Jump to content

 

 

Coronavirus and the political situation


Recommended Posts

5 hours ago, stewarty said:

I don't understand your points.  Like all models, its a prediction, not a guarantee.

 

In any case, what would the worst case scenario be if its not to take no action at all? You say they've been debunked but why is that?  The fact that a course of action was taken to avert the worst case scenario does not disprove it.   Its not about driving fear, its a calculation based on the data.


If you've got a better view on the data at that point, lets hear it.  

 

And lastly, absolutely nobody wants to be in a permanent state of lockdown.  Thats a ridiculous assertion.

 

 

Funny, I've heard some epidemiologists at pains to insist that the models are testable hypotheses rather than predictions.

 

As an aside: all models are wrong, some are useful but most are dangerous.  I don't know who to attribute that wisdom to but it's absolutely correct in my view.

Link to post
Share on other sites

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-covid-and-lockdown-a-look-at-the-data

 

An excerpt:

 

Quote

The problem with 'Sweden vs its neighbours' 

Lockdown advocates often compare Sweden with its neighbours, but this mistakes the nature of Scandinavia. Sweden has lots of trees, but as a country it is more urbanised than even Britain, for example (ie: 88pc of Swedes live in cities, vs 84pc of Brits).  Right at the start of the pandemic, Bristol Uni’s Oliver Johnson came up with an index to explain this point: population density and how it relates to Covid vulnerability. The below graph sums it up. Norway and Finland have very low population density,  Sweden is in line with the European average (higher than Germany).  On top of that we have Sweden's exposure to globalisation, high foreign-born population etc. Sweden falls down in comparison to Denmark, which has higher population density but suffered less excess death and comparable economic damage.

Most people are prone to engage in a simplistic analysis.  One variable is selected.  In this case it is common to consider whether or not a country has locked down.  You can compare the body count and see if lockdown led to less deaths or not.  It's obvious that Sweden did better than some countries that locked down and also worse than some others that did the same.

 

The next tiny increment of sophistication is to limit the comparison to comparable countries.  Norway, Denmark and Finland are all near to Sweden and are thought by some to be virtually identical.  When we compare these countries we can see that Norway, Denmark and Finland all suffered less deaths than Sweden.

 

But then we discover that there are other factors like the level of urbanisation. Sweden has an even higher proportion of population living in cities than the U.K. let alone neighbouring countries.  Are these countries really a good comparison? It's less clear now.

 

Why stop there?  There are a range of variables that we could add to the analysis.  When did vaccines become available?  To what degree is the population vaccinated?  How does the country deliver healthcare?  To what extent did the population adapt behaviour outwith government mandate?  What is the extent of foreign travel to and from the country?  Did the country mistakenly seed vulnerable populations with covid cases? (see care homes)  How common are comorbidites?

 

The list could go on forever.  This is partly why models can never be right.

 

We can't conclude that lockdown is necessary or unnecessary based on the data available.  We do know that there are other countries that have managed to get through this, somehow, without locking down.

 

Anybody that claims lockdown is necessary is pretending.  It doesn't reveal anything about how effective the policy is.  It is more like a rorschach test.  Some people like to think and be free.  Others want the big man from the state to tell them what to do.

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ranger_syntax said:

Others want the big man from the state to tell them what to do

Mrs 7 was trawling a local website searching for specific neighbourhood covid data. She read a happy post from some woman praising Sturgeon “for telling us what to do”.  Thankfully, there was a counter post pointing out that Hitler and Stalin did that too. No doubt the point was lost because I doubt if the original  poster would know who they were.

 

Three old folk whom I know truly believe “Nicola is looking after them”. Depressing, because although they themselves would never claim to have attained a high educational standard I always thought they had plenty of common sense.

 

SNP propaganda is stunningly successful. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Strange how the fact that Norway, Sweden and Finland are similarly urbanised has been conveniently ignored. In 2020 Norway was reported to be 83% urbanised and Finland was 85.5%. Kinda blows the entire argument out of the water. And all three also have lots of trees, especially Finland.

 

What Sweden has is more people and hence more larger centres of population. That's the point, together with a less severe lockdown strategy, not the degree of urbanisation

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

Mrs 7 was trawling a local website searching for specific neighbourhood covid data. She read a happy post from some woman praising Sturgeon “for telling us what to do”.  Thankfully, there was a counter post pointing out that Hitler and Stalin did that too. No doubt the point was lost because I doubt if the original  poster would know who they were.

 

Three old folk whom I know truly believe “Nicola is looking after them”. Depressing, because although they themselves would never claim to have attained a high educational standard I always thought they had plenty of common sense.

 

SNP propaganda is stunningly successful. 

The clever thing that Sturgeon always does is assure people she is suffering with them. It's bullshit of course but people love it. Look for it in every speech, every episode of The Sturgeon Show

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.