The WHO narrative needs the deaths' peak to be late so that it coincide with the lockdown.
If the death peak occurs earlier, it will point to the beginnings of the decline in the daily new death rates, took place before the severe lockdowns could have had an effect.
The WHO is hard at work delaying the information that the deaths have peaked.
Food for thought on "peaked" European COVID deaths
Given there is a "long" lead time (two weeks or more, it seems) between contracting the virus and dying from it, the peak and then the beginnings of the decline in the daily new death rates, arguably, take place before the severe lockdowns could have had an effect. This is a public policy debate that will run and run
On 30 March 2020 07:54
There are early signs, and because they are early we plainly need to be extremely cautious, that the new daily death numbers might have already peaked in most European countries.
Now, here's the thing: Given that there is a "long" lead time (two weeks or more, it seems) between contracting the virus and dying from it, the peak and then the beginnings of the decline in the daily new death rates, arguably, take place before the severe lockdowns could have had an effect.
Many governments phased their measures in gradually, so that is an obvious point of contention. Similarly, there isn't enough data to be sure how long the afore mentioned lead time actually is.
But, with those caveats firmy in place, when you are looking at death rates today, you could well be looking at outcomes that may be correlated with public policy enactments that took place in most countries at least 14 days previously.
In Britain, they didn't even close the pubs until 9 days ago; ditto the schools. In Sweden, they haven't closed them at all. That gives much food for thought, does it not?
It is understandable that governments have adopted a better-safe-than-sorry stance, but they should also be flexible enough to adapt policy to the new data as it comes in. To repeat, we need to be cautious, and there is no suggestion from this article that governments should change policy based on a few days' data.
See figures from Worldometer for Italy, Spain, France, the UK, and Sweden which all show a recent peak in daily deaths.
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