Thanks for the link. I have read the first part of the study. I tell you the things that make me suspicious about it:
First, it starts with a very broad definition of lockdown: “is used to generically refer to state actions that imposed various forms of non-pharmaceutical interventions”. Then, it proceeds to redefine the lockdowns of countries such as New Zealand as something else, “isolation”. To me, the thing that comes to my mind when we talk about a lockdown is that you forbid people to leave their houses for an X number of days. Correct me here if I am mistaken, I am not an English native speaker.
Convenient ignore that China has been one of those successful countries dealing with the Covid (not a single mention to it in the full document). I see that many times. New Zealand is used always as an example by people sceptical of lockdowns, for the reason that it comes with a built-in justification: it is an island. Well, China is much more densely populated than the US and they also succeeded, and it is not an island. Would have been capable of replicating the success without enforcing lockdowns? Why is China not discussed more in general?
Wrong use of counterfactuals. Those counterfactuals nicely generated do they really present realistic counterfactuals? Take for instance the blue line. It suggests that by taking some social distancing measures the number simply go down in a matter of ~3 months and then everything is over. That’s far from true. As soon as there is a single case out of control (and this is what countries like NZ, Australia or China understood very well), the pandemic is not under control, you go back right to the beginning. If you do apply strict lockdowns early you can aim to effectively eliminate the virus (but as I said before, you need to enforce mandatory quarantines and keep a very high level of testing and contact tracing). Is this counterfactual considered?
Thanks for the link. I have read the first part of the study. I tell you the things that make me suspicious about it:
First, it starts with a very broad definition of lockdown: “is used to generically refer to state actions that imposed various forms of non-pharmaceutical interventions”. Then, it proceeds to redefine the lockdowns of countries such as New Zealand as something else, “isolation”. To me, the thing that comes to my mind when we talk about a lockdown is that you forbid people to leave their houses for an X number of days. Correct me here if I am mistaken, I am not an English native speaker.
Convenient ignore that China has been one of those successful countries dealing with the Covid (not a single mention to it in the full document). I see that many times. New Zealand is used always as an example by people sceptical of lockdowns, for the reason that it comes with a built-in justification: it is an island. Well, China is much more densely populated than the US and they also succeeded, and it is not an island. Would have been capable of replicating the success without enforcing lockdowns? Why is China not discussed more in general?
Wrong use of counterfactuals. Those counterfactuals nicely generated do they really present realistic counterfactuals? Take for instance the blue line. It suggests that by taking some social distancing measures the number simply go down in a matter of ~3 months and then everything is over. That’s far from true. As soon as there is a single case out of control (and this is what countries like NZ, Australia or China understood very well), the pandemic is not under control, you go back right to the beginning. If you do apply strict lockdowns early you can aim to effectively eliminate the virus (but as I said before, you need to enforce mandatory quarantines and keep a very high level of testing and contact tracing). Is this counterfactual considered?