Interesting...

[New Judge]

The architect of Sweden's coronavirus strategy has claimed that the UK's lockdown has been largely "futile" in containing the virus:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/06/britains-lockdown-futile-says-swedish-epidemiologist/

You may not be able to read the full article because of the DT's paywall. Mr Jieseke claims that the lockdown strategy does not prevent severe cases but only pushes them further into the future. He suggested that once restrictions are eased, cases will reappear. In particular he has been critical of the modelling produced by the team led by Prof Ferguson. You remember him. He was the one who told the PM that without a lockdown the country could see half a million deaths. He then encouraged his married lover to visit him because "he thought he was immune." His team's research forecasted that Sweden's approach would take its R number above three and would lead to 40,000 deaths by May 1st. Yesterday (May 6th) that number stood at 2,941. To be fair, Prof. Ferguson did not say which May 1st he was referring to.

[ProfessorMaisie]

I think it helps to include the 'Clarification', Neveracrossword, because your statement might suggest that Professor Ferguson's model wasn't the basis for the predicted death rate (it was). Here it is -

Clarification: An earlier version of this article said Imperial College researchers predicted that Sweden's approach would leave it with an R of above three, leading to 40,000 coronavirus deaths by May 1. Imperial researchers did not estimate death figures. Instead, Paul Franks, a professor of epidemiology at Lund University, took the Imperial model and made calculations on fatalities. This paragraph has been removed and we apologise for the earlier confusion.

[Neveracrossword]

Thanks, PM. I didn't like the factual error in the OP, Prof Ferguson's team didn't make the forecast itself. There's obviously no need for him to say which May he was referring to if he hadn't made the comment!

[ProfessorMaisie]

I didn't see it as a factual error (more of a tautology) Neveracrossword.
The article in its original form did not attempt to suggest that Ferguson's team personally applied their model to the Swedish situation, it was always clear that the Swedish professor did that (with the necessary input adjustments to Ferguson's model, of course).
There's a similar tautology in the OP - 'His team's research forecasted...', I'm sure you realise that this is still the case, even if they were not present when it happened.

[Neveracrossword]

PM, thanks again. I have no time whatsoever for Prof Ferguson, but the clarification showed that some of the information in the OP was ambiguous at best. I do 'still realise...' various things, one of them being that other scientists, Lund included, were misguided/daft enough to use the model!

[ProfessorMaisie]

I hadn't realised that Professor Lund was trying to get the Swedish Government to change tack and adopt Ferguson's model, Neveracrossword - thanks, I'll read up on that.

[ProfessorMaisie]

...sorry, Neveracrossword - I was confused by your last one (that should be Professor Franks from Lund University, of course).

[ProfessorMaisie]

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/sweden-under-fire-for-relaxed-coronavirus-approach-heres-the-science-behind-it

Thanks again, Neveracrossword. I found it quite interesting, and a more measured approach to the problem - given all of the unknowns.

[Peter Pedant]

interewsting article by the Lund epidemiologists
they didnt have any and they wont have any

it doesnt look as tho they did anything

case fatality ratio is 1% and England 17%

I am not sure it bears the conclusion - if we hadnt locked down then we wouldnt have had 30 000 deaths

[Peter Pedant]

// Imperial researchers did not estimate death figures.//
for sweden

I thought this might be the case - so someone got the Imperial model which is a soopt up SIR model - which they all are - - -
( xc our very own Jim, who has a curve fitting model based on a bioloigical signal - vix the decline in deaths) - - -
and slapped it around a bit

actually I can tell you what they did - they said hey lets put in an Ro of 2.5 to 3 as the best London and Wuhan guess and but the rest is swedish values ( popn - popn currently infected) away we go!

( even tho their own figures being low and staying low would not have supported such a high first stab at Ro)

oh come on Maisie - - I do this every day with my quotes of AB posts - tweak them a bit to make them even more unintentionally hilarious

thank you very much for the refs - everyone

[ProfessorMaisie]

And after the virus the plague of...

[Zacs-Master]

Idiocy?

[ProfessorMaisie]

...or is it just dysentery?

[Zacs-Master]

Well, they both have bull *** in common