10 ms·

I think there were broadly 3 strategies: 1. Do very little intervention, but perhaps isolate the vulnerable. This was the "Sweden strategy". 2. Do big interve

I think there were broadly 3 strategies: 1. Do very little intervention, but perhaps isolate the vulnerable. This was the "Sweden strategy". 2. Do big interventions if cases rise, but only so far as is required to prevent hospitals being over-whelmed. This was the strategy in most of Europe, and in particular the UK. 3. Do big interventions with the intention of reaching "covid zero", including restrictions on international travel. This was the strategy of Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and perhaps China (hard to get the full story). Having spent the past year under (2) I wish I was living under (3). Sure it's painful in the short term, but compared to rolling lock-downs for over 12 months?

the-dude 6y ago
> but compared to rolling lock-downs for over 12 months? So far. Add 6, 12 or 24 months.
febeling 6y ago
So why not choose (1)? This seems to have been the strategy in the past with similar risks. And it avoids the costs of freedom and live at the same time. What am I missing?
- sofixa 6y ago
  That it doesn't work. Sweden had to go back on it, and in many countries trying to do (1) ended up with hospitals full - like France. Everything was done to avoid a third lockdown this spring, but hospitals are at 150% capacity and here we are again. Are you aware of some magic trick that negates that?
  - timr 6y ago
    Sweden did not "go back on it". They remain with significantly lighter restrictions than ~all of continental Europe: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/communicable-disease-control/covid-19/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency... As far as I can tell, their most stringent restrictions are limits on group gatherings to 8, and closing bars at 8pm: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-health-agency-wants-restriction-easing-postponed-to-may https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-h... Contrast to France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, etc., where people have been forcibly restricted to their homes for a significant portion of the last year.
    - sofixa 6y ago
      And Sweden has the worst infection and death rates per capita compared to all of Scandinavia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-nordics/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coron... https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1403494820980264 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14034948209802... https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden
      - throwawayboise 6y ago
        But they faired much better than e.g. Spain and Belgium. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/24/swedens-2020-death-spike-lower-than-much-of-europe-data-shows https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/24/swedens-2020-death-...
        sofixa 6y ago
        Which are incomparable due to a vast amount of variables ( culture, population density, population spread in housing, temperatures, weather, etc.)
        nickthemagicman 5y ago
        That's patently false. Everyone compares countries all the time. You literally just did it a few posts up by comparing it to other Scandinavian countries which are all different from Sweden. Covid zealots compare other countries to New Zealand when it's convenient. All with different cultures climate population density etc. If what you're saying is true then you can't make any claims about any country's success rate because they're all unique. You're just selecting Sweden as incomparable because it doesn't fit your narrative.
        sofixa 5y ago
        Scandinavian countries have similar cultures, population densities, climates, customs ( e.g. people don't kiss on the cheek when they meet, which is what French people used to do pre-pandemic). They're more comparable between themselves than with Spain, with an entirely different climate, people living much closer together, etc. New Zealand are isolated by water from everyone, lockdown is drastically easier in that case.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    The secret to not having hospitals overwhelmed is to have enough capacity in the first place, but also to avoid superspreader events. Sweden did ban some gatherings and they did close down schools briefly. Most other lockdown measures are questionable at best, including mandatory mask usage. They are clearly symbolic tools for the political class to signal that something is being done, but the data to support them is not very strong considering that there is not much of a control group.
    - sofixa 6y ago
      > The secret to not having hospitals overwhelmed is to have enough capacity in the first place Enough for what? Hospital capacity was wildly sufficient for regular times, but the pandemic turned that around. Even Germany, which has multiple times the capacity per capita than France, is struggling in that regard. What is "enough"? > but also to avoid superspreader events Lol. Events with more than 2000 people outside ( at the best of times, usually it has been flat out forbidden), and 6-100 inside have been forbidden in France since last year. That obviously didn't help. > Most other lockdown measures are questionable at best, including mandatory mask usage. They are clearly symbolic tools for the political class to signal that something is being done, but the data to support them is not very strong considering that there is not much of a control group. There is, check the US and Brazil.
      - incrudible 6y ago
        > Enough for what? Hospital capacity was wildly sufficient for regular times, but the pandemic turned that around. Indeed, "enough" for normal times is not the same as "enough" for pandemic times. > Even Germany, which has multiple times the capacity per capita than France, is struggling in that regard. What is "enough"? Of course it's a "struggle" to suddenly work at capacity, but Germany wasn't in the situation of having to turn down patients. To the contrary, Germany was able to pick up patients from neighboring countries. That's "enough". > Events with more than 2000 people outside ( at the best of times, usually it has been flat out forbidden), and 6-100 inside have been forbidden in France since last year. That obviously didn't help. How do you know that it didn't help? We know from epidemiological studies that superspreader events were responsible for causing a surge of cases in a short amount of time. > There is, check the US and Brazil. There really isn't, we have countries with strong lockdowns doing poorly and countries with weak lockdowns doing relatively well, and everything in between. Lockdown measures are also difficult to compare, as are populations, as is testing and reporting. For example, Brazil with minimal lockdowns is doing just as poorly as Peru, with heavy lockdowns. Florida is doing better than many other US states with heavier restrictions. Japan is supposedly doing well with few restrictions, but also performs little testing. There are lots of variables and unknowns here and one can always cherrypick data to argue for or against lockdowns in various forms.
- de_keyboard 6y ago
  (2) leads to fewer deaths overall than (1). (1) gives better quality of life to the healthy than (2). (3) leads to fewer deaths than (1) or (2), but it requires political will. If you can pull it off, (3) is what you want. That's a big "if" though. As a healthy person, I personally would have been better off under (1). However, I think the economic and emotional damage of that number of deaths would have been too much for society as a whole.
  - scarby2 6y ago
    I'm not certain the emotional damage around the deaths would be worse than the emotional damage around the restrictions. Same with the economic damage, I'm entirely certain the the economic damaged caused by the death of a large amount of largely economically inactive persons would have been way less than the economic damage caused by forcibly shutting down large chunks of the economy. The whole 1 vs 2 thing is just a matter of how much must the whole suffer for the benefit of the few?
sofixa 6y ago
Living in 2 i'm not sure 3 would have worked where i am ( France) to get to zero, especially considering Schengen and the fact that even if by some magic you get to zero cases, it can easily spillover by even a few people from neighboring countries or tourists. And i sincerely doubt it could have gotten to zero cases - every lockdown since the first one has been ignored by a non-negligeable amount of the population.
eloff 6y ago
To be in (3) though you have to isolate your country right at the beginning before the action can be politically justified. I'm quite surprised that China was able to pull it off, because they're a major trade economy and must have millions of people coming and going. Of course it helps to have a government that can take any action without regard for rights or political consequences. This is impossible I think for a country like the US with vital land borders and constant trade across them. I think it's also very hard for democratic counties where people have rights.
- de_keyboard 6y ago
  The lock-downs imposed in (2) countries were very effective and given a bit more time (and political will) they could have transitioned to strategy (3). Australia and China managed to do this.
  - phicoh 6y ago
    If I look at the center of Amsterdam, in the past year there have been losts of tourists from all over Europe even when bars and restaurants are closed. So this means that any strict lock down would have to be coordinated at least within the EU. In the past, EU countries did not want to delegate health care to the EU (except for approving medicine). So this would require lots of individual countries (including Sweden and, until this year, the UK) to suddenly agree on a single strict lockdown. Very unlikely to happen.
  - makomk 6y ago
    The lockdowns imposed in countries that only used them to prevent the hospital system being overwhelmed were very effective on average, but that's not enough. In order to reach Covid Zero you need lockdowns to be very effective everywhere. Take for example the UK - there were apparently some areas where cases kept growing even during the strictest lockdowns, and that's enough to ensure you'll never reach zero cases. All the countries where this worked seem to have the advantage of being geographically and geopolitically distant from Italy, which meant they could take action against their outbreaks at a relatively early stage before they got deeply embedded in society. (Early on, cases were more or less a gradient radiating out from Italy, probably because they had a major outbreak which went completely undetected as in literally reporting zero cases country-wide despite having an awful lot more than that.)
derekp7 6y ago
I would have preferred a strategy of using financial incentives. Big fines for companies that refused to switch to remote work where it was feasible. An additional tax on indoor dining and shopping, to make curbside pickup more attractive. Fines and additional tax would go directly to lockdown financial relief.
addy34 6y ago
>I wish I was living under (3). Sure it's painful in the short term, but compared to rolling lock-downs for over 12 months? Having spent the last year under (3), I dream of 1 or 2. That said, it very much dependent on the country. I live somewhere that is 20 x 20 miles in size (Hong Kong). The strictness of the border control (3 weeks in a hotel room if you leave and come back) make leaving pretty much impossible. That, combined with extremely conservative local restrictions (not to mention the political situation) takes a significant toll after a while.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Most people in positions 1 and 2 can’t really leave their countries either, and depending on how strict 2 is you may not have been able to travel far within your country either. This is mostly an artefact of the fact that HK is so small. At least you’re not in Macau, which is 30 sq km?
  - addy34 6y ago
    >At least you’re not in Macau, which is 30 sq km? Macau has quarantine free travel with the Mainland, so that's >9 million sq km ;)
sharken 6y ago
(3) only really works in isolated communities and islands such as those mentioned. I would choose a mix of (1) and (2), but no matter what we say here it won't change the past. Going forward we can either choose the goal of no masks, no vaccine pass and no restrictions this year. Follow Texas for more on how that works. Or we can go on with restrictions and random shutdowns when infections rise above an arbitrary level. I know i would choose the first option.
busymom0 6y ago
Canada, specifically Quebec has been in full on curfew for a long time now. It hasn't helped and cases keep rising with now being the highest. [1] should have been the best strategy.
- sharken 6y ago
  Indeed, having your freedom taken away like that is an overreaction. Until recently nobody in the US had the idea of removing restrictions and allowing 40.000 to gather for sport events. That was until Texas did it and they are doing just as well as those with restrictions. https://fee.org/articles/texas-has-fewer-covid-cases-than-michigan-despite-nearly-20m-more-people-and-no-restrictions/ https://fee.org/articles/texas-has-fewer-covid-cases-than-mi...

the-dude 6y ago

> but compared to rolling lock-downs for over 12 months? So far. Add 6, 12 or 24 months.

febeling 6y ago

So why not choose (1)? This seems to have been the strategy in the past with similar risks. And it avoids the costs of freedom and live at the same time. What am I missing?

sofixa 6y ago
That it doesn't work. Sweden had to go back on it, and in many countries trying to do (1) ended up with hospitals full - like France. Everything was done to avoid a third lockdown this spring, but hospitals are at 150% capacity and here we are again. Are you aware of some magic trick that negates that?
- timr 6y ago
  Sweden did not "go back on it". They remain with significantly lighter restrictions than ~all of continental Europe: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/communicable-disease-control/covid-19/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency... As far as I can tell, their most stringent restrictions are limits on group gatherings to 8, and closing bars at 8pm: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-health-agency-wants-restriction-easing-postponed-to-may https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-h... Contrast to France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, etc., where people have been forcibly restricted to their homes for a significant portion of the last year.
  - sofixa 6y ago
    And Sweden has the worst infection and death rates per capita compared to all of Scandinavia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-nordics/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coron... https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1403494820980264 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14034948209802... https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden
    - throwawayboise 6y ago
      But they faired much better than e.g. Spain and Belgium. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/24/swedens-2020-death-spike-lower-than-much-of-europe-data-shows https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/24/swedens-2020-death-...
      - sofixa 6y ago
        Which are incomparable due to a vast amount of variables ( culture, population density, population spread in housing, temperatures, weather, etc.)
        nickthemagicman 5y ago
        That's patently false. Everyone compares countries all the time. You literally just did it a few posts up by comparing it to other Scandinavian countries which are all different from Sweden. Covid zealots compare other countries to New Zealand when it's convenient. All with different cultures climate population density etc. If what you're saying is true then you can't make any claims about any country's success rate because they're all unique. You're just selecting Sweden as incomparable because it doesn't fit your narrative.
        sofixa 5y ago
        Scandinavian countries have similar cultures, population densities, climates, customs ( e.g. people don't kiss on the cheek when they meet, which is what French people used to do pre-pandemic). They're more comparable between themselves than with Spain, with an entirely different climate, people living much closer together, etc. New Zealand are isolated by water from everyone, lockdown is drastically easier in that case.
- incrudible 6y ago
  The secret to not having hospitals overwhelmed is to have enough capacity in the first place, but also to avoid superspreader events. Sweden did ban some gatherings and they did close down schools briefly. Most other lockdown measures are questionable at best, including mandatory mask usage. They are clearly symbolic tools for the political class to signal that something is being done, but the data to support them is not very strong considering that there is not much of a control group.
  - sofixa 6y ago
    > The secret to not having hospitals overwhelmed is to have enough capacity in the first place Enough for what? Hospital capacity was wildly sufficient for regular times, but the pandemic turned that around. Even Germany, which has multiple times the capacity per capita than France, is struggling in that regard. What is "enough"? > but also to avoid superspreader events Lol. Events with more than 2000 people outside ( at the best of times, usually it has been flat out forbidden), and 6-100 inside have been forbidden in France since last year. That obviously didn't help. > Most other lockdown measures are questionable at best, including mandatory mask usage. They are clearly symbolic tools for the political class to signal that something is being done, but the data to support them is not very strong considering that there is not much of a control group. There is, check the US and Brazil.
    - incrudible 6y ago
      > Enough for what? Hospital capacity was wildly sufficient for regular times, but the pandemic turned that around. Indeed, "enough" for normal times is not the same as "enough" for pandemic times. > Even Germany, which has multiple times the capacity per capita than France, is struggling in that regard. What is "enough"? Of course it's a "struggle" to suddenly work at capacity, but Germany wasn't in the situation of having to turn down patients. To the contrary, Germany was able to pick up patients from neighboring countries. That's "enough". > Events with more than 2000 people outside ( at the best of times, usually it has been flat out forbidden), and 6-100 inside have been forbidden in France since last year. That obviously didn't help. How do you know that it didn't help? We know from epidemiological studies that superspreader events were responsible for causing a surge of cases in a short amount of time. > There is, check the US and Brazil. There really isn't, we have countries with strong lockdowns doing poorly and countries with weak lockdowns doing relatively well, and everything in between. Lockdown measures are also difficult to compare, as are populations, as is testing and reporting. For example, Brazil with minimal lockdowns is doing just as poorly as Peru, with heavy lockdowns. Florida is doing better than many other US states with heavier restrictions. Japan is supposedly doing well with few restrictions, but also performs little testing. There are lots of variables and unknowns here and one can always cherrypick data to argue for or against lockdowns in various forms.
de_keyboard 6y ago
(2) leads to fewer deaths overall than (1). (1) gives better quality of life to the healthy than (2). (3) leads to fewer deaths than (1) or (2), but it requires political will. If you can pull it off, (3) is what you want. That's a big "if" though. As a healthy person, I personally would have been better off under (1). However, I think the economic and emotional damage of that number of deaths would have been too much for society as a whole.
- scarby2 6y ago
  I'm not certain the emotional damage around the deaths would be worse than the emotional damage around the restrictions. Same with the economic damage, I'm entirely certain the the economic damaged caused by the death of a large amount of largely economically inactive persons would have been way less than the economic damage caused by forcibly shutting down large chunks of the economy. The whole 1 vs 2 thing is just a matter of how much must the whole suffer for the benefit of the few?

sofixa 6y ago

Living in 2 i'm not sure 3 would have worked where i am ( France) to get to zero, especially considering Schengen and the fact that even if by some magic you get to zero cases, it can easily spillover by even a few people from neighboring countries or tourists. And i sincerely doubt it could have gotten to zero cases - every lockdown since the first one has been ignored by a non-negligeable amount of the population.

eloff 6y ago

To be in (3) though you have to isolate your country right at the beginning before the action can be politically justified. I'm quite surprised that China was able to pull it off, because they're a major trade economy and must have millions of people coming and going. Of course it helps to have a government that can take any action without regard for rights or political consequences. This is impossible I think for a country like the US with vital land borders and constant trade across them. I think it's also very hard for democratic counties where people have rights.

de_keyboard 6y ago
The lock-downs imposed in (2) countries were very effective and given a bit more time (and political will) they could have transitioned to strategy (3). Australia and China managed to do this.
- phicoh 6y ago
  If I look at the center of Amsterdam, in the past year there have been losts of tourists from all over Europe even when bars and restaurants are closed. So this means that any strict lock down would have to be coordinated at least within the EU. In the past, EU countries did not want to delegate health care to the EU (except for approving medicine). So this would require lots of individual countries (including Sweden and, until this year, the UK) to suddenly agree on a single strict lockdown. Very unlikely to happen.
- makomk 6y ago
  The lockdowns imposed in countries that only used them to prevent the hospital system being overwhelmed were very effective on average, but that's not enough. In order to reach Covid Zero you need lockdowns to be very effective everywhere. Take for example the UK - there were apparently some areas where cases kept growing even during the strictest lockdowns, and that's enough to ensure you'll never reach zero cases. All the countries where this worked seem to have the advantage of being geographically and geopolitically distant from Italy, which meant they could take action against their outbreaks at a relatively early stage before they got deeply embedded in society. (Early on, cases were more or less a gradient radiating out from Italy, probably because they had a major outbreak which went completely undetected as in literally reporting zero cases country-wide despite having an awful lot more than that.)

derekp7 6y ago

I would have preferred a strategy of using financial incentives. Big fines for companies that refused to switch to remote work where it was feasible. An additional tax on indoor dining and shopping, to make curbside pickup more attractive. Fines and additional tax would go directly to lockdown financial relief.

addy34 6y ago

>I wish I was living under (3). Sure it's painful in the short term, but compared to rolling lock-downs for over 12 months? Having spent the last year under (3), I dream of 1 or 2. That said, it very much dependent on the country. I live somewhere that is 20 x 20 miles in size (Hong Kong). The strictness of the border control (3 weeks in a hotel room if you leave and come back) make leaving pretty much impossible. That, combined with extremely conservative local restrictions (not to mention the political situation) takes a significant toll after a while.

bobthepanda 6y ago
Most people in positions 1 and 2 can’t really leave their countries either, and depending on how strict 2 is you may not have been able to travel far within your country either. This is mostly an artefact of the fact that HK is so small. At least you’re not in Macau, which is 30 sq km?
- addy34 6y ago
  >At least you’re not in Macau, which is 30 sq km? Macau has quarantine free travel with the Mainland, so that's >9 million sq km ;)

sharken 6y ago

(3) only really works in isolated communities and islands such as those mentioned. I would choose a mix of (1) and (2), but no matter what we say here it won't change the past. Going forward we can either choose the goal of no masks, no vaccine pass and no restrictions this year. Follow Texas for more on how that works. Or we can go on with restrictions and random shutdowns when infections rise above an arbitrary level. I know i would choose the first option.

busymom0 6y ago

Canada, specifically Quebec has been in full on curfew for a long time now. It hasn't helped and cases keep rising with now being the highest. [1] should have been the best strategy.

sharken 6y ago
Indeed, having your freedom taken away like that is an overreaction. Until recently nobody in the US had the idea of removing restrictions and allowing 40.000 to gather for sport events. That was until Texas did it and they are doing just as well as those with restrictions. https://fee.org/articles/texas-has-fewer-covid-cases-than-michigan-despite-nearly-20m-more-people-and-no-restrictions/ https://fee.org/articles/texas-has-fewer-covid-cases-than-mi...