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I perhaps didn't emphasise this enough in my original post, but I believe it answers your questions. > I think the timing of our national lock down is strongly

I perhaps didn't emphasise this enough in my original post, but I believe it answers your questions. > I think the timing of our national lock down is strongly significant to our success, we managed to do so before it was widespread in the community. > Why are more people dying in those countries? Timing is a very significant factor, I believe - I couch that as a belief, because I haven't had the time to compare all lockdowns, but you'll note that on this FT graph[1], NZ's lockdown began near immediately by the metric being used, whereas the UK's took a full two weeks. We know that the UK government dithered, initially focused on herd immunity (and worth noting that Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings who was hugely influential in pushing for it both went on to contract the illness), hired social media bots(?!)[2] to spin the party line, and only after all that, then went into lockdown. A veritable case of closing the barn door after the infectious horse has bolted. Of course there's a bunch of other factors in death rates - the comparative proportion of your population which is especially vulnerable, medical care capacity, but it seems obvious to me that the largest factor will always be the number of infections in the first instance. [1]: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-us.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8850e4ac-84de-11ea-b872-8db45d5f6714?fit=scale-down&quality=highest&source=next&width=1260 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt... [2]: https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/04/21/fake-nurses-propaganda-tweets-distract-from-further-government-coronavirus-shambles/ https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/04/21/fake-nurses-pro...

henrikschroder 7y ago
> Timing is a very significant factor, I believe - I couch that as a belief, because I haven't had the time to compare all lockdowns Fair enough, and I agree. It's clear that countries who clamped down super early have fared much better than everyone else. But going by that FT graph, Spain went into lockdown a week before the UK, and still did worse? Germany later than the UK, and is doing better? There's a crazy amount of uncertainty about what good lockdowns are once you've passed a certain point of community spread. Sweden obviously missed the point in time where lockdowns would have worked very well, while NZ, Australia, Norway didn't. The UK obviously missed it as well, but while they were debating herd immunity, it might have been too late anyway? We might never know. And with all that uncertainty, I think it's wrong for people to argue that Sweden "obviously" would have saved lives by going into a hard lockdown earlier. Maybe, probably, perhaps. Would a stricter lockdown now do anything in Sweden? Unlikely.
- zamfi 7y ago
  > Spain went into lockdown a week before the UK, and still did worse? Germany later than the UK, and is doing better? Not relative to number of cases: Germany locked down later than UK, but a week earlier on the exponential growth curve. I'll post this link again, because it's the best articulation of this point that I've found: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... Timing, with respect to where a country/region is on the exponential growth curve, is critical. In almost every place you see the same outcome, it's crazy.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    > Not relative to number of cases: Germany locked down later than UK, but a week earlier on the exponential growth curve. Not according to the Financial Times graph in the post I was commenting on. Germany went into lockdown at 3000 cases per day, while the UK went into lockdown at 700 cases per day, and Spain at 600 cases per day, according to that. Is the FT graph wrong? Do you have a better data source that proves your point?
    - EdwardDiego 7y ago
      You're missing an implicit assumption - that each country's testing regimes and levels and criteria were comparable - for an example from the top of my head, some countries only test if you show symptoms. So if you'll allow me to rephrase: > Germany went into lockdown at 3000 known cases per day, while the UK went into lockdown at 700 known cases per day, and Spain at 600 known cases per day. As you said earlier, so many damn factors in this.
      - rovolo 7y ago
        To add more data, Germany locked down on Mar 17 at 24 known deaths. The UK locked down on Mar 23 at 336 known deaths. Germany reached 342 known deaths on Mar 27. That's 10 days of lead time on the deaths metric. Germany's new deaths per day (smoothed) stopped increasing at 215 per day on Apr 9 (2.5 weeks later). The UK's death rate stopped increasing at 850 on Apr 15 (2.5 weeks later). https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries&highlight=United%20Kingdom&show=highlight-only&trendline=default&y=fixed&scale=log&data=deaths&extra=Germany#countries https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...
kenneth 7y ago
> and worth noting that Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings who was hugely influential in pushing for it both went on to contract the illness Not really worth noting. It's an interesting anecdote, and I'm sure those who take the pro-lockdown position revel in the schadenfreude… but it has no relevance to the debate.
- phatfish 7y ago
  I does when Boris was going around boasting that he was "shaking hands with everyone" (in regards to a hospital visit). Then ends up in intensive care himself using up stretched resources. I will give leaders who's job it is to meet lots of people to run a country a break, IF they take a reasonable position. Boris flaunting the risks to build up his public persona and then getting egg on his face is absolutely relevant. If you care in any way how a country is run. Dominic is not so much in the public eye, but I bet he had a lot to do with Boris's early bravado.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  It shows how widely it spread in the UK before they went into lockdown, which underlies my point that the efficacy of a lockdown is strongly tied to the timing thereof.

henrikschroder 7y ago

> Timing is a very significant factor, I believe - I couch that as a belief, because I haven't had the time to compare all lockdowns Fair enough, and I agree. It's clear that countries who clamped down super early have fared much better than everyone else. But going by that FT graph, Spain went into lockdown a week before the UK, and still did worse? Germany later than the UK, and is doing better? There's a crazy amount of uncertainty about what good lockdowns are once you've passed a certain point of community spread. Sweden obviously missed the point in time where lockdowns would have worked very well, while NZ, Australia, Norway didn't. The UK obviously missed it as well, but while they were debating herd immunity, it might have been too late anyway? We might never know. And with all that uncertainty, I think it's wrong for people to argue that Sweden "obviously" would have saved lives by going into a hard lockdown earlier. Maybe, probably, perhaps. Would a stricter lockdown now do anything in Sweden? Unlikely.

zamfi 7y ago
> Spain went into lockdown a week before the UK, and still did worse? Germany later than the UK, and is doing better? Not relative to number of cases: Germany locked down later than UK, but a week earlier on the exponential growth curve. I'll post this link again, because it's the best articulation of this point that I've found: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... Timing, with respect to where a country/region is on the exponential growth curve, is critical. In almost every place you see the same outcome, it's crazy.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  > Not relative to number of cases: Germany locked down later than UK, but a week earlier on the exponential growth curve. Not according to the Financial Times graph in the post I was commenting on. Germany went into lockdown at 3000 cases per day, while the UK went into lockdown at 700 cases per day, and Spain at 600 cases per day, according to that. Is the FT graph wrong? Do you have a better data source that proves your point?
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    You're missing an implicit assumption - that each country's testing regimes and levels and criteria were comparable - for an example from the top of my head, some countries only test if you show symptoms. So if you'll allow me to rephrase: > Germany went into lockdown at 3000 known cases per day, while the UK went into lockdown at 700 known cases per day, and Spain at 600 known cases per day. As you said earlier, so many damn factors in this.
    - rovolo 7y ago
      To add more data, Germany locked down on Mar 17 at 24 known deaths. The UK locked down on Mar 23 at 336 known deaths. Germany reached 342 known deaths on Mar 27. That's 10 days of lead time on the deaths metric. Germany's new deaths per day (smoothed) stopped increasing at 215 per day on Apr 9 (2.5 weeks later). The UK's death rate stopped increasing at 850 on Apr 15 (2.5 weeks later). https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries&highlight=United%20Kingdom&show=highlight-only&trendline=default&y=fixed&scale=log&data=deaths&extra=Germany#countries https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...

kenneth 7y ago

> and worth noting that Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings who was hugely influential in pushing for it both went on to contract the illness Not really worth noting. It's an interesting anecdote, and I'm sure those who take the pro-lockdown position revel in the schadenfreude… but it has no relevance to the debate.

phatfish 7y ago
I does when Boris was going around boasting that he was "shaking hands with everyone" (in regards to a hospital visit). Then ends up in intensive care himself using up stretched resources. I will give leaders who's job it is to meet lots of people to run a country a break, IF they take a reasonable position. Boris flaunting the risks to build up his public persona and then getting egg on his face is absolutely relevant. If you care in any way how a country is run. Dominic is not so much in the public eye, but I bet he had a lot to do with Boris's early bravado.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
It shows how widely it spread in the UK before they went into lockdown, which underlies my point that the efficacy of a lockdown is strongly tied to the timing thereof.