Five years on: The countries that never locked down for Covid-19 {2025 study}

BBC ^ | 5th March 2025 | Chris Baraniuk

[Cronos]

Most of the world found itself confined to their homes in March 2020 as Covid-19 spread at a blistering pace. Some countries didn't impose any lockdown restrictions – so was their decision the right one?

Sweden, Taiwan, Uruguay, Iceland and a few others never enacted a lockdown that involved severe restrictions on the movement of people

Five years later, the scientific studies and data have piled up, offering a detailed, long-term assessment of whether these countries were right to reject this most drastic of public health interventions.

Scientists have tried to answer that question. Ingeborg Forthun at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and researchers in other countries including Sweden published a study in May 2024 that compared excess deaths in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland during the first years of the pandemic. https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/34/4/737/7675929

While Sweden avoided strict government imposed controls, instead relying mainly on voluntary behavioural changes from is citizens, the other three nations imposed strict lockdowns in the early stages of the pandemic. Norway, Finland and Denmark closed schools and most other aspects of public life while also asking people to work from home, but they stopped short of confining people to their homes in the way other countries such as the UK did.

"The four countries have a comparable number of excess deaths when you account for the fact that population sizes differ," says Forthun. What lockdowns did affect, in part, was the timing of when spikes in excess deaths occurred. Of Norway's approach, Forthun adds: "We probably kept some older and vulnerable people alive for a longer period."

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TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: covid; covid19; lockdowns; pandemic

[jonrick46]

"It felt like it was written by someone with a psychological inability to get to the end of one point before skipping to another."

You exactly described what I noticed with the article.

[metmom]

Don’t forget $oro$ et al.

[MMusson]

Don’t treat everyone the same!

Lock down and isolate the elderly. Let everyone else interact and build up herd immunity. Children and young adults were at no risk from COVID. They should have been allowed to live their lives.

[Cronos]

Nateman In India Ivermectin was successful distributed. Here in the US it was downplayed as horse medicine and not easily available for people. Successful management of the disease would reduce the fear needed to push mail in voting.

you make very good points - I forgot about that. Thanks for the correction

[EVO X]

Lock down and isolate the elderly.

That didn't work. My SIL's elderly aunt died during the early weeks of Covid. The only treatment at the time was to stick that person in a ventilator when they turned blue. The aunt declined. The family did manage last goodbyes via a cell phone call.

[nonliberal]

Unfortunately, none of the lockdown politicians or enforcers have been executed or hunted down and killed.

[rod5591]

Trust the BBC to want to bring back this nightmare.

[Ge0ffrey]

South Carolina locked down for two weeks, then it was voluntary.

[trebb]

Like I responded to an article about how Brazil, stopped administering a dengue vax because 5 had dies and over 40 had severe reactions - out of 500K or so that h]got the jab:

“Just imagine the pain and suffering that could have been avoided if they had treated the toxic Covid jabs with the same caution. And treated symptoms instead of killing folks via unneeded intubations.

When my 74 year old wife was diagnosed with Covid, her doctor told her, “They have a new drug for that, but I don’t trust it, so here’s some prescriptions to treat your symptoms”...in 2 days she was feeling less pekid, in 4 days she was feeling much better and by day 8 she was over it.”

[DoodleBob]

It doesn’t matter.

For example, let’s say a really great statistical study concluded that Singapore and Japan’s low crime and homicide rates were due to gun control, vs the US.

That doesn’t change that the right to self-defense using a bat, golf club, or over/under is a God-given right and trumps any utilitarian argument. Screw Japan and Singapore-I’ll take self-defense over low crime every day.

Same thing here. Civil rights were destroyed in 2020-2021. End of story.