Posted on 05/28/2020 11:56:20 AM PDT by Mount Athos
Norway is assembling a picture of what happened before lockdown and its latest discovery is pretty significant. It is using observed data – hospital figures, infection numbers and so on – to construct a picture of what was happening in March. At the time, no one really knew. It was feared that virus was rampant with each person infecting two or three others – and only lockdown could get this exponential growth rate (the so-called R number) down to a safe level of 1. This was the hypothesis advanced in various graphs by Imperial College London for Britain, Norway and several European countries.
But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered. ‘It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on 12 March, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1… We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down.’ Here’s the graph, with the R-number on the right-hand scale:
This raises an awkward question: was lockdown necessary? What did it achieve that could not have been achieved by voluntary social distancing? Camilla Stoltenberg, director of Norway’s public health agency, has given an interview where she is candid about the implications of this discovery. ‘Our assessment now, and I find that there is a broad consensus in relation to the reopening, was that one could probably achieve the same effect – and avoid part of the unfortunate repercussions – by not closing. But, instead, staying open with precautions to stop the spread.’ This is important to admit, she says, because if the infection levels rise again – or a second wave hits in the winter – you need to be brutally honest about whether lockdown proved effective.
Norway’s statistics agency was also the first in the world to calculate the permanent damage inflicted by school closures: every week of classroom education denied to students, it found, stymies life chances and permanently lowers earnings potential. So a country should only enforce this draconian measure if it is sure that the academic foundation for lockdown was sound. And in Stoltenberg’s opinion, ‘the academic foundation was not good enough’ for lockdown this time.
The leading article in the new Spectator, out tomorrow, argues that Brits deserve the same candour. There is a wealth of UK data to draw from: 999 calls, infections, hospital data, weekly figures on respiratory infections and some 37,000 Covid deaths. And from this it’s not hard for the UK government to do what the Norwegian and Swedish authorities have done: produce an estimate of the R number dating back to February or March. And use observed data – rather than assumptions and models – to measure the lockdown effect. The results of such a study might make for uncomfortable reading for a government still asking police to enforce lockdown. But these things have a habit of becoming public eventually.
There might be a strong story to tell. The UK data, when assembled, might well show that hundreds of thousands would have died without lockdown – and that, while brutal, it was vital. But if the data points to something different, as it has in Norway, then this is a discussion worth having. Our leading article concludes with this point:
It is time to restore liberty and move to a voluntary system: to ask for continued caution but ask people to use common sense. The country is ready to be trusted. The question is whether the Prime Minister feels ready to trust us.
re; Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame Covid
So, what’s stopping them from opening up?
social insanity borne from a combination of affluence, lack of historical knowledge, scientism, and the belief that we are entitled to perfect health and wealth at all time regardless of reality....
this whole lockdown was and continues to be a pathetic display of the worst human characteristics
And how, exactly, did we get such bogus R0 data? Where did it originate?
It originated with the horrible scare scenes coming out of Wuhan, China. We didn't see such scary scenes until it ravaged northern Italy and Spain.
Is it possible that CHINA INTENTIONALLY amped up the scare scenes knowing that the West would go into shutdown mode? Is it possible that China not only developed the virus in their labs (maybe pure research, maybe "gain of function," maybe as a vaccine) and released it in Wuhan (accidentally or maybe intentionally) precisely when millions of Chinese were going abroad for the major holiday, but then intentionally exaggerated the disaster in Wuhan to trigger the West into economic meltdown?
Nah, not possible. Nope.
Wow, you pretty much hit all my points on this.
Well done.
I can't imagine anyone who will ever allow themselves to be bamboozled by the likes of these "world authorities" again.
From this point on it's going to pretty much be live and learn. Pay attention to what's going on around you but don't expect me to sit on my azz in the house for another three months.
Just ain't going to happen.
My guess is they were already acting like there was an edict.
Sweden has the world’s highest per capita Covid death rate since May 1.
Yes, long after most countries passed their peaks, and therefore the comparison is with low numbers.
"But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared [emphasis added] and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered."
It remains that health authorities couldn’t tell politicians how fast that the new virus was spreading when politicians needed to make lockdown decisions, decisions made early enough for effective lockdown regardless how fast virus spreading.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Corrections, insights welcome.
The article doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a hindsight retrospective evaluation of whether the lockdown made a difference, so your comment doesn’t make any sense to me
well thanks....pretty bleak post, however lol....wish things were otherwise
Scare-demic....
Stupid
Fauci held up the Chinese virus “response” as ideal. Don’t forget that.
I think one of the things that terrified people was precisely this, the idea that your government could start welding you into your apartment building, forbidding you to see loved ones, making you die alone, making you get permission to breathe, practically...usual CCP stuff, but not for Americans. And then when our government said two weeks to “flatten the curve” but didn’t threaten to weld us into our buildings, we were relieved...and then it went on and on and got more and more aggressive as leftist governors took advantage of it to enact other agendas (anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-small business, etc.).
It was a terrible, terrible mistake. But people were already primed for terror by having seen China’s miserable example. And now we’re left with the wreckage of our Constitution and economy, insanely empowered local dictators that even Trump doesn’t seem to be able to (or maybe want to) control...and us waiting for permission to shuffle around, masked to the eyeballs and isolated from all the civic connections that made America great (sports, choirs, churches, volunteer organizations, outdoor recreation).
Yep, as you say, those images of carnage in Wuhan, road barricades, piles of corpses, people being buried alive, people welded into their homes, crash construction of new hospitals...it was all terrifying and triggered our insane response.
Just HOW did all of that propaganda get out of Communist China and into our lives triggering government overreach?
It’s a story waiting to be told. The Chinese are probably laughing themselves silly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.