It’s entirely possible that two countries could pursue wholly different strategies and both be right. Sweden’s population density is much lower than the UK’s, and therefore its R0 (transmission rate) would be lower, if both pursued the same (or no) mitigation strategy. Less change is therefore needed to get R0 below one, the point at which new cases decline, or to hold it around one, enabling it to pass through society at a rate that allows hospitals to provide suitable care to those infected while working toward herd immunity.

The unstated question for the UK is whether we recognise the vast differences in population density across the British Isles by varying the degree of lockdown across the country. Encouraging the good people of Dartmoor or the Fens to meet friends at the pub while closing down the London Underground seems inconsistent but may be the optimum strategy, if we believe it can be communicated clearly and that people won’t game it by moving around the country (think furloughed London couple retreating to one set of parents’ holiday cottage in the Scottish Highlands).

I agree with so much of this article -thank you for articulating a viewpoint that is hard to find in the mainstream -disgraceful though it is that such a thing should be true to say.

As you write, ‘some of the simplistic thinking surrounding this crisis needs to be challenged’.

In terms of ‘the government being backed into a corner’ however, it seems to me it’s doing a fine enough of a job of this on its own and without the need for any assistance. Today Sunak was making the plaintive case that given the choice between ‘people’s health’ and the ‘economy’ he would choose people’s health every day -bathing in virtuous self regard and moral sanctimony. This is not just in all probability, an outright lie (I’m sure he could be pretty Machiavellian with some economic decision making) but it’s an utterly false choice making out that the government in some way had its hands tied when it came to competent decision making by its moral duty. This government has messed up – but they need a narrative which will obfuscate the ineptitude of their fight/ flight response to date -and the ‘saving lives’ and ‘protecting the NHS’ will do.

By the way, in terms of ‘protecting the NHS’ the vast majority of NHS staff are currently doing far less than they have ever had to do thanks to this lockdown. Almost all appointments have been cancelled, no referrals, no consultations, nothing! I imagine the NHS has collectively never been so unproductive in its entire history. Once the data is in -we can assess just how much harm this branch of inactivity has conferred on patients.

And the media are meanwhile lapping it all up faithfully and feeding us stories about OAPs running around in circles in their back gardens ‘for the NHS’. A metaphor if you will for the aimless blind panic of the response to this crisis.

“A better definition of success would surely be: which governments are getting the balance right between protecting their people as reasonably as possible against this new threat while not destroying too much of their country in the process?”

In short: we don’t want a victory over Covid-19 to be a Pyrrhic one, which it could well be if lockdown goes on much longer.

Hi, as a Swede, do you base your assumptions on the official numbers or the actual numbers (that are bad enough for the leadership to withhold from the public?
Israel’s population is more or less the same as Sweden’s, but Israel tracks and maps cathode contagious and sick and have a tenth of the mortality compared to Sweden. And in Sweden the authorities count only hospital cases and so far not those who died or are dying at home or at the nursing homes, of which approximately 100 are infected. That makes excellent statistics. At the same time Swedish authorities boast about having an 80% success rate at the ICU’s. That means they admit those expected to recover, not that they admit those who are really in bad condition. There’s a selection underway where doctors are made to choose which ones to save. Those over the biological age of 80 are not admitted.
However, illegal aliens are – despite the fact that the former have paid hefty taxes most of their lives in order to ensure that they get to live their lives fully, with the care they are entitled to – something which they under this pandemic, are not granted.
In acting quickly many lives are saved – dragging it out, waiting “to see what will happen” and them doing the opposite of others with by now more experience, not encouraging people to take safety measures, selling all the field hospitals, military and crisis supplies so the Swedes stand unprotected at the mercy of a government who is paralysed and too afraid to act now but instead hiding the actual extent of the crisis. In the meantime hospital staff make their own protective gear and the staff at the nursing homes in general wears none whatsoever. Just the other day Tegnell, the elected head epidemiologist, admits that maybe, just maybe one can be contagious without showing symptoms – while doctors from all over the country rage at this blatant system of misinformation. If you break the back of the healthcare system (which was at breaking point even before there even existed something called Corona) chances are that not even people of the “right” age will have somewhere to turn. This is what happens when you let loose this disease, which, by the way is said to be 10 times as deadly as the swine flu. Don’t think Sweden has any form of control – they don’t. The numbers they serve are made to look good and they are falsified, just like the information given to the public.
The mouth cover is not for your own protection, but others’ – so don’t be selfish.
If you want more information on this, just contact me and I’ll show you where to go, in order to get to the bottom of this.
Stay healthy!

Much needed article. The media’s silence on 3 great days in Sweden, in terms of CV19, was deafening. Now the Swedish government reported just 5 deaths on 14th April, the same as Norway and 1/3 of Denmark. Instead of celebration and enquiry into the validity of lockdown, an anonymous hack put 114 deaths on the most visited site on the virus http://www.worldometer.com. This number was then immediately picked up by a journalist and posted on Forbes as proof of the disaster of Sweden’s policy. Just 5 new people also went into intensive care. spread the word, lock down was an economic disaster with very limited or quantifiable benefits to the safety of the community.

This is why I go directly to data sources myself, rather than relying on shared charts. I put in the countries and parameters that I want to check against. Replying to the Swedish guy below, I wish the infamous Neil Ferguson (aka Professor Lockdown) who’s non-peer-reviewed study (which he later proved that he did not believe in by flouting his own rules) pushed our government to enter a Draconian lockdown, would take a good long look at this latest in a line of predictive failures and learn something. If only that outdated computer modelling is unreliable. The Swedes have got it right!