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I think actually a "let people figure it out" approach has been adopted and the countries that used it are quite successful. This was basically Sweden's stated

I think actually a "let people figure it out" approach has been adopted and the countries that used it are quite successful. This was basically Sweden's stated policy, and Switzerland also stuck mostly to recommendations rather than rules. What you see across the world is that the population's behaviour is generally ahead of whatever rules or recommendations governments are coming up with. People figure out the risks to themselves and others faster than governments do because the latter are incentivised (or believe they are incentivised) to take a safety über alles approach, and are very easily pushed around by "experts" and journalists, in ways that smaller groups aren't. Eliminating the CDC - I don't think the CDC has been particularly useful in this event either. Frankly as far as I am concerned governments have made what is now obviously a perfectly normal and trivial virus drastically worse, to the extent that we'd be far better off as a world, and far healthier as a population, if governments had literally done nothing at all. But doing nothing is paradoxically the hardest thing for any government to do. The best way to bring about that outcome is thus to just clear out organisations and government agencies that would otherwise following a road of, "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done", which seems to explain a good 90% of the lockdown absurdities I see on a daily basis.

jrochkind1 6y ago
Sweden has had far more deaths than it's neighbors, and per capita far more than the US -- we'd have like 50% more deaths if we had per capita what Sweden has had. While Sweden has had pretty much as much economic disruption as it's neighbors. If you want to consider that a successful outcome, I guess that is your perogative. I am not about arguing it has to be a "rule" enforced by the police rather than a "recommendation". I don't think enforced by the police with penalties is what makes the difference between succesful control or not, that's not what I'm arguing for. But arguing that not only no international coordination is required but no coordination of any kind, just people acting as their own personal epidimiologists based on what they read on social media... well, let's check back in a couple years and see how we think it's working out.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Sweden is absolutely a success in every way. Firstly, it's not actually true that Sweden had far more deaths than its "neighbours". This is a bizarre form of cherry picking. Look across Europe and Sweden looks unremarkable: there are plenty of nearby countries that went full lockdown and saw far worse results. For this "neighbours" talking point to mean anything would require that physical proximity to Sweden meant something important, but it doesn't. Secondly, "deaths from COVID" data is all horribly corrupted. It's actually "deaths with COVID" that gets reported, but that isn't obvious because it keeps being mis-labelled. We have no idea how many people have died from COVID. Only total excess deaths seems reliable because it doesn't have a definition that can be tampered with. Thirdly, the idea that lockdowns are about reducing total deaths with or from COVID is not correct. That was retroactively invented when it became clear what a disastrous policy it is. Nobody claimed they could do that except by ensuring everyone gets healthcare, which is why they were justified on the grounds of preventing hospital overflow and nothing else. If everyone gets access to healthcare then the grounds for intervention evaporate. In Sweden everyone got healthcare, their hospitals were never even stressed. By lockdown's own logic, this proves Sweden's approach was correct. Hence the furious attempts to rewrite history by claiming lockdowns can save lives even when hospitals are quiet. Sweden is seeing some economic disruption, partly caused by neighbours who cannot accept that they wrecked their own citizen's economy and civil liberties for nothing. Norway has publicly admitted lockdown was a mistake, for example, but has restricted travel from Sweden anyway. And of course the rest of the world committing economic hari-kari simultaneously will inevitably effect Sweden: it doesn't change the correctness of their response. But arguing that not only no international coordination is required but no coordination of any kind, just people acting as their own personal epidimiologists based on what they read on social media... well, let's check back in a couple years and see how we think it's working out. We don't need to wait two years. The armchair epidemiologists who argued against lockdown already won completely. There is no remaining argument, no debate to be had. Lockdowns were meant to avoid overflowing hospitals, places that didn't do them didn't see overflowing hospitals. End of story. Why: because every model generated by so-called experts was wrong. Every prediction was false. People were flagging this as a likely outcome immediately once the models were published. The countries that said actually this is trivial and we should do basically nothing, like Sweden and Belarus, have seen average outcomes even by the highly dubious standards of PCR testing. This suggests lockdowns have no effect at all (and which in turn suggests the testing might mostly be measuring noise).

jrochkind1 6y ago

Sweden has had far more deaths than it's neighbors, and per capita far more than the US -- we'd have like 50% more deaths if we had per capita what Sweden has had. While Sweden has had pretty much as much economic disruption as it's neighbors. If you want to consider that a successful outcome, I guess that is your perogative. I am not about arguing it has to be a "rule" enforced by the police rather than a "recommendation". I don't think enforced by the police with penalties is what makes the difference between succesful control or not, that's not what I'm arguing for. But arguing that not only no international coordination is required but no coordination of any kind, just people acting as their own personal epidimiologists based on what they read on social media... well, let's check back in a couple years and see how we think it's working out.

thu2111 6y ago
Sweden is absolutely a success in every way. Firstly, it's not actually true that Sweden had far more deaths than its "neighbours". This is a bizarre form of cherry picking. Look across Europe and Sweden looks unremarkable: there are plenty of nearby countries that went full lockdown and saw far worse results. For this "neighbours" talking point to mean anything would require that physical proximity to Sweden meant something important, but it doesn't. Secondly, "deaths from COVID" data is all horribly corrupted. It's actually "deaths with COVID" that gets reported, but that isn't obvious because it keeps being mis-labelled. We have no idea how many people have died from COVID. Only total excess deaths seems reliable because it doesn't have a definition that can be tampered with. Thirdly, the idea that lockdowns are about reducing total deaths with or from COVID is not correct. That was retroactively invented when it became clear what a disastrous policy it is. Nobody claimed they could do that except by ensuring everyone gets healthcare, which is why they were justified on the grounds of preventing hospital overflow and nothing else. If everyone gets access to healthcare then the grounds for intervention evaporate. In Sweden everyone got healthcare, their hospitals were never even stressed. By lockdown's own logic, this proves Sweden's approach was correct. Hence the furious attempts to rewrite history by claiming lockdowns can save lives even when hospitals are quiet. Sweden is seeing some economic disruption, partly caused by neighbours who cannot accept that they wrecked their own citizen's economy and civil liberties for nothing. Norway has publicly admitted lockdown was a mistake, for example, but has restricted travel from Sweden anyway. And of course the rest of the world committing economic hari-kari simultaneously will inevitably effect Sweden: it doesn't change the correctness of their response. But arguing that not only no international coordination is required but no coordination of any kind, just people acting as their own personal epidimiologists based on what they read on social media... well, let's check back in a couple years and see how we think it's working out. We don't need to wait two years. The armchair epidemiologists who argued against lockdown already won completely. There is no remaining argument, no debate to be had. Lockdowns were meant to avoid overflowing hospitals, places that didn't do them didn't see overflowing hospitals. End of story. Why: because every model generated by so-called experts was wrong. Every prediction was false. People were flagging this as a likely outcome immediately once the models were published. The countries that said actually this is trivial and we should do basically nothing, like Sweden and Belarus, have seen average outcomes even by the highly dubious standards of PCR testing. This suggests lockdowns have no effect at all (and which in turn suggests the testing might mostly be measuring noise).