Yeah, fair point. I was probably wrong to say vaccine hesitancy. Maybe a lack of vaccine urgency would be a better way to put it. At a national, rather than individual, level.
Would you rather an explosion of cases and deaths back in the hundreds per day?
Most of the vulnerable have been offered a jab or have had both now, the hospitalisation elements have consistently decreased. I don't see any reason to prolong past June 21st, given that most in society (even those at a very low risk) will have been offered the first jab.
While the current situation in Taiwan is not ideal, I wouldn't call them having zero COVID strategy. Taiwan was one of the first regions to close their border, and a place with zero COVID strategy would not have kept the case number this low for over a year. Despite the recent outbreak, they are still one of the most successful regions in dealing with the pandemic overall. Especially when you realize Taiwan is being excluded by the WHO, and the fact that people could live a normal life in the past year cannot be gone unnoticed.
It’s a little hard to get your head round but the people who model these things seem convinced that there’s a % transmission increase for this new variant at which point the June 21st opening would cause such a massive outbreak that the numbers of not yet vaccinated (or vaccine refusers) plus vaccinated breakthrough illness (vaccines not 100% effective) would be enough to overwhelm hospitals even worse than the last surge.
I can see why they're offering caution as an approach but the trend in the numbers wouldn't suggest that hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, however interesting comments from Neil Ferguson yesterday. Considering his modelling has always been on the side of pessimism.
Interesting. The FT covid graph guy was tweeting yesterday about those curves possibly flattening too. Although it seems as though it’s far too early for anyone to have any confidence in their predictions either way.
Ha!
Didn’t have the stones to tag him, though, did you Pogue?!
Fight! Fight! Fight!
I'm confused. Doesn't that prove Sweden's approach worked well?
Kind of. Well compared to mainland Europe. Badly compared to their neighbours. Which is a fairer comparison. Although it’s hard to quantify the improved quality of life for Swedes who’ve had schools, amateur sports, bars, restaurants etc up and running throughout the pandemic.
How come it didn't really happen last summer until well into September out of interest? Pubs and retail opened up at start of July, mandatory mask wearing in public spaces and transport only became mandatory in middle of June and plenty of meet ups with BLM protests and all that around that time. And Vaccine still 6 months off being introduced.
I think Taiwan was definitely too open. I watch Taiwanese variety shows fairly frequent and it always amazes me how little masks i see on the streets and how many large-scale events they have. Basically life was as per normal for them.
Actually i think there was also some misjudgement from the Taiwanese side initially. They were banking on developing their own vaccines earlier on which did not succeed. Hence they were slow to procure vaccines. When they decided to do so, the link that you shared happened.
This is what Australia did. They bet the bank on AZ (locally manufactured) and the locally developed UQ vaccine that failed. They were planning to announce a great Aussie victory with at least 12 huge Aussie flags behind them but are now in the shit through not treating this as a health issue but a party political issue. I hate them with a passion. Our Health Moron ... erm ... Minister yesterday even managed to tell the over 50's that they could hang off and not get the AZ vaccine and wait until the end of the year or 2022 to get Pfiser or Moderna. Before back-tracking when the idiocy of his own statement was pointed out to him. The utter feckwit.
At low levels of cases it takes a while for exponential growth to come through into big numbers.
Because the original variant was much less infectious. Last summer wouldn’t have happened if the Kent variant was dominant. And the Indian variant could be more infectious still
Well, yeah, exactly. So their health service was never overwhelmed and they mostly got to live their lives they way they want, sounds pretty... great?
It does sound good but, like I said, hard to quantify. How many avoidable deaths are acceptable for you or I to have been able to keep going to pubs over the last 18 months? If you’ve lost loved ones to covid, you might argue that one is too many.
It's funny you mention the pub there when just above you mentioned the schools stayed open throughout. Weren't you clamouring for schools to be the first thing open in Ireland and that educating our children as a society is fundamental, and that it was arguably the biggest travesty of Covid? Why not use that as a barometer vs lives lost instead? I mean technically you did want schools to reopen when cases went low so isn't that still, sort of, saying.. ok, I'm all right with a few more deaths now as long as the kids go back to school, no?
It was a disaster in Sweden
Can you elaborate?
Easy tiger. I said pub because assumed you’d find that more relatable.
Well, neither did I, though. I clearly stated that Sweden's approach wouldn't work here, that's quite obvious. We needed lockdowns, even with them our health service nearly got overwhelmed at least one. But that's the thing, most European governments haven't actually focused on deaths, they've tried balancing a fine line between keeping society open and avoiding their health services getting completely fecked, right? If Sweden managed to achieve that without locking down at all, I'd call that a success for them.
So yeah, um, I still don't get how it wasn't a success for them?
Because you can’t judge success on what one person says about how “the average Swede” feels.
Over 14000 people dead. Mostly avoidably.
Which is still better than a lot of European countries that did lock down. So yeah, Sweden failed in the same way that a lot failed, they lost more than some countries, and less than others.
Heh, it's funny because I keep being told that Sweden's approach was a failure by you and others yet nobody can actually pinpoint why. Sure, the facts won't be known for years, but again, Sweden have less excess deaths and most European countries don't they? I'm just really struggling to see what was so damn awful about their approach, certainly awful enough for you to continuously ridicule a certain Swede in here who, funnily enough, is defending his own countries approach.
You do know this is a football forum, right?
Point taken
I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I never ridiculed “a certain Swede”. If anything, I’ve erred on the side of defending Sweden’s approach. It’s been obvious for ages that they definitely made mistakes but the outcome has been far from the apocalypse many predicted. My main argument throughout has been that works in one country won’t necessarily work as well in a different country. And working out the optimal approach is incredibly difficult.
Fair enough Pogue. Like I said, I don't in any way advocate the Sweden approach here or in other countries because it probably wouldn't work but it's the idea that theirs has been a failure despite having less deaths and less excess deaths than many other Western nations that did lock down that irks me.
It irks me too. Which is why I posted the link that started this discussion!
Looking from hindsight it's definitely too open. But considering Taiwan had 0 local case in 253 days, there was no reason or justification to put restriction on people. People had the right and deserved to live a normal life and the benefits couldn't be overlooked. If there had been no new case in your country for a few months, I bet you wouldn't be happy to wear a mask everywhere or be banned from large-scale events too.
