From my position of very vague understanding , I’m very grateful that the UK Govt went for a lockdown policy, and did so at an early stage. That is definitely what I want, and I hope it continues for a long while yet.
But I also think we need to respect that different countries are free to adopt different approaches. Sweden, for example, has had no actual lockdown. Afaik, bars and restaurants remain open. Yet, based on my own understanding of the stats, they are not doing that bad...
Sweden: R_t showing as 0.98 at time of posting, UK showing 0.84.
source
https://mrc-ide.github.io/covid19-short-term-forecasts/index.html#projections-and-effective-reproduction-number-estimatesSweden: Death rate 301 per million pop. Compares with UK’s 451, and Belgium’s 726.
Source
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/I’ve said it a few times, but I really wish the BBC or other channels could dig up some serious, grown up, technical journalists to talk us through these issues and numbers, and how the evidence for lockdowns is stacking up. Even the old Blue Peter teams such as Noakes, Purves and Singleton would do a far better job of explaining Covid stats than anything any modern broadcaster seems able to muster.
The point is to applaud the NHS frontline workers - not the organisation!
And all I said was, that I did not applaud the NHS this week.
I will personally continue to applaud all frontline staff, from healthcare workers through delivery services, to refuse collection crews, and more.