And also to provide time for treatments to appear, with the eventual prospect of a vaccine.
And also to avoid panic and shortages of essentials caused by mass avoidable deaths and work absenteeism, both of which would have been the inevitable and predictable outcome of attempting to carry on as normal.
IMO the argument is already over. In fact there shouldn't have been an argument at all. There was never a rational case for trying to avoid lockdown, or failing to test/trace, or setting up other basic mitigation measures - either on humanitarian or on economic grounds.
> In fact there shouldn't have been an argument at all.
This is an awful way of thinking.
> There was never a rational case for trying to avoid lockdown
This is untrue. Many virologists and epidemiologists made rational cases against lockdowns. Sweden followed the strategy of Anders Tegnell, who is a renowned epidemiologist. The case for or against lockdowns was ultimately decided by the perception of public opinion, with politicians trading off the risk of "having done too little" versus "having done too much".
The New York times is spinning a narrative that Sweden, because of no lockdown whatsoever, had a really bad outcome. It's just not true. The amount of deaths controlled for population is lower than in Spain, France or the UK, all of which had a total lockdown. Their current fatality cases are near zero. Their economic contraction is half that of the rest of the EU.
First of all no, not lower than France's, but it was much lower for a while. Secondly, their economic contraction might be somewhat less, yet the death toll compared to Norway much higher, which did not suffer much worse economically. The question boils down was it worth for a modest economical benefit allow 5000 people to die or not. Some people think it is okay, most do not.
> Secondly, their economic contraction might be somewhat less, yet the death toll compared to Norway much higher, which did not suffer much worse economically.
This is cherry-picking. You can always tell if somebody is making a bad argument when they pick Norway - a sparsely populated oil-rich welfare state - for a comparison.
> The question boils down was it worth for a modest economical benefit allow 5000 people to die or not. Some people think it is okay, most do not.
No, that's an oversimplification. You are assuming that the lockdowns could've prevented these deaths, yet we have other countries that had strict lockdowns and that had similar death rates.
You also have countries like Germany and Netherlands with modest lockdowns and lower death rates.
There are a lot of factors at play here and the numbers are all over the place, but there is no evidence that lockdowns actually do better in the long run. Part of the problem is that most countries did do some form of lockdown, so Sweden is one of few in the control group.
No, comparisons with Norway are just a pet peeve of mine.
It doesn't really matter anyway, I already admitted that countries like Germany and Netherlands did have fewer deaths with modest lockdowns. These are samples in favor of a lockdown.
However, there are also countries like France, Spain and UK that had the strictest lockdown, yet they had higher death rates. Those hint at strict lockdowns being no more effective than modest lockdowns when compared against Germany, or even being completely inneffective when compared against Sweden.
There is no clear correlation between having a lockdown and having fewer deaths, so you can't claim that Sweden would've had a far different result with a lockdown. That's just an unknown, there are many more factors at play.
Also, the costs aren't just economic. Lockdowns are a severe restriction of civil rights. There's a great deal of suffering caused by lockdowns. They can destroy livelihoods. They limit medical care. There's more domestic violence, more suicides, more depression.
Unknown, but highly probable. It is like saying, yea it is unknown if you press the light switch and the light would turn on. Unknown yes, highly probable - yes. Lockdowns have been since medeival times and always turned out to be a working soluction.
And also to avoid panic and shortages of essentials caused by mass avoidable deaths and work absenteeism, both of which would have been the inevitable and predictable outcome of attempting to carry on as normal.
IMO the argument is already over. In fact there shouldn't have been an argument at all. There was never a rational case for trying to avoid lockdown, or failing to test/trace, or setting up other basic mitigation measures - either on humanitarian or on economic grounds.