In German but very much to the point of this mess.
Red curve: no measures taken
green curve: lockdown and measures imposed
yellow point: Measures start to have impact
violet warning: “We are close to……”
blue area: “you see, it was all balderdash, we have overreacted and destroyed our economy”.
You can apply this for the 2nd wave which is almost sure to hit once all measures are stopped and people will revert to their old habits. Only then, as in the Spanish Flu, it will most probably be much much worse.
Me, I get extremely angry if people now complain that the capacities created were not used to the hilt. Don’t they realize that every bed NOT used means maybe 20 persons who did NOT suffer from this disease and possibly die or have massive organ damage? Do they really wish that it had come everywhere like in Italy or NY just to justify the measures taken? The measures were taken NOT to go there. And it is not over yet, not by a long run. It will take a long time still to eradicate this thing totally and it will take a lot of money and effort to deal with all those who were rendered disabled and with permanent damage with this thing. Does it not get into people’s heads that without the measures taken, the number of those affected and either dead or needing long term care would be exponentially higher?
In a way it is unfortunate that those who thought it was all nothing were not “able” to find out for themselves, like e.g Mr Johnson. Maybe their live and let die attitude would then change.
Numbers continue to plummet (correct use of word not referring to a power-off landing!) in England:
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In German but very much to the point of this mess.
No, it is absolutely not to the point. May I post two graphs with real data against your imagined scribble:
Germany:
Switzerland:
The point is, “normal” hygiene and voluntary social distancing, as described from Japan, Sweden and by @Silvaire, seem to be more than enough to bring the reproduction rate below 1. “Lockdowns” are unnecessary and seem to produce more harm than good (won’t post the data here but it becomes really evident now).
That may well be so but it assumes a highly “socially compliant” population.
Also a relatively educated population – one which understands that touching door handles with bare hands is not a good idea.
Some countries have that and some don’t 
Japan is clearly at the upper end of the compliance scale. It is also far enough away from here to say that without getting beaten up for alleging the usual historical stuff. If one speculated who is also at the upper end, in Europe, one might upset a few people, but it isn’t many places. If one speculated who is at the lower end one might also upset a few people 
I can think of a number of countries at the lower end, and the UK would be one of them.
Peter wrote:
If one speculated who is at the lower end one might also upset a few people I can think of a number of countries at the lower end, and the UK would be one of them.
Surely not alone there
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Red curve: no measures taken
Which is the ‘control’ country that demonstrates this?
I don’t argue that it wouldn’t follow that path without any restrictions, I simply say that I don’t have enough information to be sure of it.
Rwy20 wrote:
No, it is absolutely not to the point. May I post two graphs with real data
The German Robert-Koch Institute study DOES show that the final stage of the country-wide “lock-down” (there were some earlier stages) was not necessary to bring the replication rate to below one.
However, in Germany, local ‘lock-downs’ for local clusters started early March. This means two things
The latter should be really obvious. In the UK, a lockdown in Sleepington-in-the vale, inhabitants 10, is completely unnecessary, in the same way that prohibiting solo VFR flights is also unnecessary. A lockdown in or near a hot-spot will make all the difference.
Peter wrote:
Japan is clearly at the upper end of the compliance scale. It is also far enough away from here to say that without getting beaten up for alleging the usual historical stuff. If one speculated who is also at the upper end, in Europe, one might upset a few people, but it isn’t many places. If one speculated who is at the lower end one might also upset a few people I can think of a number of countries at the lower end, and the UK would be one of them.
Actually, I think the UK population is pretty compliant. When asked to do something and given good reasons they are usually excellent. Witness how good compliance has been with the lockdown – far above what was predicted. People in the UK normally prefer to be asked than told. In this case the seriousness meant they still complied.
The speed and scope of easing the lockdown measures in place is surely hotly debated everywhere.
Here in Germany I noticed a strong urge to “get back to normal” by almost everyone, although most people seem to accept that it will be a “new normal”. I see a lot more traffic on the roads lately, many people out and about on the streets and many more walk-in patients than compared to two or three weeks ago, when everything was deserted.
In my Land, Lower Saxony, we had a no point a real “lockdown”, i.e. you were never actually forbidden from going outside. People still behaved rather sensibly for about three weeks or so. Now, the restrictions have actually not changed that much, with the exception that some more shops are allowed to open and you need to wear some kind of mask on public transport and while shopping. But activity has increased markedly.
I have no idea how this will play out. A “second wave” seems likely, but then again the rates of new infections would have to increase exponentially to actually overwhelm our medial treatment capacities.
In my professional capacity, I have so far only treated a few patients where Covid-19 was suspected, but none of them actually turned out positive. One patient in his late 40s died where I do not know wheter Covid was involved or not, but clinically a sudden heart attack seemed more likely. I have not yet heard from the local health office wheter the patient was infected or not.
The problem with this whole pandemic is that it is not over until its over (duh), but how to get our reaction to it “right” is impossible to know. So far, Covid-19 killed much fewer people in Germany than the average “winter flu” (Influenza) does, and we never take any special precautions because of that one. But then again, we have a vaccine against Influenza, so the comparison is not really fair, and there is some degree of prior immunity in the population, which is not the case with SARS2-CoV. Although I have read there may be some degree of “cross immunity”, since other coronaviruses have been infecting humans for a long time, and not just the nasty ones like SARS or MERS, but also the common cold.
We never had a true ‘house arrest’ style lockdown either: non-essential businesses had to have their workers work from home or close, social gatherings are prohibited, and going to other people’s households is also prohibited, and social distancing in place: however, 1 session of outdoor exercise (alone or with household members) has not been prohibited (unlike some countries lockdowns, you don’t need a dog!)
Last Friday morning this was relaxed – you now can be outside as long as you like, and you don’t need ‘reasonable excuse’ to be driving somewhere, non-essential building work has been resumed as various other jobs (almost all of them jobs you do outside, or in well ventilated places at least) e.g. window cleaners, painters etc. I suspect this new regime will be allowed to run for 3 weeks to ensure the infection figures don’t go up again, then there will be more changes. Currently we have had only 1 new case in the last 7 days (our peak in new cases was about two and a half weeks ago, when the 7 day moving average got to 17.5 new cases per day, it’s been going down ever since then).
Unfortunately the virus got into a nursing home, ripped through it, and slaughtered the elderly residents.
