The main case against "lockdowns" in the West is that they never happened. Joe's Generic Breakfast Diner was forced to close, meanwhile Walmart and Home Depot remained open, often packed with people spending their "stimulus" checks, because supposedly they were "essential" businesses. I think China may have had 6-8 weeks of hard lockdowns in some areas and then it was done. China's lockdown was actually a lockdown not some weird play acting so it seems like it was pretty effective.
That explains, in large part, why Sweden's cumulative death rates are not much different from countries that had "lockdowns" that were not really lockdowns.
In January, Feburary, and maybe early March 2020 the West had a choice. Either implement a strict China style "lockdown" or just let people decide for themselves (the Sweden model). Instead the West chose the worst option, an ineffective half hearted fake lockdown that maximized economic and social disruption. Now more than a year later we are still not out of the woods.
New Zealand is a good example of how lockdowns, quarantine can work if implemented early and effectively.
After a year I think it is pretty clear that the half-hearted lockdown that the West implemented was both ineffective and worse than just actually letting the disease spread naturally. It is not clear, to me at least, that it was a worse option than a sharp, hard lockdown in early 2020, like China did and New Zealand did. Those quarantine approaches seem to have been highly effective.
The blog article has a great picture showing comparative outcomes in the over-60 population with the advent of vaccines. Now that is an example of a visible effect.
What the article leaves unexplored is what policies actually are effective. It's clearly not blanket lockdowns the way they were applied in most Western countries. But does limiting access to retirement homes change mortality and if so what's the best way to do it? If the overall answer is changing behavior at the micro scale for the entire population, what's the best way to do that?
Clearly covid-19 is spread via a similar mode to other respiratory disease, i.e. close personal contact for a certain amount of time. Thus the best way to mitigate population morbidity until vaccine development would have been for the most at risk people to stay at come. Covid appears to by a normal respiratory virus, e.g. like a common cold, that for some people, particularly those with metabolic disease, i.e. diabetes, causes an exaggerated inflammatory reaction which results in ARDS and clotting and death in some cases. For those without metabolic disease or obesity and a few other risk factors covid is really not a serious disease in most cases. My opinion is that healthy people under the age of 50 could have lived and worked as normal this past year without much increased mortality. Those at high risk should have had the option to voluntarily isolate. Even for an 80 year old, a year of isolation may not be worth avoiding perhaps a 5% risk of death.
That explains, in large part, why Sweden's cumulative death rates are not much different from countries that had "lockdowns" that were not really lockdowns.
In January, Feburary, and maybe early March 2020 the West had a choice. Either implement a strict China style "lockdown" or just let people decide for themselves (the Sweden model). Instead the West chose the worst option, an ineffective half hearted fake lockdown that maximized economic and social disruption. Now more than a year later we are still not out of the woods.
New Zealand is a good example of how lockdowns, quarantine can work if implemented early and effectively.
After a year I think it is pretty clear that the half-hearted lockdown that the West implemented was both ineffective and worse than just actually letting the disease spread naturally. It is not clear, to me at least, that it was a worse option than a sharp, hard lockdown in early 2020, like China did and New Zealand did. Those quarantine approaches seem to have been highly effective.