No Empirical Evidence Lockdown Works

[Nemo]

for good or bad.

Nemo



https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/there-is-no-empirical-evidence-for-these-lockdowns/

There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns

Comparing US states shows there is no relationship between lockdowns and lower Covid-19 deaths.
Wilfred Reilly
22nd April 2020


Several weeks ago, one of the USA’s better quantitative scientists, John Ioannidis of Stanford, made a critically important point. During the coronavirus pandemic, ‘we are making decisions without reliable data’, he said.

As Ioannidis and others have pointed out, we do not even know the actual death rate for Covid-19. Terrifying and widely cited case-fatality rates like ‘three per cent’ come from comparing known fatalities to the small pool of people who have officially been tested. Those test cases are mostly made up of sick and symptomatic people or those who had direct contact with someone known to have had Covid-19 – rather than to the far larger pool of people who may have had a mild version of the disease. Because of the same denominator problem, we also don’t know the true infection rate. A recent German study indicates this could be as high as 15 per cent.

Finally, we do not seem to know the effectiveness of the various strategies adopted by national and regional governments to respond to the disease – ranging from the advocacy of social distancing to full-on lockdowns.

This piece tackles that question. As a professional political scientist, I have analysed data from the Worldometers Coronavirus project, along with information about the population, population density, median income, median age and diversity of each US state, to determine whether states that have adopted lockdowns or ‘shelter in place’ orders experience fewer Covid-19 cases and deaths than those which pursue a social-distancing strategy without a formal lockdown. I then briefly extend this analysis to compare countries. In short, I do not find that lockdowns are a more effective way of handling coronavirus than well-done social-distancing measures.

The most basic way to test this thesis is by direct comparison. As of 6 April, seven US states had not adopted shelter-in-place orders, instead imposing social-distancing restrictions such as banning large gatherings and mandating six-foot spacing gaps and maximum customer limits inside all retail stores. Those seven states are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. These states reported 1,620, 2,141, 952, 343, 1,311, 2,542 and 288 cases of Covid-19 respectively as of 3:40pm EST on 16 April – for an average of 1,321 cases. The states reported 37, 60, 21, 9, 7, 20, and 2 deaths respectively, for an average of 22.3 deaths. Throwing in South Carolina, which did not adopt a shelter-in-place order until 6 April, and still allows most religious services, does not dramatically alter these figures – these states averaged 1,613 cases and 33 deaths.

.   .   .

continued

[Kbop]

old post - but we now have actual evidence in Taiwan and New Zealand - well documented, and a few others not so well documented.
spoiler alert - social distancing can work.
-pros, grandma and the kid down the street with T1 diabetes live.
-cons, if not voluntary it violates the US Constitution, as i understand it, oh and it tanks your economy.

we also have data from Sweden's experiment - it is resulting in higher death rates than the surrounding countries.  Their economy is in good shape, though.

[grizz]

Our death rate has not gone up even after spring break and now the terrorist, um, protestors are meeting in groups of 10's of thousands and more

If masks work why shut down churches and restaurants?

[gadget99]

Hi all,

The Sweden data is very interesting.

Dr Campbell covered it yesterday in an update.

https://youtu.be/K4SQ-NOV-iU

So many forget how realitivly new this virus is. We are learning more each day.

I get where peoples opinions come from and respect such. However this is still early days and we are in a long term game at the moment.

Nobody can predict how rocky the road may get.

I did however find an info graphic from the Spanish Flu on its timeline.

[JohnyMac]

Gadget, you post a graph from the 1918-19 pandemic which follows other examples of more present day pandemics. I speculate that we will see another spike, whether it be 4-fold as we see here or even 2-fold.

Notice, the peak will come close to the Presidential election. If a Progressive state sends out 'mail in ballots' using the pretext of the "second coming" of the Chinese virus, man O' man Uncle Joe will or some new Democrat pawn, will be President.

[JoJo]

 Of course there will be an uptic in the china flu. It will be nurse made, they will be putting older sick patience in with china flu patience. They have been doing this all along to increase the numbers. The hospital gets about $34,000 for a patient that died of the flu and about $10,000 for a recovery.
 How do I know this you ask. I have three nurses in my family who work at different hospitals and they tell the same story. They work in New Jersey and Philadelphia. 
 Most nurses are leftest and are Trump haters.   

[pkveazey]

I predict that even if NOBODY catches the virus, the numbers will be reported as a massive resurgence. At this point, I don't believe anything I hear or read in the news. This crap is getting old real fast. I'm tired of it.

[gadget99]

We are hoping here in the UK that if there is another wave, it will not be to bad. The numbers and statistics being reported here in the UK are pretty reliable at the moment. So we have a pretty good handle on what has happened since the start.

Now with the hopes and dreams aside. The concern is for a second wave hitting as the seasonal flu season starts. That could really cause problems.

Though we are better prepared now if this happens.