Do Lockdowns Even Work?

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Sweden has no lockdown, no mass closings, people still congregate and shake hands.

Yet they have a much lower death per population than parts of Europe.
 
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Deaths per 1 million people:

Italy (Full lockdown)- 263 deaths per 1M
USA (90 percent lockdown)- 28 deaths per 1M
Sweden- No lockdown- 40 deaths per 1M
 
This is a really good point and I wonder what others think. While it is already considered taboo from some corners to dare question the received wisdom on the shutdown, as being anti-scientific (and whatever else the left likes to call its opponents) I have felt from the first that this response might cause more harm than good. Though certainly I am not educated in science nor am I an expert on this topic so I won’t comment further.

Yet Sweden is a good foil to America.
 
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That’s why I rolled out the stats per 1million population.
 
Sweden is currently reconsidering its approach. Hospitals in Stockholm are struggling, I read today.

Yes, I think lockdowns work but I am concerned what will happen when they’re over. Hopefully a gradual reduction in measures will prevent a second wave, like what is currently being seen in Hong Kong.
 
Maybe they are rethinking under pressure.

But I just rolled out the facts.

Spain and Italy have much higher death rates and are in full lockdown.

I think it should warrant the question per the statistics, does it really work?
 
I think Italy in particular struggled because when lockdown measures were implemented, they were a lot later than they should have been, and restrictions were only placed on the north of the country. So many people fled to the south, spreading the virus. But I believe the peak in both Italy and Spain has passed (at least, that is what is being assumed). I think both countries struggled because they did not implement measures quickly enough, not that the lockdowns don’t work.
 
It all boils down to this:

If you over react to a situation you’ll never know if the measures taken were truly necessary.
If you under react to a situation it will be painfully obvious that more measures were necessary.
 
True point, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I suppose it’s only a shame people care more about whether they are damned by anyone than doing the right thing (whatever that is).
 
Catholic_Guy1 said:
That’s why I rolled out the stats per 1million population.
Click to expand...
And what’s the population density between those three countries? Per 2017 statistics reported by WolframAlpha:

Sweden: 62.6 people per mile
Spain: 241 people per square mile
Italy: 523 people per square mile

So no, just citing sickness per million people doesn’t paint an accurate a picture. There are more people per square mile in both Italy and Spain than there are in Sweden, which makes the disease easier to transmit. Another thing to consider would also be air pollution (I imagine Italy’s air pollution is much worse than Sweden’s) and the age distribution.
 
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Catholic_Guy1 said:
Italy (Full lockdown)- 263 deaths per 1M
USA (90 percent lockdown)- 28 deaths per 1M
Sweden- No lockdown- 40 deaths per 1M
Click to expand...
:sweden: Whole of Sweden 6,830 cases401 deaths
Stockholm County3,016 cases251 deaths
Stockholm County pop.2,377,081
Stockholm County pop. density940/sq mile
Stockholm County deaths per million105.59

Using Wikipedia for data (because I can’t understand these languages), it’s looks like Sweden’s neighbours have been helped by their lockdowns.
CountryPopulationPop. Density (sq. miles)CasesDeathsDeaths per million
:sweden: Sweden10,333,45659.66,83040138.81
:denmark: Denmark5,822,763351.54,56117930.74
:norway: Norway5,367,58036.05,6877313.23
:denmark: + :norway: 11,190,34310,24825222.52
 
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When was the lockdown initiated in Spain and Italy? Was it after the numbers were already dramatically increasing or was it early on in the spread of the virus? I think timing may be a key factor. And also, how effective is the lockdown, that is, are people defying the mandate? Finally, perhaps the virus has not yet spread to Sweden but that may be changing now.
 
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Unless there is something genetic about who gets severely ill and dies, Sweden will catch up and get their share over time. If somehow Swedish people have better immunity, that still doesn’t help us as we are a more diverse society. And, as someone else pointed out, population density has a lot to do with how many are getting sick, even in USA. If you look at the maps of the counties I follow, there are a great many more cases in the densely populated areas than the less dense areas.

I do think the lockdowns could have been handled better by actually locking down people who were carrying the disease early on, rather than waiting until Italy’s massive problem erupted before we started to do anything about it, but it’s too late for that strategy now. Hopefully we have learned something about early action for the next pandemic of a new virus.
 
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Italy: Oldest population in Europe.
Epicenter of virus appearance in Europe.
Culturally much more ‘togetherness’ than other cultures.
Weather even in February and March milder than Sweden, therefore more people ‘out and about’.
Bigger cities.

Etc. There are really so many variables to consider.
 
Fauken said:
There are more people per square mile in both Italy and Spain than there are in Sweden, which makes the disease easier to transmit.
Click to expand...
Even density doesn’t get you there.

Consider each physical or near physical contact a given person has.

Diseases 'relying on transmission between humans require these contest.

When you consider these, you get webs, connected to more plans, connected to still more.

For the infection to survive, it needs each infection to, on average, infect more than one person from each infection. The base rate, for “normal” circumstances, is R0. R itself is the value based on changes (e.g., social distancing), and is what matters.

Regardless of everything else, separating people, isolating areas, etc., will change R–but it has to be reduced to below 1 for the infection to shrink, rather than grow.

If the number of infections is low, even with an R0 of, say, 2 to 4 (which I think is what is attributed to this one.), there will still be a small number of infections. That is, if three people are infected, they will infect six to twelve more. So “not a lot” doesn’t mean “there won’t be three times as many in two weeks”; it’s just a matter of where that link is.

So cut those connections in the web, and R goes down. Cut them enough, and the infection starts dying. Cut them less than enough, and growth isn’t as fast, but it still grows.

This is also why countermeasures don’t have to be perfect, just generally effective.
 
We are at stay at home restriction here. I had not been out since Wednedday and I wanted to mail Easter cards and pick up Chinese food at a drive thru so I went out
today. I live in a metropolitan area. There was still a lot of traffic I thought for a
Sunday. I don’t know where all these other people were going - surely not all to
the grocery store. It felt good to get out. I never got out of my car and was gone about 40 minutes.

I noticed a lot of peole on sidewalks and waiting for the bus. In my state we have over 2000 cases and 64 deaths. The cases began increasing last week so we are
just getting started.
 
It’s only looking at changes compared with yesterday but it’s not looking good for Sweden.
Source: Wikipedia
CountryCasesDeathsDeaths/million
:sweden: Sweden7,206 (+376)477 (+76)46.16 (+7.35)
:denmark: Denmark4,681 (+120)187 (+8)32.11 (+1.37)
:norway: Norway5,772 (+85)76 (+3)14.16 (+0.93)
 
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