
Why lockdowns are the wrong policy: Swedish expert Prof. Johan Giesecke
About this video
UnHerd interview with Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke, who explains why he thinks lockdowns are the wrong policy and describes Sweden's approach during the spring 2020 pandemic.
Why it appears in the archive
Commenters point to it for the Swedish insider perspective on lockdowns, with some later calling its statements prescient.
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From the Hacker News discussion
Here's an interesting interview with a senior epidemiologist partly responsible for Sweden's unconventional strategy: [VIDEO] TL;DW: Preventing transmission in the long term is impossible and the actual fatality rate is likely on the order of 0.1%, so general lockdowns are pointless and being driven mostly by political considerations (something must be done and this is something). Just protect the elderly and weak.
Read original comment ↗There is a lengthier interview by UnHeard with Professor Johan Giesecke (another experienced epidemiologist) of Sweden on YouTube [0]. It’s worthwhile listening to their perspective. One of the comments he made was that no lockdown would work in democratic countries and the real test will be fatality rates between Sweden and others in 1 year. He believed it’ll be very little difference between those countries that have implement the lockdown and those that haven’t I had watched the simulation of covid19 infection by 1blue3brown[1] and some of his modeling appeared to me (maybe I misunderstood them) to confirm Swede’s point of view. Ultimately the same number of people got infected albeit in a “flatter” rate. However one counter point by Johan Giesecke was that these flattening the curve is motivated by the assumption of a static capacity of ER rooms to deal with this pandemic and he pointed out they have increased capacity. Overall I found listening to his side very informative, at least it gave me a different view of looking at from their view. [0] [VIDEO] [1] [LINK]
Read original comment ↗As I see it, lockdowns are not effective and were a massive mistake. You may find this epidemiologist's perspective to be interesting: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Sweden has a rather different welfare system, typical population density, income distribution, typical household demographic, urban planning and culture regarding social interactions, compared to many places that would use it as an example for what to do in this crisis. I think following the available evidence, interpreted by experts is the way to go. Ultimately the argument for Sweden's policy seems to be less based on cost saving than general wellbeing. A good bit of insight here: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Unherd.com have had some of the best journalism of the crisis so far. In particular some of the interviews with epedimiologists: [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK]
Read original comment ↗I'm Swedish but I live in Scotland and I've been watching the Swedish approach to COVID with great interest. I remain fairly sceptical but I also thought this interview[0] with Johan Giesecke who was the previous state epidemiologist and is advising both WHO and the current state epidemiologist interesting. In particular it seems like Sweden messed up the response in elderly care which is something that everyone is admiting to. I do think it's too early to say whether Sweden's approach is as bad as it currently looks, likely this is not something that can be measured and compared to other nations for years. 0: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Here is an interview with Prof Johan Giesecke from April 2020. In hindsight one can call his statements prophetic. [VIDEO] They had a clear plan, unlike other governments like Germany, who still do not have a plan how to get out of this mess.
Read original comment ↗I have to side with Musk here. I want to see what everything Tesla is doing to protect their employees and if they are following a subset of the below guidelines that I've listed. Temperature check at entrance, mask requirement, strict hand sanitization, etc. Then let Musk commercialize the process of opening up businesses. Some background: I followed Corona (COVID19 now) from late January very closely and read most published papers. I strongly supported the "flattening of the curve" and encouraged the lockdown and we practiced/and practice strict social distancing. That being said, hearing countering arguments from various scientist (2013 Noble prize winner [0]). The Swedish epidemiologist [1]. That the lockdown makes no sense unless we are going to have a vaccine when we come out of the lockdown. Remember, the initial lockdown was mostly argued for flattening the curve (in addition to maybe it worked in China lets follow them). If you look at the curves (flattened vs. spiked) they have near the same areas, meaning those original scientist who argued for it, never argued the lockdown was going to reduce the net infection by COVID but to slow it down to help the health care system gear up and also not get overwhelmed (lack of rooms, ventilators, etc.) That being said, we can copy some smart and common sense stuff from places like Taiwan (I've spoken to people who live in Taiwan and life is almost back to normal but they just wear masks in public) that has allowed them open up
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