Many parts of the world are commemorating the first anniversary of the start of the lockdowns. In those days we were told that they were a temporary measure designed to ‘flatten the curve’ ie to distribute the inevitable serious cases over a longer period to protect the health system.

Thereafter that turned into a desire to somehow try to defeat the virus by hiding from it. This didn’t just happen in Australia but in large parts of the world. League tables were set up with the only criteria deciding if governments were successful or not being the number of deaths their allocated to the virus. In Australia that meant NSW was originally determined to have failed when it had more allocated deaths than other states and that thinking continued until Victoria completely failed whereupon our league tables ceased to be published.

Given that the world is now starting to come out from the lockdown mania and is also in a position to gather data on the actual success of the unprecedented health measure, more and more people are coming to realise that the lockdowns were a disaster.

One of the main issues has been that comparison across time and place was difficult due to differing counting methods. But now we are able to determine the total number of deaths in the period for each country and compare that to prior periods. Doing that shows, for example, that in Sweden, which effectively eschewed the lockdown mania, the numbers of total deaths in 2020 was lower than the average for the previous ten years.

Equally, in the USA, state comparisons are showing that the states with the greatest increase in death were those that locked-down the hardest while those who had much less stringent or extended lockdowns did comparatively better, though only slightly so. The takeaway being that the lockdowns had little effect on the outcomes.
The ramifications of the “worst public health mistake in last 100 years” will be with us for decades. The health and mental effects will be around for years to come. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson

I for one am grateful for what our government has
done and the way it has handled the response to
the virus. Our death tolls have been very small
in comparison to some countries. Listening to
the advice of medical experts appears to have
worked. We can't really complain about lockdowns.
They were necessary, and now are being slowly lifted
as appropriate. Well done Australia!

Some of the data referred to above:
The analysis on the US states can be found here….
http://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/02/03/#lockdown-states-suffer-more-covid-deaths-on-average
Follow the links to verify the actual data.
Similar observations can be found in Europe where those nations with the heaviest lockdowns fared no better than those states with relatively less stringent measures.

Comparing nations by using their total mortality figures shows also that the level of lockdown didn’t make much difference….
http://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/03/14/when-will-government-reject-the-failed-lockdown-models/

The data on Sweden can be found here: http://www.pandata.org/lockdowns-dont-save-lives-sweden/

Not only was the death rate in Sweden lower than the 10 year average but the increase from the previous year was lower in Sweden than most other European countries.

Dear mhaze,

You write: "One of the main issues has been that comparison across time and place was difficult due to differing counting methods. But now we are able to determine the total number of deaths in the period for each country and compare that to prior periods. Doing that shows, for example, that in Sweden, which effectively eschewed the lockdown mania, the numbers of total deaths in 2020 was lower than the average for the previous ten years."

Oh what an utter lie. This is the very reason you nearly always fail to provide any links.

Well here is one for you old boy.

Sweden total deaths.

2011 89,938

2012 91,938

2013 90,402

2014 88,976

2015 90,907

2016 90,982

2017 91,972

2018 92,185

2019 88,766

2020 97,941

http://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/

So last year was the highest despite Covid measures having an impact on flu deaths even in Sweden.

I know how much figures throw you but even you can see this was well above the average of the last 10 years.

And here are the relative excessive death graphs for each of the Scandinavian countries.

http://imgur.com/a/Wnl4ygr

Guess which one had the least lockdowns.

Retrieved from here: http://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/

Mate you really do need to spend less time of fringe websites. They are making you look like even more of a fool.

With the draconian lock downs of healthy people we now have a precedent for the future. It is much easier to create conventions than it is to break them. The government has exaggerated fears because it knows that frightened people will submit.

However, they might be surprised. Lord Sumption, retired UK Supreme Court judge, believes that resistance to draconian laws will not be loud and public: it will be quiet and ignoring of the laws.

Changes are not made by street violence and demonstrations; they are made by millions of people quietly making their own choices.

Governments should have sought second opinions rather than going with first advisers. There is no evidence that locking down healthy people to protect the old and weak had any effect whatsoever. As the collective voice of the herd becomes dominant, the ability of people to think atrophies.

I think that Australian statistics speak for themselves.
Well Done Australia!

ttbn says, "There is no evidence that locking down healthy people to protect the old and weak had any effect whatsoever."

Well he must be living on another planet, because lockdowns certainly DO WORK and the proof is right here in Australia. Last year, primarily via the use of lockdowns and border closures, we ELIMINATED the virus! It is a FACT that we simply don't have the virus in the general community anymore* unlike the rest of the world. It is impossible to deny that our lockdowns worked!!

The difference between us and the rest of the world as to why our lockdowns worked and not theirs is-
-we lockdowned till the virus was basically gone instead of just for the purpose of flattening the curve (Flattening the curve was the original purpose but the lockdowns worked so well, and using the New Zealand example as encouragement, it was realized that we could eliminate the virus instead.)
- we've firmly shut our international borders to almost all non-citizens and limited the daily number of those entering (mainly returning citizens)
- we've implemented strict hotel quarantine instead of relying on self-isolation for those who do enter from overseas
- have a cooperative public towards testing and the government's contact tracing along with general social distancing and improved hygiene

Here in Queensland we've managed to stay virus free for months and months now with only two outbreaks from quarantine failures. The first outvbreak we handled with just a city wide lockdown which was quickly lifted after a few days once we were back on top of the situation. And the second didn't require a lockdown since those involved were sensible/responsible and already taking precautions so that contact tracing and self-isolation/social distancing was sufficient to quash it. For ages now we've been able to go about our lives pretty much the same as before the pandemic with the main exception that we cannot go overseas without government permission.

*except for the rare quarantine breeches/failures which we've learnt how to deal with through a response of regional/city-wide lockdowns and contact tracing as appropriate.

Standard SR there....completely ignores all the data I mentioned and runs off to find his own inaccurate numbers.

SR, might I point out that Sweden has had a substantial increase in population since 2010.

I know I'm going to lose you here, but that means that when you compare Sweden's deaths in 2010 with those in 2020, you need to adjust for the change in the population numbers. It'd also be good if you adjusted for the change in the age and gender profile of the population.

I know that such calculations are beyond your means but luckily, its already been done for you. See the numbers I linked? They compare Sweden's age and gender adjusted outcomes over the years after also adjusting for the increased population.

Now I know that you are now scratching your head trying to make sense of all that, but what it means is that Sweden's lack of lockdowns had no effect on the death outcomes.

Yes yes, its all very complicated and SR doesn't do complicated. But in the adult world that's what we do.

"lockdowns certainly DO WORK and the proof is right here in Australia."

Correlation doesn't prove causation. Australia had lockdowns and Australia had few deaths, therefore lockdowns cause fewer deaths. But if that were true, it'd be true everywhere and it wasn't.

The data I showed revealed that the level of lockdown among the US states had no effect on the outcomes.

The data I showed revealed that the level of lockdown among the various European nations had no effect on the outcomes.

If lockdowns worked, they would have worked in those other places as well.

Australia was lucky in that we had conditions apart from the lockdowns thatmeant the virus was always going to be a lesser problem here than in the congested parts of the Northern Hemisphere eg

1. We are an island. Most of the places that did well were islands or able to be quickly isolated - Taiwan, Japan, NZ, south Korea (not an island but its only border is permanently closed).
2. We don't have major congested cities.
3. We have high vitamin D levels on average which has been shown to be protective
4. The virus hit in summer when it is weaker, so all our early mistakes were less consequential.
5. We don't have a tradition of multi-generational households.

We were lucky. The lockdowns played an minor part in that luck.

Dear mhaze,

Well you have been well and truly caught out on this one haven't you. You rather dodgy article sure does mention deaths per 10,000 but you specifically spoke about “total deaths” not once but twice.

You mentioned the data for Sweden here: “The data on Sweden can be found here: http://www.pandata.org/lockdowns-dont-save-lives-sweden/ “

All it is is a dodgy graph with no reference or links to any data source. That is your evidence and somehow gives you the right to question the figures I presented. It shows an indistinct bar graph claiming to show deaths per 10,000. There were no actual figures provided nor the total figures you insisted were there.

Come on mate, that is a child like effort. How about you step it up a little. This is getting boring.

As to population increases we are not comparing 2010 to 2020 because your claim was that 2020 was lower than the average of the last 10 years. Nor is there any account for the rise in life expectancy over that time.

“The large number of deaths in 2020 led the average life expectancy of men to drop the same level as in 2016. The average life expectancy of women was affected to a somewhat smaller extent, and fell to the same level as in 2018. This was the largest decline in average life expectancy between two years since the 1940s.”
http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/

Look mate, stop trying to defend your stuff ups. How about you supply some data from reputable sources for a change rather that antilockdown fringe rubbish and then we can have a debate on the facts.

mhaze says, " Australia had lockdowns and Australia had few deaths, therefore lockdowns cause fewer deaths. But if that were true, it'd be true everywhere and it wasn't."

Well, in my last post I explicitly explained why our version of lockdown was completely differently from what the almost all of the rest of the world has done/is doing. Comparing Austrlia's lockdown to Europe's or America's is trying to compare apples and oranges.

I'll repeat via direct quote the points that I listed in my last post so that mhaze will hopefully get it this time. Here we go:

"The difference between us and the rest of the world as to why our lockdowns worked and not theirs is-
-we lockdowned* till the virus was basically gone instead of just for the purpose of flattening the curve. (Flattening the curve was the original purpose but the lockdowns worked so well, and using the New Zealand example as encouragement, it was realized that we could eliminate the virus instead.)
- we've firmly shut our international borders to almost all non-citizens and limited the daily number of those entering (mainly returning citizens)
- we've implemented strict hotel quarantine instead of relying on self-isolation for those who do enter from overseas
- have a cooperative public towards testing and the government's contact tracing along with general social distancing and improved hygiene"

The most pertinent point is the first. That is, we locked down until the virus was ELIMINATED.

-- continued below ...

-- from above --

Just to make it easier for you to understand mhaze:
There is a world of difference between x people having the virus being reduced to 1/2 x people when compared to 1/2 x reduced to 0 even though it is the same absolute number in reduced cases. And that is because zero is a very, very special number. As any school kid could tell you, once you're at zero it is IMPOSSIBLE for the number of active virus cases to increase via local transmission. (Which is different from any other natural number of cases. Zero is a unique number in this sense, mathematicians call it the "nonexistence of nontrivial zero divisors"). The ONLY way the virus can return is if someone were to bring in from overseas.

So, as anyone with even to slightest intelligence can understand, the best strategy to control/prevent the spread of this virus is to is get to ZERO cases and shut the borders and then wait for a vaccine to be developed. Which is more or less what we've done except we didn't shut the borders completely but implemented hotel quarantine. And that is what makes Australia's situation different from the rest of the world!

But here's a thought for you: just imagine if a year ago the whole world did what Australia and New Zealand did. Ie., Shut the borders and locked down till achieving local elimination (which only took 4 weeks for New Zealand and about 6 for most of Australia) and implemented controlled quarantine, contact tracing and wide spread community testing to deal with quarantine failures.
So what would be the result?
Answer: there would be NO virus at all today!! (just an idea for you to ponder the next time you go to write something about the virus).

*just a little note: is "lockdowned" a word? Lockdown has been used as a verb a lot of late so maybe it is?

SR,

"All it is is a dodgy graph with no reference or links to any data source. That is your evidence and somehow gives you the right to question the figures I presented."

When you want to hide from the truth you have all sorts of ploys don't you?

Here's some more links which you would have found had you followed the links in my original posts....

http://teamaustralia21.org/data-and-explanation-for-the-sweden-chart-from-panda/

http://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/Misc/Sweden%20data-9March2021.xlsx

Careful because the last one is a spreadsheet with lots of data and formulae...it will utterly confuse you.

SR opined: "As to population increases we are not comparing 2010 to 2020 because your claim was that 2020 was lower than the average of the last 10 years."

Its at that point where I realise just how little SR understands this and therefore the impossibility of getting him to follow the logic. You'd hope that, realising how far out of his depth he is, that he'd just accept the calculations being offered, but alas. He seems to not even understand averaging let alone age and gender adjustments.

I can't help but notice, SR, that you've utterly ignored all the other data such as that concerning the comparisons of the US states and the comparisons of the European nations. As I said, if he wants to ignore the truth, SR is expert.

thinkabit,

You're confusing two issues. It's true that Australia did close off the nation to the world in way that was not done nor available to other nations. Its relatively easy to close off an island but not so nations with land borders. As I said, other islands such as Taiwan were equally successful in locking out the infectious. But how does a nation like say, the US lock out the virus from crossing its borders?

International isolation was a luxury available to a lucky few only which is what I said above and said early in 2020 on these pages.

But I'm talking about the lockdowns within the nation. Closing schools, businesses, states. Putting people out of work for months on end, destroying livelihoods and the work of a lifetime. Coffee shops euthanized. Entire industries wiped out.

These are the things that the data is now showing was ineffective. Flatten the curve for a week or three, but don't close schools for months. Don't force the entire population into social isolation. Isolate those most at risk - the elderly - and let the rest carry on as normal. That we now learn was the correct response.

Of course many of us knew that early on, but the data is now proving it.

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Dan

Dear mhaze,

You charge: “When you want to hide from the truth you have all sorts of ploys don't you?”

Well that is projection of the highest order now isn't it.

You claimed you were talking about total figures and it turned out you were doing no such thing. No retraction nor apology just move right on to more rubbish.

But it has been a little interesting popping through your links and getting at least a little acquainted with a few of the kind of fringe people you have found refuge with.

And mate there are some real crackers in that barrel.
Sanjeev Sabhlok does take the cake though. http://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/ .

“What’s the best way to keep in touch with me and my ‘work’?
I announce almost everything I do, or think about, on the internet. That is very convenient. It is like a ripe flower that spreads its seeds in the wind. Who knows where the seeds will land and find fertile soil? The minds of my readers is what I seek – to free them from bondage to false belief, and to force them to think for themselves, often for the first time in their lives.”

Anyway for giggles I did look at your linked spread sheet and was surprised to see the data sources listed. And way and behold I found this link: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/

Look familiar? It is the same one I posted earlier figures from which you claimed were “Standard SR there....completely ignores all the data I mentioned and runs off to find his own inaccurate numbers.”

You really are a spud mate, but always good for a chuckle. So what other own goal are you going to kick for my amusement?

SR,

As usual we have SR using one of his myriad methods to ignore the data. He kept complaining that the data wasn't available and then when I drag him kicking and screaming to it, he decides he's not interested in it. Instead he decides he doesn't like the people who reported the data therefore he'll pretend to ignore it.

Oh, he thinks that because the data is based on other data he likes that means...well he doesn't know what it means but something.

Yes the data is based on the total number of deaths as shown in plenty of places including the site SR found. But as I've tried to explain to SR, the data is then adjusted to account for changes in population numbers, age and gender. Its this part that's bamboozled SR and so he just ignores it.

"You claimed you were talking about total figures and it turned out you were doing no such thing."

But I was talking about total figures - the total number of deaths not just the estimated number of Covid deaths. That you can't can't follow the simple logic of that is revealing.

So to recap, here's what we know:

* Sweden did very little in the way of locking down their soceity and it turns out that the number of deaths in 2020 in Sweden, after adjusting for increased population, age and gender, was lower than the average number of deaths over the previous decade ie not locking down didn't increase death rates.

* Of the 50 US states ten or so, didn't lock down their economies except for very short periods. Not only did those states not see massive increases in deaths despite not locking down, but their outcomes were better than those of states that did lock down. Indeed the places that locked down the hardest had the worst results.

* Looking at the death rates in Europe, those places that locked down the hardest also suffered the worst outcomes as against those that didn't lock down or did so for short periods.

* “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus. The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

* This is not the end of the story. Experts are advising that there will be a spike in numbers of deaths due to people failing to obtain treatments or diagnoses while societies were shuttered. Experts are advising there will be increases in deaths due to psychological damage following isolation. Experts are advising that there will be increased suicides due to people suffering financial devastation. All this will play out over the next 5 years so we won't know the full extent of the lockdown devastation for a while yet.

And that's before we even start to talk about the economic impact on the nation and future generations.

Truly the “worst public health mistake in last 100 years”...
http://disrn.com/news/stanford-medical-expert-calls-lockdowns-worst-public-health-mistake-in-last-100-years

If only we'd had some warning....http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9129

"Politicians are simple creatures and the correlation between COVID lockdown policy and electoral success is highly seductive. The prognosis for a future without lockdowns, or the ever-present threat of them, in Australia is consequently gloomy". (Someone named Phil Shannon. Don't know who he is, but he is probably right, especially about politicians being "simple creatures").

Dear mhaze,

Busily spurting ink to cover your tracks only works for squids mate.

This is what you said in your original post: “But now we are able to determine the total number of deaths in the period for each country and compare that to prior periods. Doing that shows, for example, that in Sweden, which effectively eschewed the lockdown mania, the numbers of total deaths in 2020 was lower than the average for the previous ten years.”

“total deaths”. Not age adjusted deaths, not population adjusted deaths, just total deaths. It was not lower than the average over the previous 10 years at all was it. It was higher than any of them by around 7%.

Then when you get called out on it you start flinging caveats around like confetti.

You claim: “But I was talking about total figures - the total number of deaths not just the estimated number of Covid deaths. That you can't can't follow the simple logic of that is revealing.”

No mate the figures I posted were clearly the total number of deaths yet you called them inaccurate even though they were used to inform the dodgy graph in your link.

Look, you need to give this one away. You have hoisted yourself by your own petard and pulling your pants down around your ankles while you are up there is not a good look.

Dearie me SR, you really are tiresome in your ignorance.

I posted a link accompanying my first post which clearly showed that the numbers being used were adjusted numbers. Since that was too hard for you to digest you went off and found unadjusted numbers and pretended they were relevant. Then you demanded that I give you the adjusted calculation and when I did you decided that was too complex and so ignored them. No one who had the slightest understand of this would not at the very least adjust numbers for population growth. SR doesn't adjust figures for population because he doesn't understand how it works. Also, I suspect, because he wouldn't know how to do it.

Since I can't dumb it down enough to make it plain to SR, perhaps these guys can....

http://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2021/01/04/sweden-will-have-a-lower-death-rate-in-2020-than-it-had-in-2010/

From that article...

" 90,487 residents of Sweden died in 2010, when the population was 9.34 million (Google). The population today is 10.4 million (Statistics Sweden, a government agency).

The 2010 death rate applied to the 2020 population would be consistent with approximately 100,750 deaths."

We all know that SR will now find some other reason to ignore the facts - its just what he does.

In the meantime he ignores all the other data I've bought forth. I can't decide if it because he just doesn't want it to be true and can't work out how to even begin to criticise it or because its just too complex for him to comprehend.

To make it easier for him I'll summarise what that data shows....lockdowns don't work and were a monumental error.

Dear mhaze,

Lol.

Are you really saying that we need to go trolling through your anti-lockdown links to learn that instead of the 'total number of deaths' you had touted you were actually talking about adjusted figures?

Don't be ridiculous.

You posted stuff without really understanding it and then had to play catch up. That is fine but you need to own up to it when you do it.

Now you are going from “the numbers of total deaths in 2020 was lower than the average for the previous ten years” to quoting “The 2010 death rate applied to the 2020 population would be consistent with approximately 100,750 deaths.”

Well which is it mate? What are you going to hang your hat on this time?

SR

"Well which is it mate? What are you going to hang your hat on this time?"

They are saying the same thing. Two different ways of pointing out that the total death rate in Sweden in 2020 was lower than the past despite not locking down and thereby proving that lockdowns have no effect on death rates.

Now I get that that is beyond you which just goes to demonstrate not only your spectacular innumeracy but also your inability to follow simple logic. Which I guess is the reason you've elected to not even address all the other data I raised. If simply adjusting the Swedish data is beyond your understanding, then the other data must look, to you, like its written in cuneiform.

So SR, you're just going to have to take the word of your betters and accept that numbers as they stand prove that lockdowns were a monumental error and that some of the more learned among us saw that a year ago.

Dear mhaze,

Come on mate, you know you are on a hiding to nothing with this and doing what you are doing with these statistics is just laughable.

However even in the face of the very pronounced excess deaths graphs I posted earlier you are going to hold on to the lie? That is cultish behaviour.

http://imgur.com/a/Wnl4ygr

Since 2011, last year was the highest year for total deaths in Sweden by about 7% clear of all the others.

Norway in contrast had 2020 as the second lowest year for total deaths.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/611743/number-of-deaths-in-norway/

Give it away.

"Since 2011, last year was the highest year for total deaths in Sweden by about 7% clear of all the others."

And since 2011 the population has increased by ~8%. That you can't see the need to adjust for that is a rather sad indictment of whatever school system you went through.

Oh and BTW the raw 2018 figures are ~6% below 2020. More evidence of SR's innumeracy.

oh and BTW In the meantime he ignores all the other data I've bought forth. I can't decide if it because he just doesn't want it to be true and can't work out how to even begin to criticise it or because its just too complex for him to comprehend, as per the population age and gender spreadsheets I forced him to see.

oh and BTW all this means that lockdowns were a monumental error which some of us warned about a year ago.

Dear mhaze,

Oh boy. You really do have an ungodly amount invested in maintaining your lie don't you.

Increasing population but with increasing life expectancy as clearly evident in the figures. The 'total number of deaths'. (remember that pesky figure) had been on a solid downward trend through the decade. That was viciously reversed in 2020, but not in Norway. Why do you think that was you clown?

And still no comment about the excess deaths graph clearly showing the blow out in the Swedish figures.

You really are being childish over this. You are like a primary school kid nearly in tears stamping his feet and repeatedly declaring you are right despite the obvious contrary.

As to history while you were claiming this was just another flu like disease I was saying the USA would become the great infecting nation it ultimately became.

Meanwhile in other news New Guinea with only 39 deaths from the WuFlu has done a much better job of containing it than China which had 4636 deaths.

What's that you say? China has a bigger population? No no you don't need to adjust for that...just use the raw numbers.

I'm grateful for the lockdowns.
It kept a barrier between the infected and me.

SR wrote, more in hope and ignorance than evidence: "The 'total number of deaths'. (remember that pesky figure) had been on a solid downward trend through the decade"

In fact when you run the numbers the trend for total deaths is up, even if you use SR's raw figures. I could walk him through the actual calculations but it involves icky things like adding and subtracting so he'd get lost after a few seconds. But just eye-balling the data where most years show an increase would indicate what the maths proves - the trend has been up.

But SR wants it to be a downward trend and in his world that means it is a downward trend.....or something.

Armchair Critic wrote: "It kept a barrier between the infected and me."

Yes in the same way as wearing garlic keeps the vampires away. If you wanted to personally lockdown there was never anything stopping you from doing so. But as a mandated governmental order it did nothing to reduce deaths.

Meanwhile, do you have any compassion for the bloke down the road who spent 30 years building his business only to see it destroyed as his customers were mandated to stay clear?

In breaking news the Australian government is begging New Guinea and Fiji to send a delegation to Canberra to explain how to handle the virus. As the government pointed out, Australia has had 909 deaths from the virus whereas Fiji only had 2 and PNG only had 39 deaths.

Some fools thought the reason for the difference might have been differnt levels of populations and that adjustments needed to be made for that when comparing. But the experts said that wasn't the case and you always just use the raw numbers. Besides, making that type of adjustment was rooly-rooly hard involving esoteric things like multiplication and long division and it was therefore best avoided.

mhaze,
PNG & Fiji don't have as many nilly willy blow-ins as Australia.

Dear mhaze,

Lol. Mate I put the 'total number of deaths' in quotation marks because I was referring to your version of it, adjusted for population.

Are you really saying there wasn't a downward trend before 2020?

mhaze: PNG is basically a collection of isolated small communities. Indeed, although is has about 9 million people, there are only 2 (yes that's right- just 2) cities with more than 100,000 people. In fact that are only about 25 cities/towns with more than 5000 people.
And it is normal for someone from one village in PNG on one side of a mountain valley to have very little interpersonal exchange with someone of another village on the other side. It commonly takes hours or days by foot to get from one village to another.

These naturally occurring conditions in PNG, where the population is divided and separated from each other into small groupings, are exactly what imposing borders crossing restrictions and lockdowns are mimicking! However, lockdowns go further with the goal being breaking people up into smaller than village sized groups, ie: family units.

Also, PNG's population is a very young one. The median age is in the low twenties. It is a very small percentage of the population that is over 40, ie, in age bracket where the coronavirus fatality rate starts to increase dramatically.

It is also worth pointing out that although the natural remoteness and separation of PNG villages and village life combined with a young population has kept virus deaths down so far, the virus is now starting to gain traction. This is because the spread of the virus is not defeated by remote village life, just slowed down. In the last few weeks PNG has been starting to suffer badly- the health system is about to be overloaded.

In an unvaccinated population, only elimination via lockdowns with closed borders combined with contract tracing/community testing and isolation of those found infected or possibly infected can ever truly beat the virus.

individual,

" nilly willy blow-ins..."

But while-ever SR's around we'll a surfeit of blow-hards as well.






SR,

Oh so now you're using the adjusted numbers. Whatever suits your current needs, eh? Since you totally screwed up the trend you decided to hide the error by claiming you were using different numbers. Standard SR there, underhanded in the service of hiding being perpetually wrong.

"Are you really saying there wasn't a downward trend before 2020?"

No...the maths is. That's true with the caveat that its based on the raw numbers that you've been swearing up and down are valid and that its for the period in question. See what I did there SR...I removed all the weaselly tricks you were going to use to hide your error.







Meanwhile in the adult world, a new report in Britain saying that the effects of the lockdown will be felt for the next decade. eg

Declining public trust in government.

Widening inequalities: geographic, health, racial, gender, digital and economic inequalities have been exacerbated by Covid.

Worsening mental health: soaring mental illness, especially among children, low-income households...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/23/uk-faces-covid-decade-due-to-damage-done-by-pandemic-says-report

thinkabit,

I wasn't seriously suggesting we compare PNG to Australia or anywhere else for that matter. I was just mocking SR's moronic claims that you can compare death rates over time or place without being aware of and adjusting for actual population numbers.

His claims were so inane and his understanding so poor that it was clear that I wasn't able to explain the error to him. So mocking it was the only recourse.

Again oh deary me mhaze,

You were the one who got pulled up on touting total numbers when you weren't.

You were the one who said my figures were inaccurate when your guru used exactly the same source.

You have been shown to repeatedly get virtually every aspect of the Corona virus completely wrong.

You a thread titled "What if it is all for nothing?" and touting your revised figures of potentially 20,000 for the UK and 100,000 for the US. The toll so far is over 5 times that.

Every assertion you have made about Sweden completely falls apart when we line it up with the other Scandinavian countries.

Misstep after misstep yet you keep going.

Your ideology has you promoting repeated lies. How about a little self reflection.

SR whined:" You were the one who got pulled up on touting total numbers when you weren't."

Well I was talking about total numbers, just not the total figures you'd prefer. That you struggle to understand why your raw figures are misleading says it all.

SR showed his lack of understanding of the written word by saying "You [had?]a thread titled "What if it is all for nothing?" and touting your revised figures of potentially 20,000 for the UK and 100,000 for the US. The toll so far is over 5 times that."

I wasn't touting those numbers merely pointing out they were the then current estimates. Anyone with even a modicum of reading skills would get that.

But yes, I did wonder out loud almost a year ago whether the lockdowns worked. I'm rather chuffed to find that as the data improves and the figures come in, my insight has proven to be on the money.

____________________________________________________________

Did you notice how the current 'unexplained' WuFlu cases in Queensland DIDN'T cause governments to immediately institute lockdowns as has happened previously. I'd put that down to two reasons:

1) the QLD/WA elections are over so the population doesn't need to be scared into compliance
2) governments have realised lockdowns are useless - although they'll never actually say so and, therefore, their useful idiots will continue to believe they work - won't they SR?.

Dear mhaze,

On the money? Well that couldn't have been further from the truth if you tried.

The Scandinavian experience shows the power of lockdowns to prevent wide spread infections and deaths full stop. No twisting of figures be those as ideologically tainted as yourself will ever change that.

If you and your ilk had gotten your way we would have well over 50,000 deaths in this country. You are dangerously deluded but thankfully in a very small minority.

The China virus has seen us subjected to the biggest inroads on our our civil liberties for over 200 years. Young, healthy people have been locked up, lost their livelihoods to protect people of my generation, who should have been protecting themselves, as I have, and allowing the rest of society to keep operating.

There's obviously no "rethink" on lockdowns, with another 72 hour one for Brisbane on the way, and the lunatic in WA again closing the border to Queensland.

ok ttbn, let's put you in charge and you've got to make the calls.

So here's the situation: QLD has had one case a while ago (just a few weeks), which they've tried to deal with by individual personal isolation and contact tracing. However, despite their efforts the virus has escaped and is now out in the general community but still at extremely low numbers. But unfortunately from the contact tracing they've done of these new cases (the new cases of just the last couple of days) they have realised that the people involved have been all over Brisbane, one has even been to Gladstone over 1000's km away and one has been interstate to NSW.

So what are you going to do? We're all ears and waiting for you.

(By-the-way: criticising after an event is extremely easy to do, as you personally should know since you're an expert at it. What is a lot harder to do is to recognise potential problems before they happen and if things do go wrong unexpectedly to come up with a strategy to deal with it.)

Slight correction to above post.

Gladstone is about 600km away from Brisbane.

I was thinking of Cairns when I was typing above because I was just having a verbal conversation with someone. I was saying to them that I can't understand why we have these Quarantine sites in major cities. And I was questioning why couldn't they use somewhere like Cairns instead. Carins has has in International airport, plenty of empty accommodation and a hospital just near the airport and city is small and remote (although it does have a bit of domestic tourism).
They could literally cordoned off the areas of the city where they quarantine is since the town is so small and make it so that those involved with the quarantine have to live in designated areas for say eight weeks stints at a time.

Oh god, what a pile of waffle. All we have to do is stop all international arrivals, & I mean all, & not let anyone into the country until the thing is under control in All sources of foreign travel.

That's right, no sob stories, no mercy imports from PMG or anywhere else. Closed international borders. The local hotel quarantine system is too prone to failure, so close all it down now, until we have a simple treatment that cures the virus, & the source of travelers is clean.

Hasbeen,

Hear, hear. Well said. Australians have done well looking after themselves and not passing it on. Everyone time we hear a newsreader whining about 'another case in Whoopwoop', we know it's courtesy of idiot politicians and their 'experts' letting someone in from abroad. And we are still being told what a 'good' job these useless prices are doing.

SR wrote:"The Scandinavian experience shows the power of lockdowns..."

At the beginning of the thread I posted all sorts of data. Data that showed how, in the USA, now that the figures for the whole of 2020 were compiled, that those states that didn't lockdown or locked down for a short period, not only didn't see higher death rates but instead showed, on average lower rates than those who went full lockdown. Indeed the USA results showed that those who locked down the hardest were also those that had the worst result.

SR ignored that.

I also showed data from Europe which showed that nations that went hard on lockdowns did no better and often much worse than those that either didn't lock down or had a light hand. This was data covering the whole of Europe plus a few other places for comparison and covered the whole year. This was quite compelling information.

SR ignored that.

I also offered quotes from WHO saying they " do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus."

SR ignored that.

I also offered data on Sweden, the poster child of anti-lockdown nations, showing that its death rate in 2020 was lower per capita than the average for the last 10 years.

This SR ignored...sort of. Instead he went off and got data that ignored the fact that Sweden's population had increased by ~8% in the period and then tried to draw erroneous conclusions from that while doing all possible to pretend his figures were valid.

Then after ignoring all the compelling data, after ignoring the advice of the WHO and after bungling the Swedish data (the least compelling of the lot), he pronounces that he's proven lockdowns work. A logic failure all the way down.

mhaze,

Why on earth do you continue to argue with this nutter?

I hope those who advocate for a complete shutdown of the international borders realise that almost all people currently entering from overseas are Australian citizens. And that is a deliberately reduced trickle of entries compared to the usual torrent of citizens returning. Many have waited for weeks in the queue to get home. By shutting the borders to them the government would be abandoning our own.

The only non-citizens entering are those with government granted exceptions to the ban on non-citizens, eg. Foreign diplomats and other VIPs.

Thinkabit, who twisted these peoples arms & forced them to depart Oz?

Hasbeen: "Thinkabit, who twisted these peoples arms & forced them to depart Oz?"

Many (most?) of the citizens currently returning were all ready overseas BEFORE the pandemic. Not only did the government close the boarders to foreigners entering but in addition it shut the gate to prevent us citizens leaving. Citizens can only leave if we have a government granted exemption: https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia
Ask yourself, "How would I have liked it if while bobbing around the pacific in my yacht a pandemic occurred and the government decided to shut the border on me?"
Abandoning it citizens like this is just not the "right thing" for a democratic government to do- unless there was overwhelming support from the majority.

So instead of stopping citizens from entering, what it should be doing is concentrating on improving the system. And as I've already suggested there are some simple and obvious changes they could make. Specifically:

1) Drastically lower the chances of the virus outbreaking in the first place by isolating EVERYONE working in the quarantine system that can come into contact with the virus from the rest of us. You can do this by setting up a quarantine zone covering specific areas where people are not allow to exit unless they do two weeks quarantine. So they work say 6 to 10 or so weeks within these zones and then do 14 days quarantine before they return to the general community for a few weeks break. And here I really do mean everyone- from the those who interact with inbound arrivals at the airport (such as customs), the quarantine accommodation staff (quarantine officials/room service staff/cleaners, etc), the nurses and doctors for those infected and requiring medical services, etc. It is not an unprecedented outrageous demand to require people to work isolated and away from home because many people already do this sort of thing- such a defense workers, merchant navy, remote workers at mines/oil platforms, scientists doing antarctic research, etc.

-- continued below --

-- for above --

2) Reduce the chance of it spreading if there is a quarantine failure. You can achieve this by moving the quarantine sites out of the major cities and into regional/remote areas. I've suggested Cairns for Queensland because it has the necessary infrastructure: an international airport, hospitals and accommodation. Although on the cons sides it does have a fair bit of domestic tourism where returning holiday makers could potentially spread it around the country.

"Ask yourself, 'How would I have liked it if while bobbing around the pacific in my yacht a pandemic occurred and the government decided to shut the border on me?'
Abandoning its citizens like this is just not the 'right thing' for a democratic government to do- unless there was overwhelming support from the majority."

Me me me me me me me

Instead ask yourself, 'How would I have liked it if I were a health worker and all these entitled cafe society citizens keep dribbling back putting me, my family, my colleagues and my nation at risk'.

What if these health workers have morgages, parents, debts and kids mouths to feed?
They can't easily quit their jobs can they?

Covid was in over 100 countries PRIOR TO being labelled a pandemic by the WHO.
If they didn't come back prior to the shutdown A YEAR AGO, it's their own fault in my opinion.
Putting our nations and health workers at risk for cafe society citizens is not the right thing to do either.

I've seen more than enough people not taking things seriously here at home.
You want us to put our whole nation at risk for the same kind of people who are overseas?

Why should 99% of the country be held ransom to the 1% of people who didn't want to be here and wanted to be 'somewhere else'?