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BFD commentators are a smart bunch. Recently a commentator made the fair point that the UK’s sudden reduction in Covid cases after removing restrictions could be explained by people having fewer tests.
As I say, that’s a fair call. But it’s pretty difficult to use the same argument to explain why there hasn’t been a surge in deaths caused by Covid. Here’s a graph showing the number of Covid related deaths in the UK over the last month or so, with the date when restrictions were lifted (“Freedom day”) marked.
Sure, as you can see there’s been an increase in Covid deaths since the lifting of restrictions. But what’s important here is the rate of increase which has overall has been pretty much steady. Remember, if the experts were correct about Freedom Day causing a surge in cases, you would expect to also see a corresponding surge in Covid deaths.
Let’s do the opposite and look at two places that have gone heavy on lockdowns recently, namely Victoria and NSW. Here’s a graph showing Covid related deaths in NSW.
The latest round of lockdowns began in Sydney around 26 June, and well, I can’t see them having had any effect.
Here are the stats for Victoria.
Well, I think that speaks for itself. And if you believe that that’s due to “Stand with Dan” sacrificing Melbourne’s firstborn to appease the sun gods I have a bridge in Sydney to sell you.
This post is about Covid deaths and lockdowns vs no lockdown. Covid cases are too unreliable to discern anything truly meaningful. So just for interest sake, let’s have a look at case numbers. Here are the case numbers for NSW.
I may be missing out, but I just can’t see any effect NSW’s lockdowns have had on the number of Covid cases.
As for Victoria.
This year Melbourne began locking down on the 12th of February which lasted till the 17th of the same month. Then they had another lockdown from 27 May to 10th June, then from 15 July to 20th July. And since 5th August they’ve been in lockdown.
As you can see above, since 5th August, Covid cases have been increasing in Victoria, and by quite a bit. I really can’t see lockdowns having made any difference.
As we here at the BFD keep saying, lockdowns don’t work.
*Images are screenshots from Google searches. If you’re interested in viewing the latest stats search “Covid deaths [name of country/state]” or “Covid cases [name of country/state]”.
