The real cost of lockdowns….

Fast Eddie said:
Well he said they’d do things differently… he purposely did not say they would lock down like the rest “probably somewhere between Sweden and the rest of the world” was his conclusion.

Thats a good honest statement in my book, made by someone genuinely willing to review and learn.

In contrast, here in the U.K. we currently have a lockdown ‘enquiry‘ that seems obsessed with whether or not we should have locked down one or two weeks earlier !

I thought this was a good observation of Swedens situation:

“Anders Tegnell did explain what went wrong. They did not protect the nursing homes well enough. Out of 4,542 deaths 88% were over 70. You keep kids in school and you maintain the workforce. They did that and there were exactly 198 deaths under the age of 60 or 4% of deaths or 0.0001935% of the Swedish population.

This is the lesson of why you do not lockdown. This affects the elderly and immune weakened. That is who you quarantine, not the school age with statistically 0% mortality or the workforce with close to 0% mortality”.

In other words, we SHOULD do intelligent things... and avoid unintelligent blanket lock downs
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Having followed Sweden's situation closely I did not expect Tegnell to ever do a full 180 as he was initially so confident that he was right and the rest of the world was wrong. When our health authority and most others advised to wear masks in public places Tegnell was advising just the opposite.
If you look at the figures for Norway and Denmark it is clear that their lockdowns had the desired effect, even if some folks had their activities unnecessarily curtailed.
Tegnell managed to do about a 120 degree turn in the quoted article, which was enough to put the Swedish Gocernment into a flat spin. They had followed his instructions completely then were shocked when things didn't work out as planned and he changed his tune.
I recall first hearing about Sweden at a dinner gathering with friends, early on on Covid when we were still permitted to do such things.
One fellow at the dinner always takes the opposite tack to authority. He held Sweden up as an example of how things should be done. They were not locking down , people were free to enjoy the good life, covid wasn't much of a problem and their economy would flourish.
We already had some restrictions in place and more coming, so this Sweden model sounded great.
I followed their situation closely over the next couple of years. None of the Tegnell's promises came to pass, they had a huge death toll, their economy shrunk and many people were afraid to move about.
It was obvious to anyone following the situation that Sweden was in a mess.

About two years later our same little group got together. I figured that the topic of Sweden and Tegnell's misguided approach would not come up.
To the surprise of most of us, our Opposite man brought it up and once again held Sweden up as the perfect example of a Country that handled Covid the best way. He felt that all of our rules had been totally unnecessary and even harmful, even though BC had gotten off very lightly with Covid.

The rest of us just looked at one another and shrugged as there was no point, this was a man who would not be swayed by the facts.

Glen
The real cost of lockdowns….
 
Nigel,

Are you starting to feel like I often do and wish that the OP could close the threads they start? Time for me to unwatch this one - spinning in circles mostly about personal politics and no one is learning anything or relenting in their views.

Greg...
 
If you are referring to my post, there is no mention of personal politics?
I avoid political stuff at all costs.

I do follow numbers though. The Swedish plan sounded promising but the numbers in the first wave were just too great to ignore.
The Swedish people did adjust though, and the Swedish Government did bring in some regulations which seemed to mitigate the situation.

Glen
 
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marshg246 said:
Nigel,

Are you starting to feel like I often do and wish that the OP could close the threads they start? Time for me to unwatch this one - spinning in circles mostly about personal politics and no one is learning anything or relenting in their views.

Greg...
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Agreed.
 
worntorn said:
If you are referring to my post, there is no mention of personal politics?
I avoid political stuff at all costs.

I do follow numbers though. The Swedish plan sounded promising but the numbers in the first wave were just to great to ignore.
The Swedish people did adjust though, and the Swedish Government did bring in some regulations which seemed to mitigate the situation.

Glen
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Nope, didn't reply to you. Made a general statement. Tried to PM you, but you have it shut off.
 
baz said:
There were plenty of people over here wearing masks in cars on their own!!! What the hell was that about 🤣
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Then again in 2021 I met a couple who refused to wear masks at all because masks cause you to " rebreath your own carbon monoxide" which is deadly.

My suggestion was that if they are truly exhaling carbon monoxide they need to visit Minitune immediately for some exhaust analysis!

Glen
 
Did you tell them? About the difference in exhaust gasses?
My guess is you let them go right on thinking they were belching out CO.
 
I did try to convince them that we humans exhale some carbon dioxide, but hopefully zero carbon monoxide.
That news received partial acceptance but they still were convinced that the rebreathing effect caused by a mask was going to get them.
Pointing out that Doctors and Nurses wear masks for many hours per day, year in and year out and live to talk about it did not change their minds on the dangers of masking up.
 
In a court of law an expert is only an expert until he is wrong once. How many experts were involved in this whole fiasco? All I can say is most deaths were people who were at risk in a way greater than average be they old, out of shape, or whatever. The jab made me sick as a dog and I got sick anyway. But I am still here because I own a Norton and you can just look at the data and see Norton ownership leads to a positive outcome.
Did I change my behavior due to the pandemic? Yes. I now always wash my hands upon returning home.
Why? Because it is less obvious than wearing a sack of garlic about my neck? Dunno....:)
 
The big lesson learned in our neck of the woods was that there are significant numbers of people who won't follow health rules, even when those rules make good sense and require only a small detour from the desired path.
Those were the ones that got into trouble early on, plugged up the ICUs and also caused a lot of grief for others.

One of the most surprising was when a large group of Dentists went against our Provincial Health Authority's order to cancel their convention/ pissup/ away from the missus weekend.
They ignored her at their peril. 15,000 people were registered for the event.
Many people became ill and at least one Dentist died. It was our first Superspreader Event and the Health Officer could see it coming, that's why she canceled it. She was surprised and very angry when the Dentist's chose to ignore a Provincial Health order.
In the aftermath the Health Authority shut down all Dental Offices in the Province for months. Almost every working Dentist in BC had attended the Convention. You can imagine how they screamed at her over their lost income. She is strong little lady and she didn't budge.

This was early days, no one knew what the hell this thing was and there was no vaccine. When people got sick with it, even healthy middle aged Dentists, it tended to be very bad.
I was glad that she shut them down. I wouldn't want a Dentist who had attended that event hovering over me and working on my mouth.
They weren't the only group to do stupid things, there were lots of churches that kept operating against Provincial Health orders. Lots of those folks became ill and developed long covid, permanent lung scarring. They also passed the disease on to many unsuspecting people.
Our society here is very soft and self indulged . We would not respond well during a time of war.
I can't imagine something like Britain's WW2 blackout working at all here now.

Glen
 
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As must be obvious to all we are debating this business with the benefit of hindsight which is 20/20 …
Agreed that most of the fatalities were/ are people with underlying health issues and/ or advanced age .
However that doesn’t always mitigate the loss to their loved ones .
My wife and daughter worked in nursing homes and had to deal with families of residents who died on a daily basis . No easy task .
 
You know at this point it is a case of nobody knows. Not me, not you, nobody. If you believe the vax worked and all the lockdown helped then you believe but not based on facts because nobody has any.
They have anecdotal evidence. Now on the other hand if you believe it was a pointless hustle and the vax
didn't work you don't know you just believe. You have no facts no data because you don't .
What data we do have is suspect as can be because, like global warming, the science left town a long time ago on its way to the bank.
We do know that the world has divided into two camps and neither will accept anything from the other side and this isn't going to change in our lifetimes.
All we can do is do what we think best.
 
Richard Tool said:
As must be obvious to all we are debating this business with the benefit of hindsight which is 20/20 …
Agreed that most of the fatalities were/ are people with underlying health issues and/ or advanced age .
However that doesn’t always mitigate the loss to their loved ones .
My wife and daughter worked in nursing homes and had to deal with families of residents who died on a daily basis . No easy task .
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Any student of history will tell you that pandemics rock the world from time to time. As pandemics go The COVID one was mild by comparison. During the Bubonic Plague one third of Europe died as it reoccurred regularly over a number of years. The efforts to combat that disease are a mixed bag and rather inconclusive to this day. They too had lock downs with mixed results. We have the benefit of modern medical knowledge and hindsight and we are still arguing about cause and effect.

In 1918 there was an outbreak of something called the Spanish Flu. My grandfather lost his half brother and half sister. He said "some communities were spared while other had multiple advanced cases. The hallmark of that infection was a pneumonia that seems to effect the most healthy subjects. Fully half of the US solders that died during WWI died of influenza. Many measures were tried, once again with mixed results. There is a brick paved sidewalk in the little town where I lived for over 20 years. Several of the bricks have the words "no spitting" cast into them. This is a result of just one of the regulations implemented during the flu epidemic. They tried various measures and still people died.

I have spent a lot of time in skilled nursing facilities both from my time in medical marketing and from time with my parents and great aunts and uncles. Even a mild infection is a huge risk in a SNF. It's made worse by the very nature of the clientele who are vulnerable to infection but who love to receive visitors and family. Death is a constant visitor even in the best of times.

It's very difficult to assess the effectiveness of preventive measures in a scientific fashion because there are too many variables. We live in a time when the population is aging and we have developed strategies to manage people's specific health needs. It also makes these people vulnerable. There are no easy answers. My biggest concern came from groups that were so sure of their convictions that they were willing to cost people their jobs, their businesses and implement other punitive measures for noncompliance. We had people turning on each other often times based on political affiliation. I think it boils down to a dispute between those that say "we have to do something" and those that say "nothing we do will make much difference."
 
worntorn said:
The big lesson learned in our neck of the woods was that there are significant numbers of people who won't follow health rules, even when those rules make good sense and require only a small detour from the desired path.
Those were the ones that got into trouble early on, plugged up the ICUs and also caused a lot of grief for others.

One of the most surprising was when a large group of Dentists went against our Provincial Health Authority's order to cancel their convention/ pissup/ away from the missus weekend.
They ignored her at their peril. 15,000 people were registered for the event.
Many people became ill and at least one Dentist died. It was our first Superspreader Event and the Health Officer could see it coming, that's why she canceled it. She was surprised and very angry when the Dentist's chose to ignore a Provincial Health order.
In the aftermath the Health Authority shut down all Dental Offices in the Province for months. Almost every working Dentist in BC had attended the Convention. You can imagine how they screamed at her over their lost income. She is strong little lady and she didn't budge.

This was early days, no one knew what the hell this thing was and there was no vaccine. When people got sick with it, even healthy middle aged Dentists, it tended to be very bad.
I was glad that she shut them down. I wouldn't want a Dentist who had attended that event hovering over me and working on my mouth.
They weren't the only group to do stupid things, there were lots of churches that kept operating against Provincial Health orders. Lots of those folks became ill and developed long covid, permanent lung scarring. They also passed the disease on to many unsuspecting people.
Our society here is very soft and self indulged . We would not respond well during a time of war.
I can't imagine something like Britain's WW2 blackout working at all here now.

Glen
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Your dentist story is a great example, partly for the reason you raise it, which I agree with strongly, but also because it’s an example of a ridiculous over reaction.

Even if all of those dentists got covid, the infection duration is very predictable and is measured in days, not months. Locking them down for two weeks would have been a very practical measure ‘on the safe side’, locking them down for several months has no basis in the prevention of anything !

Whatever her motive, and whatever pain it caused the dentists, what about all the poor sods who needed dental treatment !?!
 
worntorn said:
The big lesson learned in our neck of the woods was that there are significant numbers of people who won't follow health rules, even when those rules make good sense and require only a small detour from the desired path.
Those were the ones that got into trouble early on, plugged up the ICUs and also caused a lot of grief for others.

One of the most surprising was when a large group of Dentists went against our Provincial Health Authority's order to cancel their convention/ pissup/ away from the missus weekend.
They ignored her at their peril. 15,000 people were registered for the event.
Many people became ill and at least one Dentist died. It was our first Superspreader Event and the Health Officer could see it coming, that's why she canceled it. She was surprised and very angry when the Dentist's chose to ignore a Provincial Health order.
In the aftermath the Health Authority shut down all Dental Offices in the Province for months. Almost every working Dentist in BC had attended the Convention. You can imagine how they screamed at her over their lost income. She is strong little lady and she didn't budge.

This was early days, no one knew what the hell this thing was and there was no vaccine. When people got sick with it, even healthy middle aged Dentists, it tended to be very bad.
I was glad that she shut them down. I wouldn't want a Dentist who had attended that event hovering over me and working on my mouth.
They weren't the only group to do stupid things, there were lots of churches that kept operating against Provincial Health orders. Lots of those folks became ill and developed long covid, permanent lung scarring. They also passed the disease on to many unsuspecting people.
Our society here is very soft and self indulged . We would not respond well during a time of war.
I can't imagine something like Britain's WW2 blackout working at all here now.

Glen
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Do you have any evidence for that big lesson? Any firm correlation that it was those that ignored the rules who clogged up the ICUs etc ?

I understand why it’s easy to believe that, especially when you’re following the rules and see others blatantly disregarding them. But personally I’m sceptical and find it hard to believe there was much firm cause and effect.
 
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Richard Tool said:
As must be obvious to all we are debating this business with the benefit of hindsight which is 20/20 …
Agreed that most of the fatalities were/ are people with underlying health issues and/ or advanced age .
However that doesn’t always mitigate the loss to their loved ones .
My wife and daughter worked in nursing homes and had to deal with families of residents who died on a daily basis . No easy task .
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True, hindsight is a wonderful thing and should be used to learn, not blame.

But there is a big difference between hindsight, and opposing points of view that were ignored, shut down, etc at the time that now seem more true, more believable.

A big lesson we MUST take from this is to not fall back into medival superstition whenever we are faced with something we can’t control or understand fully, which I believe is close to what happened (ok, I confess I’m stretching the point a bit for theatrical effect).

However, we must never again be bowled over by claims of ‘THE science’ ie the claim that there is only ONE correct science, and that’s the one that I say, and all others are wrong / fake / conspiratorial.

That‘s simply not how science works. That‘s how authoritarian regimes work.
 
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