economic growth we sorely need.

The problem is that the messaging the government used would likely still have been “there’s a deadly, scary virus out there” and people would feel less inclined to go out, particularly for leisure.
 

HSTEd

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I have a very simple question for you: what do you think would have been the impact on the U.K. economy even if we hadn’t had a lockdown?

A flatlining of GDP growth, with growth underway in the fourth quarter.
It’s hard to see that not having a lockdown would have produced fewer deaths than we had, what impact do you feel that would have had on the economy?
Pensioners are for the most part not very economically active.
It’s materially untrue that reduction in travel only took place after the lockdown.
Yes, people reduced travel before the lockdown, but the reduction was a shallow drop in mobility compared to the cliff that occurred when the lockdown was imposed.
What state violence are you referring to?
Police smashing down doors because they thought people have visitors, arrests and fines for people violating the lockdown instructions etc etc etc.
 
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