Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Of course not.
Since “lockdowns” often generate vociferous cries of protest and outrage (sometimes violent), and public support is more generally calm & temperate, no wise elected official will be inclined to invoke restrictive measures, without very good cause. . .

Wise elected officials might ALSO be inclined to use less restrictive measures, because they work just as well, or almost as well, at far less cost and far less collateral damage.

Originally Posted by GordMay

. . The previously cited articles indicate that there is active controversy (we aggree, here), regarding the efficacy of various non medical interventions, so politicians have reasons/excuses to avoid them, as much as, and as long as, possible in their (sometimes flawed) judgement.

Or maybe good judgement.

I can't really think of a single country or state, which is doing really badly, because it declined to use lockdown. The bizarre and irrational demonization of Sweden's pandemic response has been exactly the result of desperate attempts to show at least one example, of a country which didn't lock down, and as a result had a disaster. This is a major theme of journalism about the pandemic.

Here is a really, really good example of this:

December 3, 2020: Iowa Is What Happens When Government Does Nothing

The story of the coronavirus in the state is one of government inaction in the name of freedom and personal responsibility.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...ndemic/617252/

The Atlantic, a tendentious politicized journal of opinion, has been particularly active in politicizing the pandemic, with numerous articles of this type, with harsh attacks on any opinion questioning the value of lockdown, with harsh attacks on states or countries which took any approach different from the strictest possible measures without regard for cost, demonization of any contrary opinion, etc. Naturally Sweden figures big in the Atlantic's reporting on the pandemic.

This article states:

"The story of the coronavirus in this state is one of government inaction in the name of freedom and personal responsibility. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has followed President Donald Trump’s lead in downplaying the virus’s seriousness. She never imposed a full stay-at-home order for the state and allowed bars and restaurants to open much earlier than in other places. She imposed a mask mandate for the first time this month—one that health-care professionals consider comically ineffectual—and has questioned the science behind wearing masks at all. Through the month of November, Iowa vacillated between 1,700 and 5,500 cases every day. Between November 23 and November 29, the state’s test-positivity rate reached 50 percent, according to data compiled by Reuters. Iowa is what happens when a government does basically nothing to stop the spread of a deadly virus."

“In a lot of ways, Iowa is serving as the control group of what not to do,” Eli Perencevich, an infectious-disease doctor at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, told me. Although cases dropped in late November—a possible result of a warm spell in Iowa—Perencevich and other public-health experts predict that the state’s lax political leadership will result in a “super peak” over the holidays, and thousands of preventable deaths in the weeks to come. “We know the storm’s coming,” Perencevich said. “You can see it on the horizon. . . ”

". . . But right now, Iowa is on a disastrous path. Experts expect to see a spike in COVID-19 cases in the state roughly one week from now, two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday. That spike will likely precede a surge in hospitalizations and, eventually, a wave of new deaths—maybe as many as 80 a day, Perencevich, the infectious-disease doctor, estimates. Add Christmas and New Year’s to the mix, and Iowans can expect to see nothing less than a tsunami, Perencevich says."

OK, that was published on 2 December. So what has actually happened? Did the storm come? "Super peak" over the holiday season? Mass death?

Well, no:



While during the same time in California, with the hardest lockdown in the country (as the governor is fond of saying):



Now this does not prove that lockdown causes bad outcomes and no lockdown causes good ones.

But it sure does show that it is far from obvious from real data, that lockdown produces good results, and failing to lockdown -- as argued shrilly in the Atlantic article -- produces disaster. No matter how desperately some people would like to demonstrate that.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Wise elected officials might ALSO be inclined to use less restrictive measures, because they work just as well, or almost as well, at far less cost and far less collateral damage.
Or maybe good judgement ...

Perhaps. I'm not certain.
On the other hand:
I’m reasonably certain that every “western” government, that imposed any “restrictive” non medical interventions, did so:
- reluctantly & fearfully (of possible negative consequences - primarily economic & political)
- against their “natural” inclinations (bias)
- after delaying (too long, IMO), due to the above

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Perhaps. I'm not certain.. .

I'm also not certain. And I think those who ARE certain, are lacking information. It's an extremely complex phenomenon which we will be analyzing for years to come.

Originally Posted by GordMay

On the other hand:
I’m reasonably certain that every “western” government, that imposed any “restrictive” non medical interventions, did so:
- reluctantly & fearfully (of possible negative consequences - primarily economic & political)
- against their “natural” inclinations (bias)
- after delaying (too long, IMO), due to the above

I'm not sure if I agree with that. What you write might be true or might be part of the picture, but that's not the whole picture. Having spent some time in the "halls of power", I know very well from direct observation that there is another dynamic at play here, something I have written about previously on CF.

Politicians are always thinking about their own careers, and about holding on to power. It's natural; you can't condemn them for that. This is only bad if they lose sight of the public interest or stop putting the public interest first.

So appearing to be a "leader" and being seen to take "bold action" in a crisis, enhances power, and is very good for politicians' careers, even if the "bold action" is not optimum for the public good. When there is widespread public fear, there is nothing people welcome so much as to be able to follow a "strong leader" who is taking "bold action", no matter what it is. Many people don't even mind being asked to make sacrifices, as long as it looks like someone else is in charge and is going to "save them". How do you think politicians talk their populations into going to war? Exactly this phenomenon, based on fear. War is rarely, and possibly never, in the public interest; but can be strongly in the interest of politicians, who get to appear "bold" and "decisive" and "strong leaders" -- this is a good example of what I'm talking about. This is such a thing in politics, that politicians will even whip up fear intentionally, because it so full of opportunity for them.

And moreover, in polarized societies, you have the enemy politicians just waiting for you to make a mistake or show weakness or indecision. Thoughtfulness, nuance, and appropriate caution, can always be characterized as weakness and indecision, by nasty politicians in nasty polarized societies like ours.

THEREFORE, there is a STRONG inclination in a crisis like this, not to risk taking insufficiently bold action. If it turns out badly, even if it's the right bet based on what you know, you will be skewered for it, and you might get skewered for it anyway. And since people expect to make sacrifices in a crisis, even perhaps welcome it in some perverse way ("this is going to hurt . . . "), you have much less political risk from being excessively bold, than you do from being insufficiently so.

This political dimension is one reason for the unique Nordic approach to the pandemic -- these are profoundly NONpolarized societies, societies with extremely high public trust and community solidarity, where politicians have come together and have scrupulously avoided politicizing the pandemic -- because they know it harms the common good -- this is not the time to score political points, but rather pull together and get things done. Moreover, in the Nordic countries, as I have written, much more of policy is given to scientists -- policy is much more science-based than elsewhere. In Sweden and Finland, pandemic measures are primarily made by scientists in the health authorities even administratively -- the ministers to whom they answer have no right to interfere in policy. The politicians step back. In this atmosphere, it is possible to take nuanced, moderate steps which are not driven by fear, which would be political suicide in polarized societies. And I think that is exactly what we've seen, and is it a coincidence that the Nordic region has been by far the least affected, of any part of Europe? Correlation is not causation, so I don't think we know for sure, but we sure know that the opposite is not the case.

[Capn Jimbo]

A Public Health Perspective:


Comparing "new cases per day" when comparing any two states on any basis except based on per capita, is ludicrous.

The following is the correct chart for comparison, based on deaths/100K, and fairly showing Idaho's poor performance and post holiday surge, which is now just leveling off (1/17). The rate of increase during the holidays is illustrated meaningfully.





Keep in mind that the gold standard - deaths - follow infections, and that cases (tests) can be misleading depending on the number of tests actually made, on whom and/or timely reported or not. Unfortunately we are subject to posting of misleading, misinterpreted or misrepresented data, whether intentional or not.



CJ
Public Health, 30 years

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

A Public Health Perspective:

Comparing "new cases per day" when comparing any two states on any basis except based on per capita, is ludicrous.

The following is the correct chart for comparison, based on deaths/100K, and fairly showing Idaho's poor performance and post holiday surge, which is now just leveling off (1/17). The rate of increase during the holidays is illustrated meaningfully.. . .

Not long ago, you were complaining that people were talking about the absolute level of infections or death, rather than the shape of the curves. Which is it going to be?

The question was whether IOWA was going to have a "tsunami of death" or not, after 2 December, or not. Whatever the cases per capita, the TREND is what is at issue, and the TREND was opposite of what was predicted. This assertion was clearly demonstrated with just the relevant facts, and not in any way "misleading, misinterpreted, or misrepresented."

Morever, you are, comically, confused about the state -- no one talked about IDAHO. The state in question is IOWA, not Idaho. Clearly you didn't take the time to read the article, we are talking about. So even this irrelevant criticism is wrong. On 2 December, the day the Atlantic predicted impending catastrophe, Iowa had 729 daily cases per million population (7 day rolling average). From there rather than a "tsunami of death", cases have only decline, to 425 per million today.

Whereas in hard locked-down California, daily cases per million (7 day rolling average) peaked at 1153 in December, and are at 1051, 2.5x higher than Iowa, today.

So which state is "better performing"?


As to your "gold standard", deaths your chart, even relating to the wrong state, does not show what you say it does. There is no "holiday surge" at all, even in Idaho. There IS a holiday surge in California.


The correct states:




Cases are going DOWN, not surging, on 2 December, contrary to assertions in the Atlantic article, and this is reflected in the death rates, which peak soon after.


California, despite hard lockdown, DID have a holiday surge.


Today the death rate per million is 9.3 in Iowa and 13.5 in California.

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

. . Unfortunately we are subject to posting of misleading, misinterpreted or misrepresented data, whether intentional or not.. . .

The only wrong information posted in here has been posted by you. Your criticisms, notwithstanding their bombast, notwithstanding throwing around terms like "ludicrous", are totally invalid.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

A Public Health Perspective:


Comparing "new cases per day" when comparing any two states on any basis except based on per capita, is ludicrous.

The following is the correct chart for comparison, based on deaths/100K, and fairly showing Idaho's poor performance and post holiday surge, which is now just leveling off (1/17). The rate of increase during the holidays is illustrated meaningfully.
.....
Keep in mind that the gold standard - deaths - follow infections, and that cases (tests) can be misleading depending on the number of tests actually made, on whom and/or timely reported or not. Unfortunately we are subject to posting of misleading, misinterpreted or misrepresented data, whether intentional or not

CJ
Public Health, 30 years

Ludicrous is an emotionally charged term.
Yes, comparing daily cases between states or countries or even different time periods can be misleading, but comparing deaths is equally so unless the cause of death is reported and tallied in precisely the same way and is consistent (this was not the case in the UK initially when only hospital deaths due to COVID-19 were included).

Also, could you please explain why you are comparing Idaho and California?
What data is “misleading, misinterpreted or misrepresented”?

Edited to add: I was slow responding. I see Dockhead beat me to it.

[Capn Jimbo]

A Public Health Perspective:


Correction. I incorrectly compared California to Idaho, not Iowa, my bad, thus properly opening myself up to the usual trollic gotchas. The really funny part though, is that Iowa's performance is even worse than Idaho's....lol....





Thus the same observations apply:

The above is the correct chart for comparison, based on deaths/100K, and fairly showing Idaho's poor and Iowa's even worse performances and post holiday surges, which for both states are now just leveling off (1/17). The rate of increase during the holidays is illustrated meaningfully.

And yet again: Keep in mind that the gold standard - deaths - follow infections, and that cases (tests) can be misleading depending on the number of tests actually made, on whom and/or timely reported or not.

Unfortunately we are subject to posting of misleading, misinterpreted or misrepresented data, whether intentional or not. Thank again to my good friends who pointed out my error, lol...



CJ
Public Health, 30 years

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

........
And widespread vaccination is really essential to breaking the back of the pandemic and allowing life to get back to normal -- that will also save lives, and not just virus deaths -- the secondary effects of the pandemic AND from the pandemic measures are immensely destructive. If this goes on much longer and we have a large global economic collapse, we are screwed -- this will kill untold millions and ruin the lives of billions. We've got to put an end to it, and widespread vaccination appears to be the only way.

THEREFORE, I am strongly pro-vaccination. I don't think people should be forced to vaccinate, and I don't think people who are reluctant to vaccinate should be disrespected or demonized, but I would not even be against mandatory vaccination, if it turns out to be the only way to stop the pandemic.

We will have to agree to disagree on this issue .
I don’t think the majority of people need to be vaccinated to break the back of the pandemic. I also don’t think it will be a great problem if COVID-19 becomes endemic if the vulnerable are largely protected by vaccinating them.

The UK government has stated that 99% of lives will be saved if the nine highest risk groups plus those caring for them that they are targeting first are immunised (roughly 40% of the population). Even if they just achieve most of the over 65’s (about 18% of the population) the deaths will plummet. Same goes for hospital admissions (see post #1476 for a recent graph).

If this occurs, why won’t life go back almost to normal? A large number of “young” people are asymptomatic or only minimally affected. If the risk to the vulnerable is almost removed, then all the destructive pandemic measures can be lifted.

“Long covid” may be a problem. This is not yet clear, but I think it would be better to wait until trials have been completed before promoting widespread vaccination. I am not in favour of taking any unnecessary risks with vaccinating billions of young healthy people at low risk with minimally trialled vaccines, particularly ones that function in very new ways.

[Montanan]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-th...180255388.html

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown. Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.

Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died. The current cut-off point for recording Covid deaths is 28 days after a positive test, so it may mean thousands more people should be included in the coronavirus death statistics. The study found that Covid survivors were nearly three and a half times more likely to be readmitted to hospital, and die, in the 140 days timeframe than other hospital outpatients.

The researchers found that many people were going back in with a new diagnosis, and many had developed heart, kidney and liver problems, as well as diabetes. Therefore it is likely to become important to make sure people were placed on protective therapies and close follow up evaluations.

“We don’t know if it’s because Covid destroyed the beta cells which make insulin and you get Type 1 diabetes, or whether it causes insulin resistance, and you develop Type 2, but we are seeing these surprising new diagnoses of diabetes,” “We’ve seen studies where survivors have had MRS scans and they’ve cardiac problems and liver problems. In December, the ONS estimated that one in 10 people who catch coronavirus go on to suffer long Covid with symptoms lasting three months or more.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Montanan

https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-th...180255388.html

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown. Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.

Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died. The current cut-off point for recording Covid deaths is 28 days after a positive test, so it may mean thousands more people should be included in the coronavirus death statistics. The study found that Covid survivors were nearly three and a half times more likely to be readmitted to hospital, and die, in the 140 days timeframe than other hospital outpatients.

The researchers found that many people were going back in with a new diagnosis, and many had developed heart, kidney and liver problems, as well as diabetes. Therefore it is likely to become important to make sure people were placed on protective therapies and close follow up evaluations.

“We don’t know if it’s because Covid destroyed the beta cells which make insulin and you get Type 1 diabetes, or whether it causes insulin resistance, and you develop Type 2, but we are seeing these surprising new diagnoses of diabetes,” “We’ve seen studies where survivors have had MRS scans and they’ve cardiac problems and liver problems. In December, the ONS estimated that one in 10 people who catch coronavirus go on to suffer long Covid with symptoms lasting three months or more.

Hi Montanan
Yes, maybe longer than 28 days should be considered, but also counting everyone who dies within 28 days of having a positive test regardless of the reason, as the UK does, is highly misleading as well.

Another reason is excess deaths for the year is good to evaluate.

The Yahoo article relates only to patients who were initially hospitalised due to severe problems, and in the UK the vast majority of these are over the age of 75. A “long term toll” for elderly hospitalised patients at high risk of dying from a disease is not unexpected.

The graph below is from this website:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...nd8january2021

One more reason to try and get as many of this group at very high risk of problems vaccinated as quickly as possible. The initial data from vaccine trials indicated that once vaccinated there were no cases of severe disease.

[laird]

Originally Posted by Montanan

https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-th...180255388.html

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown. Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.

Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died. The current cut-off point for recording Covid deaths is 28 days after a positive test, so it may mean thousands more people should be included in the coronavirus death statistics. The study found that Covid survivors were nearly three and a half times more likely to be readmitted to hospital, and die, in the 140 days timeframe than other hospital outpatients.

The researchers found that many people were going back in with a new diagnosis, and many had developed heart, kidney and liver problems, as well as diabetes. Therefore it is likely to become important to make sure people were placed on protective therapies and close follow up evaluations.

“We don’t know if it’s because Covid destroyed the beta cells which make insulin and you get Type 1 diabetes, or whether it causes insulin resistance, and you develop Type 2, but we are seeing these surprising new diagnoses of diabetes,” “We’ve seen studies where survivors have had MRS scans and they’ve cardiac problems and liver problems. In December, the ONS estimated that one in 10 people who catch coronavirus go on to suffer long Covid with symptoms lasting three months or more.

hi montanan

I've known about the heart issues for sometime now , my Daughter in Law is a cardio specialist ,she told me that the right hand side of the heart was being damaged by covid , they are not sure about the long term effects , that was last summer

It's going to take time for all the evidence to be collected and correlated , I have seen people with long term covid , I hope I don't get it

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Capn Jimbo

A Public Health Perspective:

Correction. I incorrectly compared California to Idaho, not Iowa, my bad, thus properly opening myself up to the usual trollic gotchas. The really funny part though, is that Iowa's performance is even worse than Idaho's....lol....

Thus the same observations apply:

The above is the correct chart for comparison, based on deaths/100K, and fairly showing Idaho's poor and Iowa's even worse performances and post holiday surges, which for both states are now just leveling off (1/17). The rate of increase during the holidays is illustrated meaningfully.

And yet again: Keep in mind that the gold standard - deaths - follow infections, and that cases (tests) can be misleading depending on the number of tests actually made, on whom and/or timely reported or not.

Unfortunately we are subject to posting of misleading, misinterpreted or misrepresented data, whether intentional or not. Thank again to my good friends who pointed out my error, lol...

CJ
Public Health, 30 years

OK, so let me get this straight:


From a "public health perspective", if the daily infection rate is going down for more than a month, the death rate is going down, this is "worse performance" than a state where the daily infection rate goes up (nonstop for two months already), and where the daily infections per capita is 2.5x higher? Really?



I guess we need 30 years of Public Health Experience to see that in this data.


Us "ignorant laymen" are now thoroughly confused, since you've just told us a couple of days ago how "horrible" the "performance" in Sweden is, since case rates had been RISING for a few days (compare to two months of it California) -- because a few days of rising case rates shows "exponential growth" and an "explosion". Now Iowa with FALLING case rates and falling death rates is somehow "horrible performance".



This is obviously biased nonsense, "performance" having no objective meaning.


And in any case, this post does not even address the point of the discussion, which is how wrong the politicized Atlantic article was, which concretely predicted an "explosion" of cases over the holidays because the evil Republican governor was "doing nothing", instead of imposing hard lockdown like enlightened California. The graphs I posted show unequivocally that what happened was the opposite, and that the predicted "tsunami" in Iowa over the holiday turned out to be opposite -- steadily DECLINING cases and deaths. Nothing Jimbo has posted contradicts or even addresses this demonstrated fact; he hasn't even read the Atlantic article, or the discussion.

[Wotname]

It is a quiet morning here so this is my two cents worth of observation of the current CF bun fight 'bout CA and IA.

It seems to me it matters not what the various governments mandate. What matters is how different groups of people respond to an infectious disease in their midst.

Without knowing the fine detail of the daily movements and interactions of the different communities, it seems (to me) to be impossible to draw meaningful conclusions about the effectiveness of different government mandates unless the communities able to comply with the mandates and otherwise live equivalent lives.

Put another way, looking at the government mandates and comparing the case rates is simply too crude to be useful.

The only analogy that comes to mind is say 'trying to determine the safety rating of an aircraft by reading the manufacturer's maintenance manual'. How safe the aircraft is way more a function of the skill and dedication of the guys wielding the tools. The manufacturer can write the best manual in the world but if it isn't followed, then all bets are off.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by laird

hi montanan

I've known about the heart issues for sometime now , my Daughter in Law is a cardio specialist ,she told me that the right hand side of the heart was being damaged by covid , they are not sure about the long term effects , that was last summer

It's going to take time for all the evidence to be collected and correlated , I have seen people with long term covid , I hope I don't get it

I hope you do stay healthy.

I saw my cardiologist from the International Heart Institute a few weeks ago for my annual evaluation and he stated that they expect there will be a lot of long term effects from COVID, including heart damage which will ramp up health care needs for a long period of time, not just the acute treatment burden that hospitals are presently facing. They did the usual ECG and it confirmed once again, contrary to popular opinion that I do have a heart and that it is not made of stone. It is still operating tickety boo, with a murmur here and a murmur there.

My cardiologist believes that he, his wife and children all got COVID in February as they were all severely sick for several weeks with symptoms of COVID but have recovered. I asked if he or any of his family members had been tested for antibodies to COVID and he said No, because such knowledge would be totally unactionable information, changes nothing, simply just fulfilling a curiosity of what a past illness might have been. Basically he said taking such an antibody test would be a wasteful diagnostic and of money and lab resources.

Awaiting the availability of the vaccines to enter Phase 1C so as to be allowed to take one, perhaps in a month or two for us that are over 60 years of age. They have vaccinated most of the healthcare workers that want a vaccine and are progressing through the senior care facilities and then will advance to everyone over 75 in Phase 1B.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Wotname

It is a quiet morning here so this is my two cents worth of observation of the current CF bun fight 'bout CA and IA.

It seems to me it matters not what the various governments mandate. What matters is how different groups of people respond to an infectious disease in their midst.

Without knowing the fine detail of the daily movements and interactions of the different communities, it seems (to me) to be impossible to draw meaningful conclusions about the effectiveness of different government mandates unless the communities able to comply with the mandates and otherwise live equivalent lives.

Put another way, looking at the government mandates and comparing the case rates is simply too crude to be useful.

The only analogy that comes to mind is say 'trying to determine the safety rating of an aircraft by reading the manufacturer's maintenance manual'. How safe the aircraft is way more a function of the skill and dedication of the guys wielding the tools. The manufacturer can write the best manual in the world but if it isn't followed, then all bets are off.

I think you are absolutely right, and in fact that was one of the main points of the peer reviewed Stanford study on the effectiveness of different types of measures which we discussed recently:

". . . prior to meaningful population immunity, individual behavior is the primary driver of reductions in transmission rate, and that any NPI may provide a nudge towards individual behavior change, with response rates that vary between individuals and over time. lrNPIs ["less restrictive NPIs"] could have large anti-contagion effects if individual behavioral response is large, in which case additional, more restrictive NPIs may not provide much additional benefit. On the other hand, if lrNPIs provide relatively small nudges to individual behavior, then mrNPIs [lockdown] may result in large behavioral effects at the margin, and large reductions in the growth of new cases. However, because underlying epidemic dynamics are imprecisely characterized and are important for estimating the policy effects, our models test the extent to which mrNPIs had additional effect on reducing transmission by differencing the sum of NPI effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did not enact mrNPIs from the sum of NPI effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/eci.13484

And the researchers found evidence of just what you said -- there was no difference in effectiveness of the measures in the lockdown vs. non-lockdown countries studied. WHATEVER measures were effective, depending on behavioral changes. In fact, the researchers found that mrNPIs had a greater effect than lrNPIs only in one country, Iran, and within the margin of error so not conclusively, and were measurably worse than lrNPIs in Spain, and there, outside the margin of error.

The Stanford study is a mathematical analysis of the shape of the curves vs measures used, so does not take account of the magnitude of infections -- just the dynamic. But interestingly, this completely lines up with the actual outcomes in terms of magnitude of infections, too.

So it's not the type of measures, but HOW they are used, WHEN they are used, and the extent to which the population buys into it and gets with the program.

A huge advantage of lrNPIs (the Nordic approach) is that they are far more sustainable, so people are less subject to "pandemic fatigue" and "We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high,” Cuomo wrote in a tweet Monday morning.“We will have nothing left to open. We must reopen the economy." The behavioral changes can be kept on indefinitely, with small adjustments, rather than being slammed on and off, and even worse, being forced to slam them off because it is simply impossible to continue, even if cases are exploding. This was the point made by several Nordic health chiefs way back in the spring.