Neil Parish

 

As a fellow Neil, I feel some sympathy for Neil Parish, the Tory MP for Tiverton and Honiton, who stands accused of “watching pornography in the Commons chamber.” I do not yet know the facts of the case. But Mr Parish, in my view, is being treated unjustly. Whether or not he is guilty as charged.

Myself, I don’t feel any desire to watch pornography, but a chacun son goût. Where is the evidence that Mr Parish watching pornography (if he did) harmed anyone? A far better accusation against Mr Parish would have been that, by failing to listen to the debate, he had failed to represent his constituents. He had failed to do what he was paid for.

And yet, we see Neil Parish suspended from the Tory party, without any proof that he is guilty. While Boris Johnson, having broken a law he himself made, is still prime minister!

 

Together Declaration

I’ve just joined an outfit that calls itself “Together Declaration.” Their website is here: https://togetherdeclaration.org/. Their stated purpose is: “to unite people from all walks of life to push back against the rapidly growing infringements on our rights and freedoms.” I thought now would be a good time to use all the communication channels I have open to me to make as many liberty-loving people as I can aware of this organization.

The organization was originally formed in August 2021, to protest against the threatened imposition of COVID vaccine passports. You can find their original Declaration here: https://togetherdeclaration.org/sign/#. I can’t remember exactly how it was that I found out about them. But I was one of the original signatories of the Declaration back in August. We got more than 200,000 signatures on that Declaration. That may seem small compared with some of the numbers change.org can muster (nearly half a million have demanded the resignation of Johnson and Sunak over Partygate!) But it was a decent start.

Apart from my libertarian writings, my own civil liberties activism goes back to NO2ID, which I joined in 2006. There are a lot of seeming parallels between Together Declaration and NO2ID. But this time round, unlike NO2ID, we are fighting on many fronts at once. Having seen off the medical passports (for now at least) and the “no jab, no job” scheme for NHS and other medical staff, we are now turning our attention to some of the most urgent human rights issues in the UK today. At the top of the list right now is freedom of speech. This is in light of the “on-line safety” bill currently going through parliament, that plans to force take-down of on-line material that government arbitrarily declares to be “harmful.”

This organization seems to offer a good possibility for a start to a new phase of civil liberties activism in the UK, that can work for real people. It is sorely needed. For example, I was a member of Liberty for about 15 years, and I always felt it was over-leftist and over-feminist. But after Shami Chakrabarti left, it became wedded to minority issues like LGBT, not to the rights that really matter for ordinary people. So, I left it about five years ago.

There are a lot of good people out there, on both left and right of the political spectrum as well as none-of-the-above, who could help make Together Declaration into a real force to be reckoned with. I am particularly pleased that they have rejected the idea of forming a political party to campaign for civil liberties. I am currently a member of the Reform UK party. But I have been very disappointed by the lack of radicalism they have shown in recent months, and the consequent seeming lack of progress. I shan’t be renewing my membership when the renewal comes up in August.

Here are links to three short videos recently produced by Together Declaration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TWMJkELf-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNNuc90jug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiwdRiDdSus

And here is a list of their main people: https://togetherdeclaration.org/meet-the-team/. I hadn’t heard of Alan Miller until the last few days. But he was a speaker at Claire Fox’s Battle of Ideas last year, so he can’t be all bad! Judging by their bios, they look like a pretty media savvy lot. And there are some interesting names on their executive board, too.

I’ve also seen two people I already know featured in their videos. One, Ahmad Malik, the foot surgeon who was a (withdrawn) Brexit Party candidate for the 2019 election (and to whom I gave my “party pitch” at the party’s Maidstone meeting). And two, Dominique Samuels, who was a speaker at the Reform Party’s first conference last year.

The price of a year’s Together Declaration membership is £50, though as an original signatory I get the first year for half price (and I’ll save even that, when I don’t renew with Reform UK). I am looking forward to getting involved with them in one way or another. Let’s get a proper UK civil liberties movement on the road at last!

 

The 28 Deadly Sins

My leftist, atheist and “green” friend Opher Goodwin recently re-published a list, which he made seven years ago, of what he called “obscenities.” He didn’t mean violations of traditional Christian views on sexual conduct; nor, indeed, did he mean deficiencies in dress code, even when committed by emperors. Or even violations of bad “laws” made by even worse politicians. What he meant was things that happen in the human world, that are in his words “cruel, vicious and mean.”

His list is worth recording. It was: the destruction of the environment, war, the indoctrination of children, overpopulation, cynical exploitation, cruelty to animals and people, grotesque disparity of wealth, de-forestation, fanaticism in politics and religion, and pollution.

Now, I must say that I come from an opposite position from Opher on environmentalism. I regard planet Earth, not as a pristine thing which must be frozen in some particular state and never again disturbed, but as a resource to be wisely used by us human beings to make a home and garden fit for a civilized species. Despite this, I agree with the thrust of most if not all of the ideas he listed, if not with his specific statements of them.

So, I set myself to write my own list. I ended up with 28 as against Opher’s 10. And since I am a mere agnostic rather than an atheist, I felt myself free to use religious phraseology when it helps make my case. So, I called my list “The 28 Deadly Sins.”

Here’s my first-cut list:

1)     Fanaticism in politics or religion

2)     Disregard for the moral equality of all human beings

3)     Disregard for the ideal of justice for every individual; that is, that every individual deserves, as far as practicable, to be treated as he or she treats others

4)     Interfering in, disrupting or lowering the quality of others’ lives without good and provable reason

5)     Promoting, supporting, making or enforcing harmful or unjust laws

6)     Intentionally harming, harassing, impoverishing or inconveniencing people who do not harm you or others

7)     Seeking to compel people who do not harm you or others to do things against their wills

8)     War, aggressive violence, pre-meditated homicide

9)     Lies, spin, hype, promulgating falsehoods, spreading unfounded or exaggerated scares

10) Dishonesty, deceit, cheating, bullshit, insincerity, unscrupulousness, bad faith

11) Arrogance, claiming superiority over others, authoritarianism

12) Hypocrisy; failing to practise what you preach

13) Lack of empathy; failing to recognize that every person is different and an individual

14) Violating the rights of human beings, such as dignity, property, privacy and the right to make individual choices

15) Violating human freedoms such as freedom of speech, association, movement, opinion, religion, expression, communication, peaceful assembly and protest against injustice

16) Violating procedural rights such as the presumption of innocence, due process, an independent and impartial hearing, and no punishment unless and until guilt has been proven beyond reasonable doubt

17) Untrustworthiness, empty promises

18) Recklessness towards others

19) Failing to accept responsibility and accountability for the consequences of willed actions on others; lack of remorse

20) Taking wealth away from people without delivering equivalent value to them in return

21) Putting obstacles in the way of the free market economy, or of people’s access to it

22) Unjust and unearned enrichment

23) Cronyism, unjust favouritism

24) Indoctrinating children

25) Seeking to indoctrinate people with falsehoods or emotional manipulation

26) Cynical exploitation of people

27) Cruelty to people

28) Unnecessary cruelty to animals

Does anyone out there have constructive comments, or additions?

 

Boris the Emperor

Emperor Boris, lying nude in an Indian hotel bed, heard a noise. He got up, milled about, then stared at the formal-looking letter, which had been pushed under the door of his room.

“The Indian government has decreed that you may only travel inside, or leave, our country on foot or by bicycle,” it said. “We are a poor country, but we are developing; and we want to make travel by car and aeroplane affordable for all our people. But you have sought to make driving and flying so expensive for British people, that many will be forced to give them up. Yet, you yourself use these means of transport at the expense of the people you are supposed to serve. You have shown yourself up as a hypocrite.” It was duly signed and sealed.

He tried his mobile phone. Dead. His computer. No Internet connections available.

There was a banging at the door. An assistant manager of the hotel. “Mr Johnson,” he said, “your credit has been declared invalid by all the major banking systems. You are in default. You must leave this room within fifteen minutes.”

Boris discovered that all the clothes he had brought for the trip had been removed from the room. So, he went nude to the hotel reception, put on his Bullingdon Boy act, and loudly complained. The lady receptionist laughed. “I’ll sue you!” Boris yelled. She laughed again.

A suave gentleman in a grey suit came, and said to him: “By holding parties during COVID lockdown, you have broken laws you yourself made. You have rejected the rule of law. How, then, can you expect anyone to obey any law you made? And how can you expect law to help you, even when you are a victim? But anyway, our new Indian law says that you must leave this hotel, and walk or cycle back to England.”

“In my birthday suit?” Boris expostulated. “That should be illegal. It’s indecent exposure!”

The suave gentleman replied, “We make the laws here, not you. But what other dress is fit for an emperor?”

COVID-19: Are We Over the Final Hump? – Part 3

This is the last of three reports following up on the current COVID situation in Europe. In it, I look at the remainder of Europe, beyond the 14 countries covered by the second report. The data came from Our World in Data and the Blavatnik School of Government, as listed in the first report.

Cases

The graph at the head of this paper shows the daily cases per million (weekly averaged) for 11 countries in south-eastern Europe. These include Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro, four of the five European countries worst hit by the virus in terms of deaths per million. You can see that in many of the countries there has been a big reduction in new cases from peaks which took place, depending on the country, between Christmas (Cyprus) and the very end of January (Slovenia). Three of the countries, Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia, show a second rise in new cases during March; but the rises in the latter two have been relatively small, and may have already passed a second peak. Albania has also had a small up-turn in new cases recently, as was shown on the weekly case growth list in the second report.

Here are the corresponding graphs for north-eastern Europe, and for the rest of Western Europe beyond those 14 countries covered in the second report:

In the northern part of Eastern Europe, the peaks have been later than in the southern part, ranging from late January to the third week of February. All the countries’ new case rates have dropped substantially from their peaks, though in Czechia (light brown) cases have been wobbling around a roughly constant level for most of March. The data for Ukraine since February 24^th should not be trusted, since they currently have more important things to deal with than a mere virus.

In the rest of Western Europe, the peaks ranged from early January (Isle of Man) to late February (Iceland), with Liechtenstein having two peaks, a smaller in January and a larger in March. The highest peak of all belongs to the Faeroe Islands, and (as I observed in the previous paper in regard to Sweden) that peak has the shape of an almost perfect Farr curve. All the countries’ weekly case growths are now negative, except for Malta.

In total cases per million over the course of the epidemic so far, as shown in the list in the second report, the Faeroe Islands top the list, with a staggering 70% of the population having been reported as cases. Andorra, Gibraltar, Iceland, Slovenia, San Marino and Slovakia are all in the top 10, with 45% or more of the population having become cases. At the other end of the table comes the Vatican with only 3%. Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania and Malta all have 15% or less of the population diagnosed as cases. It seems that small countries often have either very high or very low cases per million.

Lockdowns

Here are the graphs of lockdown stringencies for the three groups of countries:

In all three groups, certain countries have locked down far more stringently than others. In the south-east, Greece (green line) has been consistently locked down harder than anyone else in the region. In the north-east, Ukraine tops the stringency list, but its data is not to be relied on. In the rest of western Europe, San Marino and Malta are currently highest in stringency, with Andorra, Iceland, Norway, Romania, Hungary and the Faeroe Islands being at the other end of the table.

Here are the lockdowns currently in effect in the three groups of countries:

Of the countries at the bottom of the lists, North Macedonia, Montenegro, the Isle of Man, the Vatican and Gibraltar are not providing lockdown data. But the Faeroe Islands and Iceland now have no lockdown measures in place at all.

Lockdown Harshness

As countries start to unlock more and more, I think it is worthwhile to look at the lockdowns also through the slightly different lens of my “harshness” measure, designed to give a picture of the unpleasantness of lockdowns as experienced by the population. The main differences between harshness and the Blavatnik stringency are:

1.     Harshness includes face covering mandates, whereas stringency does not.

2.     Harshness takes no account of recommendations, only of mandates.

3.     Harshness weights measures affecting everyone (e.g., stay at home, workplace closures) higher than measures affecting only some (e.g., international travel restrictions).

Here is the list of current harshness levels in Europe:

The countries at the top of the list are those which do not report Blavatnik data at all. Those at the bottom are showing zero harshness, so they have no mandates at all. It’s worth noting that within the UK, England and Northern Ireland are also at zero harshness; the mandates are entirely regional ones in Scotland and Wales.

Hospital Occupancy

Here are the COVID hospital occupancies per million for the three groups of countries. Only a restricted number of countries are actually reporting these statistics:

In eastern Europe, as in the core 14 countries discussed in the second report, the trend in COVID hospital occupancy has been downwards since omicron became the primary variant. But in Iceland and Finland, occupancy levels have recently reached their highest levels in the whole epidemic. And Malta has come close to its earlier peak.

Intensive Care Units

Here are the ICU occupancies per million population:

In eastern Europe, the reporting countries have had their ICU occupancies reaching levels comparable with the peaks earlier in the epidemic. But all are now on the way down. In Malta, the recent peak in ICU occupancy has been considerably lower than earlier values. But Finland has had an extended period of relatively high load in its ICUs, comparable with that in the initial outbreak of spring 2020.

Deaths

Here are the daily deaths per million:

In Eastern Europe, the highest peaks in death rates have been down to the delta variant and its predecessors; omicron is less lethal. The data for the mostly small countries in the Rest of Western Europe is harder to decipher, but many of the peak death rates from omicron have been comparable with those from earlier variants.

Finally, here are the graphs of excess mortality relative to the same time of year in a base period of 2015 to 2019. Many of the countries only report this statistic once every three months or so, and some (like Gibraltar) stopped reporting once the numbers became embarrassing:

As in the core of Europe, there has generally been a downward movement in excess mortality since omicron became the dominant variant back in December 2021; though a few countries in Eastern Europe have had relatively small surges in mortality more recently.

Country Profiles

Here are the summaries of the current COVID status of each country in the three groups. The ranking numbers are among all those countries in Europe that are reporting the statistic. The excess mortality figure is given only for those countries which have made a report of this statistic during 2022.

As an aside, I noticed a couple of instances (the Faeroe Islands and Poland) where the daily stringency figures in the Our World in Data feed are some days behind the stringency figures in the Blavatnik feed itself. This can cause an apparent mismatch between the lockdown stringency quoted and the detailed breakdown of the measures. In these cases, it is the detailed breakdown which is correct.

Albania

Albania Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 21 (rank 46/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0.15 (rank 43/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 46.3% (rank 8/45). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Travel: Mandatory restrictions, International: Screening, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: A high lockdown strategy. They ought to be trying some unlocks now, unless their hospital and ICU facilities are stretched (which I can’t tell, since they don’t publish that data).

Andorra

Andorra Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 574 (rank 29/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0 (rank 44/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 11.1% (rank 43/45). Measures in place: Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: They think it’s all over! It will be interesting to see how quickly their cases reduce from here on in, compared with countries like Iceland and Sweden, which have no face mask measures at all.

Belarus

Belarus Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 108 (rank 41/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0.91 (rank 39/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 19.4% (rank 31/45). Measures in place: International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Recommended.

Verdict: Superficially, it doesn’t look too bad in Belarus at the moment. But their cases per million are low, so wait and see.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 33 (rank 45/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0.79 (rank 41/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 38.9% (rank 12/45). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Stay at home: Recommended, International: Screening, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: Another high lockdown strategy. Perhaps as a result of the country’s very high total deaths per million over the course of the epidemic.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 163 (rank 35/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.76 (rank 19/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 47.56% (rank 4/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 21.3% (rank 29/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 296.5 (rank 7/30) (4% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 34.9 (rank 2/26). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, International: Screening, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: That excess mortality figure looks dreadful. But the Bulgarians seem to be working on the principle of Matsch’s Law: “It is better to have a horrible ending than to have horrors without end.” I commend them for it.

Croatia

Croatia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 332 (rank 32/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 3.05 (rank 17/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): 23.71% (rank 10/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 35.2% (rank 16/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 158 (rank 20/30) (2.9% full). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 101-1000, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: Finely balanced, but the lockdowns are not actually as bad as the stringency figure would suggest (the harshness is only 16%). Wait and see.

Cyprus

Cyprus Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 5345 (rank 1/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.07 (rank 27/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 16.63% (rank 15/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 36.1% (rank 14/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 193.1 (rank 14/30) (5.7% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 3.3 (rank 26/26). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 101-1000, Stay at home: Recommended, International: Screening, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: Quite a high stringency, but the harshness is only 12%. With an average stringency of 58% over the whole epidemic, Cyprus has been 10^th hardest locked down by stringency in all of Europe. And yet, their current daily cases per million is by a long way the highest in Europe! This reinforces the point that locking down to control the virus in the early part of the epidemic doesn’t necessarily translate into success later. It also suggests that, if Cypriots are actually obeying the draconian face mask mandate, face masks don’t do much if anything at all to slow virus transmission.

Czechia

Czechia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 602 (rank 28/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.62 (rank 20/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): -6.08% (rank 42/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 47.2% (rank 7/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 159.9 (rank 19/30) (2.4% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 14.8 (rank 10/26) (12.8% full). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Public transport: Recommended closed, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: The Czechs are overdue to do some unlocking!

Estonia

Estonia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 859 (rank 26/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 3.88 (rank 11/49), Current Excess Mortality (March): 10.23% (rank 21/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 38% (rank 13/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 254.3 (rank 10/30) (5.4% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 12.1 (rank 12/26) (8.3% full). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled (Regional), Gatherings: Up to >1000, Travel: Mandatory restrictions (Regional), International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: Estonia is another country that is overdue for an unlock or two!

Faeroe Islands

Faeroe Islands Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 0 (rank 48/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0 (rank 44/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): -14.22% (rank 46/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 13.9% (rank 37/45). Measures in place: None!

Verdict: Like the Swedes, the Faeroese seem to have got the damn thing beaten. But I’m not convinced by the timeliness of their data reporting; they haven’t reported a new case since March 2^nd, when there were 275! So, for now, I’ll have to put them down as a maybe.

Finland

Finland Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1278 (rank 15/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 4.97 (rank 3/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): -4.92% (rank 39/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 26.9% (rank 23/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 191.9 (rank 15/30) (5.9% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 7.2 (rank 18/26) (11.8% full). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Public transport: Recommended closed (Regional), International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Recommended.

Verdict: A fairly high stringency, but a low harshness. New cases are dropping, but only slowly, which is probably why the Finns haven’t yet followed the Swedes and unlocked everything.

Gibraltar

Gibraltar Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1141 (rank 19/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0 (rank 44/49).

Verdict: I don’t have any stringency data, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Greece

Greece Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 2016 (rank 8/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 5.3 (rank 1/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): 23.27% (rank 11/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 55.6% (rank 3/45). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Public transport: Recommended closed, Stay at home: Required with exceptions (Regional), Travel: Recommended not to travel, International: Screening, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: The Greek COVID strategy has been a failure. Over the course of the epidemic, they have been second only to the Italians in average lockdown stringency, and also second in average harshness. They already have more deaths per million than the Italians, yet the cumulative cases per million are only middling. There doesn’t seem much possibility of an end in sight.

Greenland

Greenland Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 45 (rank 44/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0 (rank 44/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 33.3% (rank 18/45). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Stay at home: Recommended, Travel: International: Ban all arrivals/border closure, Face covering: Recommended.

Verdict: They, like the Swedes, have had a near Farr curve of cases, which has now subsided. Given this, I’d say they ought to reduce their lockdowns to match the Swedish ones.

Hungary

Hungary Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 222 (rank 34/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 3.71 (rank 14/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 0.14% (rank 32/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 13.9% (rank 37/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 202.7 (rank 12/30) (2.9% full). Measures in place: International: Screening.

Verdict: The Hungarians have had a bad time with COVID – third in Europe in deaths per million. But this seems about as sensible a way to finish the damn thing off as any.

Iceland

Iceland Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1695 (rank 10/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.32 (rank 23/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): 20.93% (rank 13/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 11.1% (rank 43/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 179 (rank 16/30) (6.1% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 8.1 (rank 15/26) (8.9% full). Measures in place: None!

Verdict: The Icelanders, too, are well on the way to beating the virus.

Isle of Man

Isle of Man Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 2106 (rank 6/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 5.02 (rank 2/49).

Verdict: The Manxmen did well initially, because they were able to close their borders while the UK did not. Now, they are paying a price; but in terms of deaths per million, they are still far better off than any of the four countries of the UK, even Northern Ireland.

Kosovo

Kosovo Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 17 (rank 47/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0.32 (rank 42/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): -4.16% (rank 37/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 33.3% (rank 18/45). Measures in place: Schools: Some closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: Kosovo seems to have a remarkably high and continuing level of lockdown, given that its recent new cases graph shows a Farr curve comparable to that in Sweden, and new daily cases are now in the 30s, compared with a peak of almost 4,400 in late January. They should be unlocking as much as they can and as soon as possible.

Latvia

Latvia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1128 (rank 20/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 4.36 (rank 8/49), Current Excess Mortality (March): 12.71% (rank 17/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 30.1% (rank 22/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 467.1 (rank 2/30) (8.4% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 30 (rank 3/26) (30.9% full). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed (Regional), Gatherings: Up to 11-100 (Regional), International: Screening, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: I can see that the pressure on ICUs is discouraging them from unlocking at the moment. Wait and see.

Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 2304 (rank 4/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 3.73 (rank 13/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 31.5% (rank 20/45). Measures in place: Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to >1000, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: Still quite high cases per million, so they aren’t unlocking in a big way. Wait and see.

Lithuania

Lithuania Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 983 (rank 23/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 4.67 (rank 5/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 23.18% (rank 12/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 17.6% (rank 34/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 491.8 (rank 1/30) (7.5% full). Measures in place: Workplaces: Recommended closed, International: Screening, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: There is probably less pressure on ICUs in Lithuania than in Latvia, which would account for the lower lockdown stringency and harshness.

Malta

Malta Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1009 (rank 22/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 3.32 (rank 15/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 12.04% (rank 19/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 52.8% (rank 5/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 149.2 (rank 21/30) (3.3% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 5.8 (rank 22/26). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: These look to be rather draconian restrictions for a country in the middle of the daily cases per million league, which seems to have no pressure on either hospital beds or ICUs. But averaged over the epidemic, Malta has been in the top third in lockdown harshness. They need to do some unlocking soon.

Moldova

Moldova Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 63 (rank 43/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0.82 (rank 40/49), Current Lockdown Stringency: 14.8% (rank 36/45). Measures in place: Workplaces: Recommended closed, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: Moldova is rather reminiscent of Belarus. Wait and see.

Monaco

Monaco Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1182 (rank 17/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0 (rank 44/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): -20.48% (rank 48/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 31.5% (rank 20/45). Measures in place: Workplaces: Recommended closed, Gatherings: Up to <=10, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: The Monaco lockdown level looks draconian for the country with the lowest current excess mortality in Europe! Wait and see.

Montenegro

Montenegro Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 123 (rank 39/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 0.91 (rank 38/49).

Verdict: I don’t have any lockdown data, but the Montenegro new cases graph suggests they may now be over the worst.

North Macedonia

North Macedonia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 113 (rank 40/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.06 (rank 29/49).

Verdict: North Macedonia has exactly the same status as Montenegro.

Norway

Norway Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 337 (rank 31/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 4.68 (rank 4/49), Current Excess Mortality (March): 0.25% (rank 30/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 13.9% (rank 37/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 85.4 (rank 28/30) (2.4% full). Measures in place: International: Screening, Face covering: Recommended.

Verdict: The Norwegians are quite close to a Farr curve on new cases in the last 3 months or so. That looks to me like a job well done.

Poland

Poland Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 144 (rank 38/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.07 (rank 28/49), Current Excess Mortality (March): -8.92% (rank 44/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 24.1% (rank 25/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 141.5 (rank 23/30) (2.1% full). Measures in place: Workplaces: Recommended closed, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: It’s a bit odd for the Poles still to be recommending workplace closures when the borders are now fully open without COVID formalities! But the cases graph shows that they are getting there.

Romania

Romania Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 161 (rank 36/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 1.41 (rank 35/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): 5.69% (rank 23/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 13.9% (rank 37/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 173 (rank 17/30) (2.5% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 22.4 (rank 8/26). Measures in place: International: Screening, Face covering: Recommended.

Verdict: The Romanians are looking good.

Russia

Russia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 147 (rank 37/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 2.38 (rank 22/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): 19.23% (rank 14/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 40.3% (rank 11/45). Measures in place: Workplaces: Some closed (Regional), Events: Recommended cancelled (Regional), Gatherings: Up to 101-1000 (Regional), Stay at home: Required with exceptions (Regional), Travel: Recommended not to travel (Regional), International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: The Russians have a long way to go, if only because it’s such a big country.

San Marino

San Marino Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 924 (rank 25/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 4.2 (rank 9/49), Current Excess Mortality (January): 33.06% (rank 8/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 52.8% (rank 5/45). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, Public transport: Recommended closed, Stay at home: Recommended, Travel: Recommended not to travel, International: Screening, Face covering: Recommended.

Verdict: The stringency may be high, but the harshness is low (only 12%). The excess mortality doesn’t look good, but it was for January. It can’t be easy for the Sammarinese, being surrounded by Italy, the worst COVID performer in Europe. The big wave of cases is past, but new case counts are still wobbling around, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Serbia

Serbia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 259 (rank 33/50), Reproduction Rate: 0.89 (rank 23/45), Daily Deaths per Million: 1.5 (rank 34/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 44.42% (rank 5/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 36.1% (rank 14/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 101.7 (rank 27/30) (1.8% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 6.1 (rank 21/26). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 101-1000, Stay at home: Recommended, International: Screening, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: Serbia has quite a high level of lockdown, continuously since January. I suspect it may be the high excess mortality which is stopping any unlocks happening. Wait and see.

Slovakia

Slovakia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1383 (rank 13/50), Reproduction Rate: 0.88 (rank 25/45), Daily Deaths per Million: 3.75 (rank 12/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 1.24% (rank 29/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 20.4% (rank 30/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 409.2 (rank 3/30) (7% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 35.1 (rank 1/26) (38.1% full). Measures in place: Schools: Recommended closed, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required when with others.

Verdict: I imagine the ICU occupancy is what is stopping any further unlocks. Wait and see.

Slovenia

Slovenia Current Status, Daily Cases per Million: 1269 (rank 16/50), Daily Deaths per Million: 1.79 (rank 31/49), Current Excess Mortality (February): 5.18% (rank 25/48), Current Lockdown Stringency: 22.2% (rank 28/45), Hospital Occupancy per Million: 141.9 (rank 22/30) (3.2% full), ICU Occupancy per Million: 25.5 (rank 5/26) (39.8% full). Measures in place: Workplaces: Some closed, Stay at home: Recommended, Face covering: Required in some places.

Verdict: Like Poland, it’s a bit odd that in Slovenia, some workplaces are closed, while the borders are fully open! But despite the high ICU occupancy, it looks as though they may be nearly there.

Ukraine

There is no point in giving a current status report on COVID in Ukraine, as their minds are occupied with more pressing things.

Vatican

No COVID deaths at all in the Vatican, and only two cases since 2020. Maybe there’s something to all this regular washing of the hands in holy water!

To sum up

As in the second paper, I’ll divide the countries into a number of groups, from worst to best.

·       In a mess: Greece.

·       High lockdown, poor performance: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus.

·       A long way to go: Russia.

·       Unclassifiable: Ukraine, Vatican.

·       Need to unlock as soon as possible: Czechia, Estonia, Greenland, Kosovo, Malta.

·       Wait and see: Belarus, Croatia, Gibraltar, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia.

·       Now on the run-in: Bulgaria, Faeroe Islands, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man.

·       Nearly there (maybe): Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia.

·       Nearly there: Andorra, Finland, Poland, Romania.

·       Beaten the damn thing: Norway.

Because the initial outbreak spread to Eastern Europe later than it did further west, I expected to find the general COVID status there at this stage worse than further west. It doesn’t actually look quite as bad as I expected. Though, just as in Western Europe, some countries have adopted relatively good COVID strategies, while others have adopted bad ones.

COVID-19: Are We Over the Final Hump? – Part 2

This is the second of three reports following up on the current COVID situation in Europe. The first assessed the state of the individual countries which make up the UK. In this, the second, I’ll address my “core Europe” group of 14 countries, including the UK. The third will look at the remainder of Europe. The data came from Our World in Data and the Blavatnik School of Government, as listed in the first report.

Cases

The figure above shows a large and very clear “omicron peak” at the end of 2021 and into early 2022. The earliest peak belongs to Ireland (green), just before the new year. Higher and somewhat later peaks can be seen for Denmark (light grey) and the Netherlands (dark grey). Since then, the countries have been moving every which way; but there seems to be a tendency in many towards a second peak. The most recent peak, at the beginning of March, came from Austria (mid blue). And the one currently going north in a big way is Germany (lighter blue). The two detached at the bottom right are Sweden (black) and Spain (dark blue).

In this paper, when I show lists of countries ordered by a particular statistic such as new cases per million or current lockdown stringency, I’ll show all 50 of the European countries which are reporting COVID statistics. This will enable the countries under study (in this case, my “core Europe” group: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK) to be assessed in the context of other countries around them. It will also avoid the need to repeat the same lists in the third part of this paper.

Here are the current daily new cases per million (weekly averaged):

Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland are all in the top 12. The rest of the “core Europe” countries also tend to be towards the top of this list; though Sweden is a notable outlier near the bottom.

Here are the same figures, looked at in terms of weekly case growth:

Six of the 14 countries – Portugal, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Spain and Belgium – are among only nine in Europe currently on an upward trend of weekly new case growth. Of the other eight, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria have significant negative weekly case growth.

To put the recent new case counts in the context of the epidemic as a whole, here is the list of cumulative cases per million:

Among the core Europe countries, Denmark has the highest recorded penetration of the virus into the population, with more than 50% of the population having been diagnosed as cases. The Netherlands is second in this statistic. Luxembourg, Belgium, the UK and Ireland are together in the region of 30%, with Germany, Spain, Sweden and Italy being lowest, around 25%.

Lockdowns

The history of new cases in each country must be interpreted in the light of the regulatory backdrop against which all this has been happening. Here is the graph of lockdown stringencies for the 14 countries:

Conspicuous by their high recent lockdown levels are Germany (light blue), Italy (very dark blue) and France (orange). All three reduced their lockdowns during March, with France taking the biggest steps and Italy the smallest. At the other end, Sweden (black) and Denmark (grey) have been leading in the race to unlock as completely as possible; though Ireland (green) and the UK (pink) have recently joined them in that quest.

Here are the lockdowns currently in effect in the 14 countries:

The top four are still under quite stringent lockdowns. By contrast, the bottom four are now under very little COVID restriction at all.

Here is the list of current lockdown stringencies around Europe:

Italy, Germany, Spain and Austria are all in the top ten; while Denmark, the UK and Ireland are all near the bottom.

The slight differences in ordering are because the stacked bar chart includes face covering measures, whereas the Blavatnik stringency measure does not. It’s also worth pointing out that among the constituent countries of the UK, England and Northern Ireland have the same stringency as the bottom three in the list; it is measures in Scotland and Wales which lift the stringency for the UK as a whole.

To give a feel for how different countries are trying to deal with this phase of the epidemic, here are the detailed measures in place, by individual country.

Austria

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	64.81	Schools: Some closed (Regional), Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Public transport: Recommended closed, Stay at home: Required with exceptions, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required in some places
20220124	62.04	International: Quarantine high-risk
20220128	68.52	Workplaces: Mandatory closed Gatherings: Up to <=10
20220131	61.11	Stay at home: No measures
20220212	57.41	Workplaces: Some closed
20220222	54.63	International: Screening
20220305	40.74	Events: Recommended cancelled Gatherings: Up to 11-100 Public transport: Open

The Austrians have suffered recently under a generally cautious, high lockdown strategy. They have surmounted one peak of new cases since the most recent unlock. Verdict: Not a good performance, and they still have some way to go.

Belgium

Date	Stringency	Measures
20211117	50	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others
20220222	46.3	Workplaces: Recommended closed
20220307	42.59	Schools: Open Face covering: Required in some places
20220308	23.15	Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions

The recent Belgian lockdowns have been roughly par for the course among this group of countries. Their new cases have started to rise since late February, but not alarmingly so. Verdict: They look to be in reasonably good shape, at last.

Denmark

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	35.19	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 101-1000, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required in some places
20220111	38.89	Workplaces: Some closed
20220201	16.67	Schools: Open Workplaces: Open Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions Face covering: No measures
20220301	13.89	International: Screening

A bit of a blip on January 11^th; but otherwise, a smooth looking unlock. When you look at the double peak in new cases in early February, you can see that the unlock on February 1^st almost certainly caused the rise to the second half of the peak. That looks to have been very precisely calculated. Verdict: The Danes, as they have done for so much of the epidemic, are showing the rest of mainland Europe how to do it.

France

Date	Stringency	Measures
20211204	72.22	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Public transport: Mandatory closed, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: Mandatory restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others
20220109	69.44	Gatherings: Up to 101-1000
20220202	69.44	Face covering: Required in some places
20220314	19.44	Schools: Open Workplaces: Open Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions Public transport: Open Travel: No restrictions

Until March 14^th, when they seem to have decided to “go for broke,” the French had a very high lockdown strategy. This was not working; in fact, new cases had actually begun to rise again from a minimum around March 1^st. New cases have since risen to a level about two and a half times that minimum, and are still rising quite fast. Verdict: Wait and see.

Germany

Date	Stringency	Measures
20211202	84.26	Schools: Some closed (Regional), Workplaces: Mandatory closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, Public transport: Mandatory closed, Stay at home: Recommended, Travel: Mandatory restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required in some places
20220302	80.56	Workplaces: Some closed
20220314	78.7	Workplaces: Some closed (Regional)
20220321	53.7	Events: Allowed Gatherings: Up to 101-1000

In the last few months, the Germans have taken an extreme high-lockdown strategy. They have recently made some relaxations, but nothing on the scale of the French. The effects on daily new case counts have been, to put it mildly, disappointing. They rose to a first peak about February 11^th, came down to a minimum of about 150,000 at the end of February, and since then have climbed to over 250,000 and are still going northwards. And all this while they still have closed public transport and mandatory travel restrictions! Verdict: The Germans should be demanding their money back.

Ireland

Date	Stringency	Measures
20211220	52.78	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others
20220122	23.15	Workplaces: Open Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions Face covering: Required in some places
20220228	19.44	Schools: Open
20220306	11.11	International: No restrictions
20220309	11.11	Face covering: Recommended

For most of the first year and a half of the epidemic, the Irish were among the hardest locked down in Europe. That has now changed, particularly after the huge unlock on January 22^nd. Irish new case levels started to go up from that point, but not very much. Ireland is now the least locked down country in the core Europe group, with no mandatory restrictions at all. Verdict: The outlook is optimistic from here on in.

Italy

Date	Stringency	Measures
20211206	76.85	Schools: Some closed, Workplaces: Mandatory closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to >1000, Public transport: Mandatory closed, Stay at home: Required with exceptions (Regional), Travel: Mandatory restrictions (Regional), International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others (Regional)
20220228	66.67	International: Quarantine high-risk Face covering: Required in some places
20220301	63.89	Stay at home: Recommended Travel: No restrictions

The Italians have used an extreme high-stringency approach. They got over the first omicron hump in mid-January, and cases came down to a low in early March. Since then, cases have risen again, but they do seem just recently to have reached a second peak, and started coming down again. But given that workplaces are still closed, there is still a very, very long way to go. Verdict: Atrocious.

Luxembourg

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	55.56	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100, Public transport: Recommended closed, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required in some places
20220208	46.3	Workplaces: Recommended closed Events: Recommended cancelled
20220308	25	Schools: Open Workplaces: Open Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions

In the summer of 2020, the Letzebuergesch were the readiest in Europe to unlock. They couldn’t quite keep that up, but they have followed a strategy of generally low lockdown. Although a stringency value of 25 is higher than some neighbouring countries such as Belgium, their only mandatory restrictions are International: Ban some arrivals and Face covering: Required in some places. They surmounted a peak of new cases near the end of January. There was a minimum in mid-February, and cases are still going up. Verdict: It looks as if they are confident they can get over the hump this time.

Netherlands

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	69.44	Schools: Mandatory closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: Recommended, Travel: Recommended not to travel, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required when with others
20220110	65.74	Schools: Some closed
20220115	58.33	Schools: Open
20220215	47.22	Gatherings: No restrictions
20220218	47.22	Face covering: Required in some places
20220225	34.26	Workplaces: Open Events: Recommended cancelled

This looks like a smooth, controlled recovery from what the Dutch must admit was a rather panicked Christmas and New Year lockdown. Cases peaked around February 8^th, dropped to a minimum around February 24^th, climbed to a second and lower peak around March 10^th, and are now headed steadily downwards. As in Luxembourg, the majority of restrictions yet to be relaxed are recommendations rather than mandates. Verdict: They’re doing OK since their Christmas panics, but they ought to be doing more unlocking very soon indeed.

Portugal

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	42.59	Schools: Some closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Recommended cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 101-1000, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required when with others
20220110	38.89	Schools: Recommended closed
20220115	35.19	Workplaces: Recommended closed
20220212	32.41	International: Screening
20220217	17.59	Workplaces: Open Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions
20220308	17.59	Face covering: Required in some places

The Portuguese strategy looks like another controlled set of unlocks. Daily new cases peaked at the end of January, wobbled along a bottom for most of March, then just recently seem to have started climbing again. Verdict: Same as the French, wait and see.

Spain

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	46.76	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed (Regional), Events: Mandatory cancelled (Regional), Gatherings: Up to <=10 (Regional), Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required outside the home
20220210	46.76	Face covering: Required in some places
20220307	43.98	Gatherings: Up to 11-100 (Regional)

The Spaniards surely are taking their time about unlocking! Though the worst restrictions are mainly regional. The peak of daily new cases was hit about January 10^th. The numbers went down steadily until the beginning of March; since when, the cases per million – now second from bottom among the group – have been wobbling, with a minimum about March 14^th followed by another rise. Verdict: Get on with it, chicos y chicas, let people out of jail!

Sweden

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	49.07	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Recommended closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Recommended
20220112	52.78	Stay at home: Recommended
20220122	50	Gatherings: Up to 11-100
20220209	19.44	Schools: Open Workplaces: Open Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions Stay at home: No measures Face covering: No measures

The Swedes tended to use higher lockdowns against the “omicron wave” than they had done earlier in the epidemic. But since February 9^th, the only remaining restriction is a ban on some international arrivals.

When I went to the Swedish cases graph to cross-check against the lockdowns, I almost fell off my chair. Here’s what I saw:

Since almost exactly the time the omicron variant started spreading in Europe, the Swedish new cases curve has been an almost perfect Farr curve. I haven’t seen one of those since the very earliest days of the epidemic, in places like Iceland! The peak came about January 28^th, and inside two weeks the Swedes had unlocked domestic restrictions all but completely.

I think this Farr curve shape means two things. One, the Swedes had all but eradicated the earlier variants before omicron arrived. And two, in the last two months they have all but eradicated omicron too. Moreover, they have done all that with only 25% of the population having been diagnosed as cases; and with no lockdown at all once the new cases peak was passed, except banning arrivals from countries considered a danger.

Verdict: The Swedes have got the damn thing licked! Now, they’re waiting for the rest of us.

Switzerland

Date	Stringency	Measures
20220101	56.48	Schools: Some closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to <=10, Public transport: Open, Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Ban some arrivals, Face covering: Required in some places
20220217	23.15	Schools: Open Workplaces: Recommended closed Events: Allowed Gatherings: No restrictions

In lockdown terms, the recent Swiss experience seems comparable with the Belgian one. The consequences don’t seem to have been too bad, either. The first Swiss omicron peak of daily new cases was reached at the end of January; there was a trough in the last week of February, then a second and lower peak in mid-March, and cases are now headed firmly downwards. Verdict: A decent job on the run-in.

UK

Date	Stringency	Measures
20211215	48.61	Schools: Recommended closed, Workplaces: Some closed, Events: Mandatory cancelled, Gatherings: Up to 11-100 (Regional), Public transport: Recommended closed (Regional), Stay at home: No measures, Travel: No restrictions, International: Quarantine high-risk, Face covering: Required when with others (Regional)
20220120	46.76	Schools: Recommended closed (Regional)
20220127	42.13	Workplaces: Some closed (Regional) Events: Mandatory cancelled (Regional)
20220211	39.35	International: Screening
20220215	29.63	Gatherings: No restrictions Public transport: Open
20220228	17.59	Workplaces: Recommended closed (Regional) Events: Allowed
20220318	14.81	International: No restrictions
20220321	12.96	Workplaces: Open

The UK’s recent performance looks like a phased unlock, with complications caused mainly by a degree of Scottish and Welsh reluctance to unlocking. The big new cases peak was hit on January 4^th, there was a trough around February 24^th, the second and lower peak was passed around March 23^rd, and cases are now headed downwards. The UK and Ireland are now the only countries in the 14 free from COVID restrictions on international arrivals. Verdict: A well handled run-in. Pity about the first 18 months of the epidemic.

Hospital Occupancy

Here is the COVID hospital occupancy per million for the 14 countries:

In some countries, notably France, COVID hospitalizations have risen close to their earlier peak values. Some other countries have rising hospital occupancy too; notably Ireland, the UK and Belgium. Germany, unfortunately, is not providing hospital occupancy data.

Here are the current hospital occupancies by COVID patients across Europe, expressed as a percentage of the country’s total hospital beds available:

The UK, Denmark and Ireland, with already falling cases, will not be too concerned about their positions in this league. Of the countries slowest to unlock (excluding Germany), Italy is fairly high, but Spain is very low, second from bottom of the 14.

Intensive Care Units

Here’s the ICU occupancy per million population:

This tangled mass of spaghetti shows that Austria, Belgium, Germany, France and Spain are the countries whose ICU occupancy per million has gone to a level similar to earlier peaks. But in most of the countries ICU occupancy by COVID patients is now on the decline, even where new cases are still on the up. There should, therefore, be no cause for further alarm on this score anywhere in the group of 14 countries. Not even in Spain or the Netherlands.

Here are the ICU occupancies, expressed as a percentage of available intensive care beds, for those countries which report them:

France, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland are the four countries in the 14 whose ICU occupancy seems most potentially concerning. But all have been to considerably higher levels in earlier phases of the epidemic.

Deaths

Here are the daily deaths per million:

It’s been bad lately in several countries, notably Denmark (grey). But as I showed earlier, there is reason for optimism in most of the countries, except for Italy, Germany, and perhaps Spain and Austria.

Here is the list of current daily deaths per million around Europe:

The Danes and Swedes are on the home straight, and probably the Letzebuergesch too. The Germans and the Austrians, not so much.

And here are the cumulative totals of deaths per million:

The core group of 14 countries are mostly in the bottom half of this list. Belgium, Italy and the UK have been worst among them, in that order. Denmark has been the best by a distance, with the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria and Sweden forming a chasing pack. Though Germany and Austria may find it hard to hold their positions, as they still look to have a long way to go to reach herd immunity.

Here is the same data looked at in terms of deaths per case, with the cases offset by 21 days:

It might seem paradoxical that the black line, way above the others recently, actually represents Sweden, the country closest to having the virus beaten. On reflection, though, this is because as new cases fall rapidly towards zero, there are still people in the hospitals who caught it many weeks ago, and there are still a few of these who are dying. This pattern, then, is the signature of death; death for the virus, that is. And about time too.

Finally, here’s the graph of excess mortality relative to the same time of year in a base period of 2015 to 2019:

The trend in excess mortality has been gradually downward ever since omicron became the dominant variant back in December 2021.

And here is the list of the last reported excess mortalities around Europe:

Currently, ten of the 14 – Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, France and the UK – are showing lower mortality than is normal at the time of year. Only Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal are showing positive excess mortality.

To sum up

Based on each country’s performance against the virus over the last three months only, taking into account cases and lockdowns, I divided the 14 countries into seven categories as follows:

·       Awful: Italy, Germany.

·       Poor: Austria.

·       Get on with it, it’s time to do some unlocking: Spain, the Netherlands.

·       Wait and see: France, Portugal.

·       Doing OK: Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland.

·       Doing well: Denmark, Ireland, the UK.

·       Outstanding: Sweden. They’ve got the damn thing beaten!