A study evaluating COVID-19 responses around the world found that mandatory lockdown orders early in the pandemic may not provide significantly more benefits to slowing the spread of the disease than other voluntary measures, such as social distancing or travel reduction.
Tag: Spain
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Background and Aims
The most restrictive non‐pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID‐19 are mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures. Given the consequences of these policies, it is important to assess their effects. We evaluate the effects on epidemic case growth of more restrictive NPIs (mrNPIs), above and beyond those of less restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs).
Methods
We first estimate COVID‐19 case growth in relation to any NPI implementation in subnational regions of 10 countries: England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the US. Using first‐difference models with fixed effects, we isolate the effects of mrNPIs by subtracting the combined effects of lrNPIs and epidemic dynamics from all NPIs. We use case growth in Sweden and South Korea, two countries that did not implement mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures, as comparison countries for the other 8 countries (16 total comparisons).
Results
Implementing any NPIs was associated with significant reductions in case growth in 9 out of 10 study countries, including South Korea and Sweden that implemented only lrNPIs (Spain had a non‐significant effect). After subtracting the epidemic and lrNPI effects, we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of mrNPIs on case growth in any country. In France, e.g., the effect of mrNPIs was +7% (95CI ‐5%‐19%) when compared with Sweden, and +13% (‐12%‐38%) when compared with South Korea (positive means pro‐contagion). The 95% confidence intervals excluded 30% declines in all 16 comparisons and 15% declines in 11/16 comparisons.
Conclusions
While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less restrictive interventions.
Ministers are to reconsider vitamin D as a potential weapon against Covid-19 after Matt Hancock wrongly claimed that government scientists had run unsuccessful tests.
The health secretary told the Commons last week that he had ordered a trial that showed vitamin D did not “appear to have any impact”. Officials now admit that no trials took place.
New evidence from Spain suggests that vitamin D, which some scientists believe helps to prevent a fatal overreaction to the virus, could save lives.
- ‘Circuit break’ may be a grave error with terrible consequences for the health of the British people and for the health of the country.
- The Government is once again in the grip of doom-mongering scientific modellers who specialise in causing panic.
- The latest reliable data from Spain (up to September 3) which does not indicate any sort of upward curve in infections, let alone one coming to get us here in Britain.
- Anyone with clinical experience of dealing with respiratory viruses knows that the only certainty is uncertainty itself.
- Making comparisons between countries using different national data with different definitions is no more useful than trying to compare apples and pears.
- Latest study shows that nearly a third of all Covid-19 deaths recorded in July and August might have actually been the result of other causes –cancer, for example, or road traffic accidents.
- Sweden has probably suppressed Covid-19 to the same level as Great Britain but without draconian measures.
- Anyone going down with a new respiratory illness is likely to be suffering from a cold – not Covid.
Covid-19 accounts for an average of 11 of the 1,687 deaths in Britain every day, according to official statistics.
| Cause | UK deaths per day |
| Heart disease | 460 |
| Cancer | 450 |
| Dementia | 240 |
| Flu and pneumonia | 124 |
| Lung disease | 84 |
| Accidents at home | 16 |
| Infections | 16 |
| Suicide | 15 |
| COVID-19 | 11 |
| Road accidents | 5 |
An uptick in cases hasn’t been matched by an increase in deaths. It’s about time we had a more intelligent conversation about risk
Hard luck to those who switched their holidays to Greece when Spain was put back on the quarantine list. The Greek government has just officially declared a “second wave”. Once holidaymakers have explored the Aegean they face getting to know a lot more about the insides of their own homes upon their return, as Greece is now a favourite to be added to the ever-growing list of countries whose air bridges with Britain have collapsed.
But how real is this “second wave” apparently sweeping Europe? Look at the chart of new recorded infections in Greece and, sure enough, you can call it a second wave. Recorded cases began to inch upwards from mid-June onwards. The figure for Sunday – 202 – was markedly higher than the peak in new recorded infections in Greece’s first wave, which reached 156 on April 21. But then look at the chart for Greece’s Covid deaths and there is not the slightest trace of a second wave.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/11/no-europe-isnt-engulfed-deadly-second-wave/
- Sweden’s GDP fell 8.6 in Q2 2020, the country’s worst quarterly decline in modern history.
- The Scandanavian nation markedly outperformed the rest of Europe. Its GDP drop in the second quarter was lower than the 12.1 average experienced in the Eurozone, as well as the 11.9 average across the whole of the EU.
- Sweden outperformed several European countries, including Spain (18.5 percent fall), France (13.6 percent), Italy (12.4 percent) and Germany (10.1 percent).
While novel coronavirus cases have spiked across several parts of Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, Sweden—where a countrywide lockdown was never issued—continues to report a downward trend in new cases and new deaths.
COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people in Sweden vs. Europe
Source: Johns Hopkins University (as of August 2)
- Sweden: 56.40
- Belgium: 86.19
- U.K.: 69.60
- Spain: 60.88
- Italy: 58.16
COVID-19 case-fatality ratio of Sweden vs. Europe
Source: Johns Hopkins University (as of August 2)
- Sweden: 7.1 percent
- U.K.: 15.1 percent
- Belgium: 14.2 percent
- Italy: 14.2 percent
- France: 13.4 percent
- The Netherlands: 11.2 percent
- Spain: 9.9 percent
New COVID-19 cases in Sweden vs. Europe in past 14 days
Source: World Health Organization (as of August 2)
- Sweden: Down 46 percent
- The Netherlands: Up 205 percent
- Belgium: Up 150 percent
- Spain: Up 113 percent
- France: Up 72 percent
- Germany: Up 59 percent
- Finland: Up 160 percent
- Denmark: Up 81 percent
- Norway: Up 61 percent
- U.K.: Up three percent
In the interest of public debate, we allow visitors to share opinions, experiences and research that may be of value to others. This is a visitor contribution from our Discussions page.
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Author
Alfonso Longo
- Credentials: PhD Engineering, MBA
- E-mail: [email protected]
- YouTube: Alfonso Longo
- Download: Document on Google Drive
Four scientific evidences of the null effect of massive confinement during covid 19 in Spain
It is obvious that the official hypothesis of the non lockdown deaths in Spain is dismantled by the real result in Sweden. The huge difference between 10,000 and 450 in Sweden could not be explained, either very remotely, by geographical, demographic or sociological factors that differentiate Sweden from Spain. If That is the case, Sweden would naturally be an anti-covid society. A scientifically unsustainable fantasy.
No medical treatment would be approved without using control groups in the experiments, however mass confinement is accepted without this condition, knowing that Sweden serves perfectly as an experimental control group.
(Note that the document is hosted on Google Drive.)
- Sweden’s total deaths per million in population as of July 14 is 549. That’s considerably lower than the deaths per million rate in the UK, which is 662, and in Spain, which is 608. In Belgium, the death rate is 884.
- Sweden deaths per million is many times better than the rates found in New Jersey and New York: 1,763 and 1,669.
- Articles condemning Sweden’s “failure” rarely if ever mention these comparisons.
- Nonlockdown Sweden has a death rate similar to harsh-lockdown France can only be explained by claiming France didn’t lock down harshly enough or long enough.
- Two weeks after the WHO’s prediction that Sweden will have a resurgence in COVID-19, both cases and deaths in Sweden continue to trend downward.
- Thanks to Sweden we know what both lockdown and nonlockdown countries look like: they look remarkably similar in some cases.
- After all, after failing to implement a lockdown for months, Sweden is still nowhere near matching the death rates reported in New York.
https://mises.org/power-market/medias-jihad-against-swedens-no-lockdown-policy-ignores-key-facts
In the interest of public debate, we allow visitors to share opinions, experiences and research that may be of value to others. This is a visitor contribution from our Discussions page.
The views expressed are those of the individual posters themselves. Please read our Comments and contributions disclaimer.
Author
Alfonso Longo
- Credentials: PhD Engineering, MBA
- E-mail: [email protected]
- YouTube: Alfonso Longo
- Download: Document on Google Drive
Covid 19 X-Factor in Spain – Nursing Homes: UNDERSTANDING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Hypothesis
The nursing homes, their structure and management, explain the impact of the covid-19 pandemic in Spain.
DIRECTLY: because of the weight of its mortality
CAUSALLY: because of its effect on the transmission of the virus to the rest of the population
Therefore, in order to minimize the impact of covid on society, its impact on nursing homes must first be minimized.
(Note that the document is hosted on Google Drive.)
Professor Paul Dennis, a geologist and isotope geochemist at the University of East Anglia, compared the deaths in England, Sweden, Spain. He found near identical dynamics, which supports the theory that COVID-19 appears to follow the Gompertz curve in every outbreak region. This implies that social distancing and lockdown has no effect.
SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported. Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater would enable adoption of immediate measures in the event of future COVID-19 waves.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1
- Far from following the science, the government turned its back on all available data.
- Until mid-April, with the escalating deaths in care homes agonisingly clear across Europe, government policy was still for patients to be discharged to care homes from hospitals without requiring negative tests. And so the toll: around half of UK Covid-19 deaths are care home residents, despite them accounting for only 0.6 per cent of our population.
- Germany, whose population is roughly 25 per cent bigger than ours, has suffered approximately a quarter of our Covid deaths.
- Ministers have deferred to scientists who themselves deferred to the projections of models, even when data on the ground told a completely different story.
- Statisticians on social media had a field day pointing out the chasm between modelled outcomes and reality, but it is not clear that the models on which SAGE relied (both their input parameters and mechanical dynamics) were continually refined with on-the-ground data (or simply discarded as wrong).
- Why weren’t Oxford’s team, who specialise in zoonotic viruses and who looked at the same data as Neil Ferguson’s modelling-led team but came to wildly different conclusions, on SAGE’s panel to provide an alternative view?
- Why were there no economists on SAGE? Economics is not the bloodless pursuit of money but the science of decision-making under uncertainty where resources are finite; could they really have brought nothing to the party?
- In mid-March, Stanford’s Nobel laureate Michael Levitt (biophysicist and professor of structural biology) discussed the “natural experiment” of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, a petridish disproportionately filled with the most susceptible age and health groups. Even here, despite the virus spreading uncontrolled onboard for at least two weeks, infection only reached a minority of passengers and crew.
- The data towards the end of March clearly showed we were already near the tipping point of the bell-curve (meaning the disease is on the wane). We were already past the point where lockdown could have made much difference.
- Knut Wittkowski: “respiratory diseases [including Covid-19] . . . remain only about two months in any given population”.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-august-2020/ignoring-the-covid-evidence/