Yesterday, a short paper titled “SARS-CoV-2 elimination, not mitigation, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties” was published in The Lancet. The authors claim, “Countries that consistently aim for elimination – i.e., maximum action to control SARS-CoV-2 and stop community transmission as quickly as possible – have generally fared better than countries that opt for mitigation – i.e., action increased in a stepwise, targeted way to reduce cases so as not to overwhelm health-care systems.”
This claim is supported by three charts, each comparing “OECD countries opting for elimination” with “OECD countries opting for mitigation” (see below). The first chart shows that “OECD countries opting for elimination” had fewer deaths per million; the second shows that they had smaller declines in GDP; and the third shows that they had less restrictive lockdowns.
The authors note, “With the proliferation of new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, many scientists are calling for a coordinated international strategy to eliminate SARS-CoV-2.” They also note, “Countries that opt to live with the virus will likely pose a threat to other countries” whereas those “opting for elimination are likely to return to near normal”.
One might be tempted to conclude that “elimination” (or “Zero Covid” as it’s sometimes termed) is a sensible strategy going forward. However, I don’t find the authors’ analysis very convincing.
First, they don’t explain how they classified countries as either “opting for elimination” or “opting for mitigation”. For example, did they simply look at outcomes (which would be circular), or did they examine statements by politicians from the spring of last year? (E.g., “This Government will pursue an elimination strategy.”) It’s not clear.
Only five countries were classified as “opting for elimination”: Australia, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. All other OECD countries were classified as “opting for mitigation”. It may have occurred to you that the five “eliminationist” countries are not exactly representative. Four are islands and one is a peninsula (with a fairly impenetrable border to the north). Two are East Asian. And in fact, these two – Japan and South Korea – are the only East Asian countries in the OECD.
As I argued in a piece for Quillette, all the Western countries that have kept their death rates low are geographically peripheral countries that imposed strict border controls at the start (Norway and Finland, plus a few islands). Their geographic circumstances not only made border controls practical, but also gave them a head start in responding to the pandemic.
It’s very unlikely that large, highly connected countries like France, Italy or the US would have been able to contain the virus during the deadly first wave. And although Britain is an island, we probably wouldn’t have been able to either. The epidemic was already more advanced in London and other international hubs by the time most Western countries introduced lockdowns and social distancing.
In other words, “elimination” was probably never a realistic option for Britain and other large Western countries – even if it could have a passed a cost-benefit test. But what about Japan and South Korea?
Although South Korea did use a combination of early lockdowns and strict border controls to contain the virus, the same cannot be said for Japan. According to the Oxford Blavatnik School’s COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, Japan has had only two days of mandatory business closures and zero days of mandatory stay-at-home orders since the pandemic began. (And the two days of mandatory business closures were the 25th and 26th of April this year.)
Japan did introduce border controls quite early, which may have protected it during the first wave. However, these were not sufficient to prevent an epidemic from burgeoning in the winter of 2020–21. (By early February, the number of daily deaths was in the 90s.) Yet this epidemic retreated without any real lockdown measures being imposed, which suggests that some other cultural or biological factor accounts for Japan’s success.
Second, even if you believe an “elimination” strategy was feasible for Britain and other large Western countries in the early weeks of the pandemic, that ship has arguably sailed. This is particularly true for Britain, where almost 70% of adults now have COVID antibodies. In other words: while it might have been sensible to “eliminate” the virus last spring (assuming that was possible), the costs of doing so now would almost certainly outweigh the benefits.
Overall, the Lancet study does not provide a strong case for “elimination” of COVID-19. And in fact, a survey by Nature of 119 experts found that 89% believe it is “likely” or “very likely” that SARS-CoV-2 will become an endemic virus. As Michael Osterholm – an American epidemiologist – noted, “Eradicating this virus right now from the world is a lot like trying to plan the construction of a stepping-stone pathway to the Moon. It’s unrealistic.”
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In the drive to waste OPM Kneel’s Labour Party vandals have a lot of catching up to do but I am confident they will give it their best shot.
It used to be “the toilet papers too rough, out brothers”
Now it’s ” he called me he! Out comrades!”
The four ways of spending money, in descending order of preference:
1. Spending your own money on yourself.
2. Spending your own money on someone else.
3. Spending someone else’s money on yourself.
4. Spending someone else’s money on someone else.
Labour and the unions flip-flop between 3 and 4 (OPM) and denounce anyone who wants to do 1 and 2.
But then, what exactly has the Tory party been doing?
Folks, it’s all fucked! I don’t know what the solution is. But solutions tend to find themselves… when it’s too late.
They already have the solution. ———Print more money (Modern Monetary Theory)
Union bosses competing on which of them can circle closest to the drain…
All aided and abetted from on high by the politics of dependency and division.
Plus ça change…
Well I’m completely baffled.
”Data from Clalit Health Services (Israel’s largest healthcare organization representing more than 50% of the population)
CARDIAC ARREST Diagnoses per 1M population increased 225% from 2021 to 2022!
Up 431% from 2020!
What happened in 2021??”
https://twitter.com/_aussie17/status/1680580184603328512
Well I think on the trans issue I stand with Russia. It’s just a shame that will never happen over here. I think what the trans extremists have succeeded in doing is shooting themselves in the foot due to their disgusting behaviour and massive over-reach with their ideology. They always did have human rights but they wanted to trample on women’s rights and dominate by erasing us. The ominous as hell amount of energy put into targeting kids obviously crossed a line for many who were previously disinterested or ambivalent towards these people. Now I just swing between pity and hate. No wonder Putin is looking to many other countries and feeling the need to stamp it out, like a cancer that’s spreading. We must look like a complete and utter shitshow. ”Civilized society”? Show me what’s civilized when it comes to much of this trans movement because I only see societies disintegrating with a goal to reconfigure in a way which is so at odds with the world as I always knew it. And the worst thing being that this isn’t just some grassroots movement that will fade away, like some transient phase. Many powerful people are behind the scenes enabling and empowering all of it. No idea how it’ll all end, if it ever will.
”Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a new law banning gender reassignment surgery, in the latest attack on LGBT rights in the country.
The State Duma approved the bill, which will also ban people changing their genders on state documents, on Friday.
Speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said the bill would “protect our citizens and our children”.
In a telegram post on Friday, Mr Volodin also called gender-affirming surgery a “path to the degeneration of the nation”.
“We are the only European country that opposes all that is happening in the States, in Europe and does everything to save families and traditional values,” he said during the debate on Friday. “And we need to understand that there won’t be any future if we don’t adopt the law, if we don’t ban gender change.”
Fresh amendments added to the bill on Friday during its final reading included banning individuals who have undergone gender changes from adopting children, and annulling marriages where one party had undergone gender reassignment.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66200194?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_medium=social&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_link_type=web_link&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_id=132BD456-227F-11EE-9A69-3B5E3AE5AB7B&at_link_origin=BBCNews&at_campaign_type=owned&at_format=link
I have no problem with a trans person. I am infact happy for them. I hope they are live a full and happy life including a great sex life. ————I do though have a problem with biological males using the same dressing rooms, changing rooms and toilet facilities as my daughter or wife or any other WOMAN. How that situation can be resolved without redesigning every facility in every building in the country is unclear, but it cannot be solved by insisting women just shut up and accept it.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party should legislate to ban “Civil Servants” whose full time “jobs” are basically acting as a Trade Unionist (Labour-Party) activist.