Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

I think the point about the cases peak possibly having preceded the lockdown is an interesting one that warrants investigation (but that's working backwards from deaths - looking at new daily cases the peak is clearly after lockdown starts; in any case, there was probably some behaviour modification before lockdown - I know I started avoiding pubs etc. at least 10 days before the lockdown). In a blog post elsewhere ( https://hectordrummond.com/2020/05/09/alistair-haimes-the-virus-that-turned-up-late/ ), Haimes argues that the cases curve in the UK fits with a normal wave of infectious disease like seasonal flu, but if it fits so perfectly that seems to suggest that lockdown had no effect on transmission, which doesn't pass the smell test. As danstuff noted, the comparison of non-lockdown flu with lockdown Covid-19 is a sleight of hand; couple that with tells like the capitalisation of 'Free Sweden' and the editorial affiliations of the sites this has been published on (hi Spiked 'skeptics'! Hi Adam Smith Institute! Hi Toby Young!), I'm happy to conclude that this isn't an intellectually honest exercise. (There's also a fair amount of strawmanning of lockdown advocates; I don't think that there's anyone that doesn't recognise that there are very real downsides, just that at this point there are only least worst options.) To give credit where credit's due, the lessons learned points are sound...

Given population densities, the big outlier for me is not Sweden, but Japan - though from what I gather in my uninformed way they may not have had formal lockdowns, but have had a reasonable amount of social distancing anyhow?