• Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government, the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out why he thinks:

    • UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
    • The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
    • This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
    • The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
    • The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
    • The paper was very much too pessimistic
    • Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
    • The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
    • The results will eventually be similar for all countries
    • Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
    • The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
    • At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY

  • Interesting, but it seems to me it also suffers significantly from not being evidence-based either. Saying 'I'm right because I believe you're wrong' is more of a statement of faith than rigorous scientific analysis.

  • Amish Adalja of John Hopkins in early March was asked about timing of social distancing measures. He said the negatives of shutting down (for instance) schools early (when a single case is confirmed in the relevant town/city/district) haven’t been presented. Whilst not normal in an influenza outbreak, it may be the best way now. To the best of our knowledge all you do is buy more time and learn lessons earlier in your epidemic. His opinion is one I heard echoed by other epidemic experts. It wasn’t controversial.

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