DisneyTaxDad

No copy and paste job though: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2405-7 Please refer to their supplementary information.

It is clear that my motives are being questioned, so I'll share my experience. However, I fully recognize that I'm just viewing a snapshot of the situation. I've been a guest of this site for several years through my interest in the White Sox. I've enjoyed reading news and having a consolidated place for information. However, I've never felt I could add something material to the discussion, therefore, I never posted. Since the Covid situation arose, I've continued to review this site and have also visited another completely unrelated forum based around an entirely different subject that interests me regarding travel. Similarly, this forum also has a Covid related discussion. When this situation began to gain steam in March, I noticed these two unrelated forums maintain a very different outlook and tone pertaining to the situation. On the other forum, I notice there are many different viewpoints, some more optimistic and some more pessimistic. However, within this forum, I have found an overwhelmingly pessimistic and defeated tone. I've clearly been intrigued by much of the data I've cited suggesting the lack of correlation between strong "lockdowns" and reducing the impacts of Covid. This research was largely spurred by my personal experiences. I'm fortunate that both myself and my wife have been able to work from home with minimal interruption and our compensation has remained steady. We are finding that we have actually benefited financially due to a significant reduction in expenses. I'm very aware that is not the case for many and it concerns me. My immediate family and I are not in an at-risk population, however, we have been largely following all recommendations. In the early weeks, we completely ceased visiting our places of work, avoided all gatherings, and effectively only left the house for groceries and outdoor walks. My children did not see their grandparents, cousins, friends, etc for three months. Like most, we have relaxed these restrictions since mid-May while still being careful. We follow guidelines, wear our facemasks, and have avoided large gatherings. I only began returning to my office on a once-per-week basis beginning this month despite my employer providing me the freedom to come as I please (we are considered an essential business and legally could have maintained full office levels). I have had a few experiences with Covid. I had a family member pass and it was deemed a Covid death. However, this family member already had a terminal illness and it is unlikely they would still be with us absent Covid. I've shared similar experiences with colleagues who have lost family members with similar stories. Although it was classified as a Covid death, the person was unfortunately already severely ill and unlikely to make a recovery. I work with clients throughout the country, what I've found interesting is that I regularly work with a client who works out of an office in Manhattan while residing on Long Island. Throughout this entire experience, they have consistently maintained that although serious, the situation in New York is far more calm than the news media would suggest. My wife runs a charity focused on a completely unrelated health issue. We are fortunate to have several physicians part of our program, including one emergency room physician who has treated Covid patients. They were even frequently quoted in the media in early April regarding their experiences. At the onset, this physician was extremely careful when visiting our home; they would avoid entering, would stand at least ten feet from us while wearing a mask, and even asked us to place the birthday gift we got their son on the ground so they could separately pick it up and avoid contact with us. However, by mid-may, this physician was comfortable entering our home without a mask and carrying on a conversation. They indicated that based upon their experience, Covid was much less dangerous than initially feared for most of the population and they felt most of the lockdown was unneccasry. What stands out to me is that through our relationship, we know we are on different ends of the political spectrum, yet this was her feedback. Shockingly, we are still good friends despite having opposing political views. I also have had conversations with a friend who is an anesthesiologist. Similarly, they believe the lockdown was an overreaction. However, I place less weight in this viewpoint because they maintain a similar political outlook as I do. I've also unfortunately had a more distant family member attempt suicide during these events. Although I have no idea what he was thinking prompting him to take that action, I can't help but suspect it is related to the lockdown. I do know that I'd like to buy the exterminator who fortunately found him a nice dinner as appreciation for saving their life. These experiences cause me to question the true cost of the lockdown, from health impacts, social impact, economic impacts, etc, they are endless.

Please see my post on page 214 where I presented evidence that not only are children relatively unaffected by Covid, they have also been found to be extremely low transmitters of the disease. This research was also cited in the guidance provided by the Canadian hospital. At this point, the data has been mostly clear that Covid disproportionately causes catastrophic impact to those of greater age, and in many cases those with other comorbidities. The vast majority of the population responds very well. Although influenza is a completely different disease, it's impact on those of younger ages appears to be far less. Therefore, I'd propose a more targeted approach to protect those in the at-risk groups. This is where Sweden failed, they did a poor job of protecting those in LTC facilities, however, the remainder of their population has done well. Similarly, Illinois is unfortunately among the leaders in deaths/population in the US. These deaths have largely been slanted towards those in LTC facilities. Therefore, similar to Sweden, I believe Illinois may have had better results in focusing on those in LTC facilities with less focus on the larger population.

I believe this is irrelevant to the discussion, however, if necessary, I could obviously point to the 2005 World Series. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to share something more unique: How about in September 1993, when I was fairly young and my parents put me to bed before most White Sox games had concluded. I remember laying in bed, awake, and hearing the TV on in our living room. I heard the call of Bo Jackson's home run to put the Sox up and likely clinch the AL West. I remember waking up the next morning and receiving the confirmation on the radio that the Sox had indeed won, via"WMAQ ALL NEWS 67" as I ate my breakfast before school. How about all of the Sox games my Dad took me to, despite him being relatively indifferent to baseball or sports in general, because he was being a good dad. We would park at what is now known as "Morrie O'Malley's". I remember getting excited as we would walk down 35th toward the park, you knew you were close when you went under the railroad overpass and heard the street vendor's music. Again, this is irrelevant to the conversation.

A children's hospital in Canada appears to be advocating for a largely normal return to school with very basic precautions: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/sickkids-doctors-expect-safe-return-to-school-for-ontario-students-in-the-fall-1.5616344

This really emphasizes the point that Sweden did a poor job of protecting their LTC residents, however, most of the population did just fine:

All sources included:

Norway appears to be second guessing their lockdown: https://www.thelocal.no/20200522/norway-could-have-controlled-infection-without-lockdown-health-chief

I've posted this before, so forgive me, but: Sweden counts any death as a Covid death if there has been a positive test within 30 days. Literally any death from pneumonia to falling down the stairs would be a counted as a Covid death. However, their neighbors, such as Finland, are not even counting deaths outside of a hospital setting: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/17567-finland-s-coronavirus-deaths-rise-closer-to-100-actual-number-could-be-much-higher.html. Sweden is actually 4.5% below their baseline in total deaths, Norway is 9.00% below their baseline, Denmark is 2.7% below their baseline, and Finland is actually 10.6% above their baseline.

Nobody is questioning that Sweden reduced mobility, however, they clearly did so at a lower rate than their peers yet attained similar results, including the unfortunate situation with their LTC facilities; clearly a failing. I've already shared how their all cause deaths compare to their nordic neighbors; remarkably it is similar. Interesting findings regarding transmission among children: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.20.20108126v1 They find .44 infection in children compared to adults: This is conservative as they use Odds Ratios, not this adjusted for contact type from initial studies. Potential criticisms include potential lack of testing on non-syptomatic children causing missing cases. Fortunately, we have some new evidence there: Israel: https://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/9000/The_Role_of_Children_in_the_Dynamics_of_Intra.96128.aspx New York: https://academic.oup.com/jpids/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jpids/piaa070/5849922 These two studies both tested all household contacts, regardless of symptoms and found children are roughly 50% less likely to become infected as adults. But wait, what about false negative because children are difficult to swab: In the Netherlands, they performed a similar study using serology. https://ntvg.nl/artikelen/de-rol-van-kinderen-de-transmissie-van-sars-cov-2/volledig Shockingly, they found similar findings, children are 50% as likely to get infected as adults and teens in the household. Same study looked at infection pairs from a national database to see who was infecting who. They found almost all transmission was adult to adult, minimal child to adult or child to child transmission: We are consistently finding children are less easily infected than adults, and when they are transmission is reduced. Children do not appear to be super-spreaders.

Agreed, Sweden has fared catastrophically, as you can see from how it stands out from its peers: Although they did reduce social interaction, they id so by a far smaller degree than their peers:

Interesting story in the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-data-are-in-its-time-for-major-reopening-11592264199 They con­clude that twice as many lives could be saved if gov­ern­ments fo­cused lim­ited re­sources on pro­tect­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple rather than squan­der­ing them on those who seem to face al­most no risk, such as chil­dren. Nobel Prize winning Professor of Structural Biology offers his take: https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

I do have some concerns with Illinois' strategy, it seems we have done poorer than most: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ Last week 82% of deaths can be traced to LTC facilities; overall 55% are clearly related to LTC facilities but the number may be higher. Illinois has failed to protect our most vulnerable.

The above charts are based on deaths/per million. R0 is absolutely is real thing: Countries behaved radically differently, however, there was little difference in the R value. Interesting observation from a well-known statistician discussing the impact of the "lockdown" in the UK: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.02090 Firstly, Sweden absolutely failed in protecting their most vulnerable populations (a mistake that has been made throughout the world, notably in the US). Deaths related to LTC facilities are over 70%. Sweden frequently concedes this failing; this is the "admission" of their top epidemiologist . Regarding the counts compared to their nordic neighbors, this can be related to their particularly inclusive Covid counting metrics. Sweden counts any death as a Covid death if there has been a positive test within 30 days. Literally any death from pneumonia to falling down the stairs would be a counted as a Covid death. However, their neighbors, such as Finland, are not even counting deaths outside of a hospital setting: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/17567-finland-s-coronavirus-deaths-rise-closer-to-100-actual-number-could-be-much-higher.html. Surely, we should see a noticeable spike in death compared to their nordic neighbors: Sweden is actually 4.5% below their baseline, Norway is 9.00% below their baseline, Denmark is 2.7% below their baseline, and Finland is actually 10.6% above their baseline. Again, this does not demonstrate that Sweden performed well with Covid, they failed many of their citizens with a disease that is very dangerous to a portion of the population. However, they don't have a noticeable increase in death compared to their neighbors. It serves as evidence that the "lockdowns" had no correlation to the impact of Covid. Norway has somewhat admitted they overreacted: Regarding the nature.com publishing: They effectively assume a high growth rate, assume infinite exponential growth, and then assume that attenuation is because of actions without any casual link or empirical measures; there is no null hypothesis. You could apply the same assumptions to the annual flu and you would see the same drop without any of these actions. There is no reason to presume correlation or linearity in disease growth without non-pharma intervention. They are claiming that because the disease did not sustain steady growth forever that the actions their model claims should stop it must have stopped it.