Throughout the pandemic, those in favour of more restrictions have argued there is a straightforward relationship between restrictions and case numbers. When the government imposes restrictions, the number of face-to-face interactions goes down, meaning there are less opportunities for transmission.
A week or so later, you should see case numbers start to fall. Or so the argument goes. Yet as David Paton noted in my recent interview with him, the assumption that “governments can turn infections on or off like a tap” simply isn’t true.
Last spring, almost every country around the world saw a large drop in mobility – as measured by indexes that track people’s smartphones. In most countries, this drop not only coincided with the start of lockdown, but also preceded a fall in case numbers by one or two weeks.
It was therefore widely assumed that mobility could serve as a proxy for the kind of behaviour change that causes infections to go up or down. However, examples like South Dakota – where infections fell rapidly without much change in overall mobility – cast serious doubt on this assumption.
In other words, just because mobility has fallen, doesn’t mean case numbers will go down; and just because mobility has risen, doesn’t mean case numbers will go up. This suggests the relationship between restrictions and case numbers is far from straightforward.
I plotted mobility alongside new daily cases for Sweden – one of the countries where restrictions have been least stringent. If mobility were closely related to infections, we’d be able to pinpoint precisely when restrictions should have been made more stringent, in order to get case numbers down. But that simply isn’t possible, as you can see below.
Mobility starts rising in mid January, which initially coincides with an increase in case numbers – so far so good for the theory that restrictions drive behaviour and behaviour drives infections. Case numbers then start falling in May. Yet mobility continues rising for another three months.
The chart above shows retail and recreation mobility. Exactly the same pattern is visible if we look at grocery and pharmacy mobility:
Mobility reaches a value that’s almost 15% higher than baseline in late July. But it’s not until mid November that case start rising again.
How can it be that mobility has such a weak relationship with the number of infections? After all, the virus is spread through close contact; it isn’t transmitted over email or via the telephone.
The most likely answer is that factors like viral evolution, seasonality and population structure are more important than overall mobility. Which is not to say that mobility doesn’t matter. But the evidence that it’s what drives the epidemic is surprisingly scant.
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Lockdown Policies and Mask Mandates Linked With Lower IQ in Children
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/lockdown-policies-and-mask-mandates-linked-with-lower-iq-in-children_4177711.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-12-27&mktids=a458b144ed00a5e09fd02867a6547f36&est=xUfYYy0gG6G433V%2Bq2zEWS4RKY7cADqRZEsk1zozcJwGrZJSGp59%2BipPwE5O0Mj4u6PQ
BY TAMMY HUNG
Monday 27th December 5pm
Silent lighted walk behind one simple sign
“No More Lockdown”
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meet Union Square,
High Street Bracknell RG12 1LL
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham – Howard Palmer Gardens, Cockpit Path car park Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
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Surely it’s also important to look at where the infections seem to be occuring?
Obviously this is in many cases difficult to determine – but for infections occurring in hospitals and other healthcare settings, and care homes, it should often be possible to state this fairly confidently – e.g. if someone has been in hospital for a month and then gets the virus, they clearly caught it in the hospital.
If the numbers here are a significant proportion of reported infections (and I expect they will be), it would highlight the futility of imposing restrictions on the general public.
The only conclusion I draw from that is that in Sweden people became too sick to travel, and lost their appetites too <\sarc>
I think last year’s UK lockdowns caused “case” numbers in Sweden to drop.
Action at a distance: Einstein would be so annoyed!
Well, it’s no more illogical than a lot of claims made by the government and their advisors over the past two years!
No more illogical than the “My vaxx protects You” nonsense
Obviously. Terrified of the UK in lockdown, Sars-CoV2 viruses retreated voluntarlly in Sweden to avoid one. They’re now sitting hidden and waiting for a better opportunity.
“Virus gonna virus.”
Alex Berenson
Vaccine ‘hit squads’ to be sent to peoples homes
Ministers mull sending vaccine teams to homes of unjabbed – reports — RT World News
If they knock on my door they will be impolitely turned away. Desperate fuckers.
Me too.
I don’t buy stuff from people knocking at doors. Especially not miracle cures for largely imaginary diseases.
How about a simpler statement: There’s no relation between mobility and PCR positivitis.
Maybe the illness is not caused by people transmitting a virus to each other.
That would explain this data too!
Everyone seems to do intellectual gymnastics to explain the data but they seem to have a mental block on challenging the unproven theory that viruses make people ill.
Only when assuming that lockdowns must be effective at inhibiting virus transmission.
Search for Slovakia’s covid statistics. On January 27 2021 Slovakia Health Ministry approved the therapeutic use of Ivermectin. This was a temporary approval of 6 months. On July 27 2021 temporary authorization for use of Ivermectin expired in the country. With the use of IVM, new cases zeroed. After the authorization expired new cases skyrocketed to a level that has never been seen before in the country and countinues to do so. There are cures to this flu like symptoms. Get your ivermectin before it is too late! https://ivmpharmacy.com
“How can it be that mobility has such a weak relationship with the number of infections?”
Well, are you measuring the number of infections, or positive tests? The two are not the same. The question posed lacks sufficient precision and consideration of what is being measured.