Fortunately we have a control for that.
UK, Spain, France: full lockdowns and deeply invasive intervention into personal life, with massive economic damage.
Sweden: minimal intervention, voluntarily-observed social distancing, no lockdowns. Same curve.
(Denmark is Denmark. I just put that in there so the Danes could continue to feel smug about their northern neighbour.)
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And here's the same graph with the US for good measure. Notice how similar the curve is again. There aren't any confidence intervals on here, but I would suspect the difference is statistically insignificant.
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Archive as of this post
The evidence is increasingly clear that these lockdowns are not the cause of all this curve flattening. The infection was already widespread and would, based on the behaviour of previous Coronavirus infections, have followed this curve regardless of any intervention.
That is fallacious. It isn't an accurate depiction.
Let me be clear here. I'm not on either extreme. As I keep having to remind people. But point is. Well first off I want that graf but for monthly deviation in deaths (all causes), per capita, that'd be way more informative. But that aside. Population density was always one of the most decisive factors in this.
Sweeden should've never locked down as hard as Italy or Spain. Actually not even all of Italy and Spain should've done that. But sweeden's denser areas should have locked down harder than they did.
Because sweeden is semi rural. It therefore was never going to suffer as much as Italy and Spain. At least... It shouldn't have. It should've been closer to, well, denmark, finland, etc. And yet. They have reached our stats. Despite not having anything close to madrid and barcelona. This is actually worrying. And if the intel we keep getting is true. It's far from the only worrying part of how they handled this.
Lockdowns have done their jobs in some areas. Madrid and Barcelona would've been fucked without them. Although I do think we overdid the lockdown, we should've started closing gradually earlier and not close as hard when we did. And we also shouldn't have closed all of spain like this. Cadiz didn't even have a point in locking down. Or well at least it didn't until they took all our PPE and ventilators. Then it became quite needed to counter the stupidity of being left with no PPE. But point is. They should've been applied by density.
Sweeden should've locked a bit more. Australia should've locked a lot less. Texas and Michigan had no reason to lock at all. Etc. It's not something you can simplify.
Overall. The lockdowns did flatten the curve in some areas. And they successfully stopped the healthcare system from collapsing over here. And for that I am thankful. But they cannot erradicate the virus, and once the collapse won't happen, it's time to open up.
But the curve is defined by density. It is also affected by culture. And by percentage of multigeneration homes. And many other factors. Actually there's even a study that's starting to question if as opposed to spreading in cold like the flu Corona actually spreads less in cold regions. And that is why as the summer comes russia is starting to get hit while now that in spain we've gotten a very cold air current it seems inhibited. In which case sweeden should've looked even better.
Calling for lockdown lift because of the curve is stupid. Calling for lockdown stays because of the curve moronic. It is relative. The question is, can your healthcare system take it. Because so long as it can, then gradual measures to stop a big spike might be warranted but large lockdowns are pointless. If it can't. Then you should lock. Let's please not pollarize into extremes like this.
Britain should've started locking london earlier. Britain also had no fucking reason to lock down scotland outside of maybe banning some specific mass gatherings temporarily. Going to one extreme, pointing at scotland and screeming at lockdown evil is as dumb as going to the other and pointing at london and screaming lockdown good. Lockdown is lockdown. It's not good or evil. Guns don't kill people.
