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We don't have those numbers because of the lockdowns, which were obeyed in part because of the media coverage. The alternative would have been China's approach of physically locking people inside their homes, or much lower compliance and higher infection and death rates.


There is the small matter that deniers make the claim that government lockdowns are forcing people to stay home, not work, etc. When the data tends to show people were starting to shelter in place well before governments took action.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-didnt-wait-fo...



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Sweden didn't have an official lockdown, but they encouraged safer behavior and already have more work from home and single people living alone than other places. That would not have worked in the US, and in truth it didn't work as well as their neighbors.


Are you suggesting Swedish people have not changed their behavior?


They certainly have, but not due to a 'shutdown' like the ones that were being encouraged in every other country. The media stats said that we were in for 2m deaths in the United States if the government did not shut things down. That was wrong. A proper media response would have anticipated that -- even if the gov't didn't shut things down -- people would have been more cautious by making individual decisions. That would have lead to a better government response.




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