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 ...