Australia wide, we have responded to outbreaks by activating lockdowns. This research suggests lockdowns has cost more lives than it has saved. Thus proposing an alternative view.
The report is therefore to me nonsense.
Put it this way how would we be going now without those lockdowns. Go look at the mortality rate across the world.
You have to be able to critically evaluate reports and data. Cherry picking stuff to make up a story to suit your argument is dumb.
Science is about discovering reality. That is it.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Check it out for yourself. Just filter on deaths per million people.
Sweden:- 1,438
Australia:- 36
New Zealand:- 5
Britain:- 1,904
To me it's pretty clear cut.
Maybe I'll rephrase this:-
1. Do you believe the countries with lesser lockdowns (note lockdowns have been everywhere it's a matter of scale) have performed better ? Can you justify that opinion when you look at the figures above ?
2. Do you believe some random report where you do not know the bias of the people involved or how well researched that report is over the raw data which appears pretty conclusive ?
So assuming the vaccination rate remains the same lockdowns have to be used. The thing is and this is the reason I mention vaccines the picture changes completely dependent on how many people are vaccinated.
Wow, a pretty aggressive response here. I'll do my best to respond to the questions.
1. How do you define better? Is it simply number of deaths due to Covid? If that was the only metric, the optimal policy response would, at the beginning of the crisis, weld everyone's door shut and only let people out when the virus has been totally eradicated. As this didn't happen, one could suggest metrics other than Covid deaths should be included to determine 'better'. The report I attached was looking at metrics other than Covid deaths to determine optimal policy response. That is why I welcomed it into the discussion.
You talk about intellectual dishonesty, I would suggest that basing arguments on univariate correlations for an undoubtedly multivariate problem could also be classified as intellectually dishonest. These figures you show are only Covid deaths and they do not take into account population density, the number of positive cases within a community before Covid was known, structure of the health system, general health of the population, deaths from non-covid reasons etc. The figures you provide above tell me very little about the success of lockdowns.
I should also stress the report does not propose no lockdowns, but rather tries to estimate the differences between mitigation vs. elimination strategies.
2. This is the bio of the author. I'll let you judge her research credentials. Note, Quantitative Economics and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization are A* journals which are the highest ranked journals as judged by the Australian Business Deans Council. As to her biases, I can't answer that.
Gigi Foster is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia. Formally educated at Yale University (BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Maryland (PhD in Economics), she works in diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioural economics, and Australian policy. Her research contributions regularly inform public debates and appear in both specialised and cross-disciplinary outlets (e.g., Quantitative Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Economic Psychology, Human Relations). Her teaching, featuring strategic innovation and integration with research, was awarded a 2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Named 2019 Young Economist of the Year by the Economic Society of Australia, Professor Foster has filled numerous roles of service to the profession and engages heavily on economic matters with the Australian community. As one of Australia’s leading economics communicators, her regular media appearances include co-hosting The Economists, a national economics talk-radio program and podcast series premiered in 2018, with Peter Martin AM on ABC Radio National.
Foster has been pushing this view since day 1 of the Pandemic, around March 2019. It’s changed slightly and Foster has accepted lockdowns as long as they are targeted but that wasn’t always the case.
I’ll say what I said then, I would never take health advice from an economist. They are like a tradesman when your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if it was a nail. I’ll be sticking with the health professionals advice.
Are lockdowns the way out of the current outbreaks? My view is not on their own, vaccinations will be the main defence moving forward and the way out of lockdowns. That is the current advice from the health professionals.
Maybe you should be listening to her if she was talking about the pandemic in March 2019! Haha.
Why begrudge the poor economist? Couldn't you say the same about health professionals? Is there a relationship between economic growth and health outcomes?
The economy will still be there, some of us may not be if we take an health advice from economists.
Nobody is suggesting you should take health advice from an economist. Should we be taking economic advice from a health officer?
