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Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

nytimes.com

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Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#101

Post by simonh »

mirimir wrote: post #85
makomk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It's pretty obvious at this point that a general lockdown is worthless as a replacement for locking down care homes specifically - Spain had one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe but massively screwed up their handling of their care homes, and ended up with an even worse per-capital death toll than Sweden. Unfortunately, mainstream media publications have been spinning this instead as evidence that herd immu…

Right. From what I've read, it seems like the most effective strategy would be locking down elder care homes tightly. And also tightly locking down staff at elder care homes. Because once one resident gets infected, there's no way to prevent other residents, and staff who care for them, from getting infected. At least, short of staff wearing ebola level protection, and changing between residents. Which would be impos…

> But I suspect that it will turn out that general lockdown is neither good enough, nor worth the long term economic consequences.

Hang on, this is an article showing that a looser lockdown still ends up with your economy hammered anyway. This should not be surprising, analysts if the Spanish Flu pandemic showed that cities that locked down later and lighter actually suffered more economically. This is because the higher infection and death rate, and larger number of people caring for sick relatives. People ended up Locking themselves down anyway out of fear, and the epidemic dragged on for longer.

Now we know this wasn’t due to special conditions back then, it’s true now too. There simply isn’t an option to ‘choose the economy’.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#102

Post by sjg007 »

microtherion wrote: post #88
frereubu wrote: post #5

One thing missing from this report is that a large proportion of the deaths were in care homes, and ministers have publicly stated that not entirely locking down care homes from the outset was a big mistake. If they had done this, the figures may well not look nearly as bad. Also, what will count is not the first few months but the entire lifetime of this pandemic. I'll be interested to see where countries are a year…

> a large proportion of the deaths were in care homes … which is no different from other countries. I seem to recall articles comparing the numbers, and the proportions seem similar in many places. > Also, what will count is not the first few months but the entire lifetime of this pandemic. Considering only the improvements in treatments made between March and now, it seems fairly evident that a strategy of front-loa…

There’s been no real progress in clinical treatment since March.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#103

Post by toss1 »

lsllc wrote: post #50
mettamage wrote: post #17

Edit: I'm letting my original comment stand as it shows how I was subtly misinformed regarding the situation of Sweden. I don't think I'd be the only one. Wait, with all due respect, 5420 deaths on 10 million people? On a country left completely unchecked? That doesn't sound like the impending doom I thought the virus would bring. I thought the novel corona virus had a death rate of about 1% to 2% and a bigger spread…

For comparison, Massachusetts with 8000 deaths out of a population of 6.9M (which is #4 for deaths per-capita worldwide after NY, NJ and CT). For some reason MA is now being held up as "the exception to America's coronavirus failure": https://theweek.com/articles/923075/massachusetts-exception-...

Massachusetts is the exception because our re-infection rates (Rt) have been successfully driven down to well below 1.00 (~0.90 in a recent report), despite having started with a nearly out of control situation. We've gone from thousands of new cases per day to now averaging ~100.

The doubling days started out at around 2.4, stayed stubbornly in the dozens for many weeks, then rise, to now averaging well over 400. The original terrifying exponential growth has clearly been halted.

New levels of opening ("Level 3") are now happening this week - gyms, movies, restaurants, all w/large spacing requirements. In the few times I've gone out (making heavy use of delivery), seeing generally very good mask compliance - 75-90%, but less on one recent trip, which is worrying.

I'm concerned about the opening, but confident that the plan is really data driven, and this is as far as they will go until a vaccine, and they'll quickly roll back if numbers slide.

source: MA resident, track & analyze data daily.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#104

Post by frereubu »

atourgates wrote: post #98
frereubu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban visits, quarantine any goods coming into the building for three days, strict hygiene requirements for staff entering and existing the building. It would be really difficult, but when the other alternative is letting a highly contagious virus spread rapidly through a susceptible population I'd say that's worth it. As others have pointed out in this thread, strict lockdowns haven't prevented a horrifying number of…

I don't think it was really possible in the early stages of the pandemic, and might not be possible now. Care workers have to go in and out of elderly care facilities. We still don't have much data on how good COVID-19 testing at tracking pre-symptomatic cases, but the data points at "certainly not 100% accurate". Even if you tested _every_ care worker before they entered the building, you'd likely miss some asymptom…

Sure, it's not going to be perfect. But at the other end of the scale in the UK, for example, they were discharging people they knew to be infected into care homes. If you tested everyone you would miss some, but you'd catch some. You'd provide proper PPE to everyone (that is, if you hadn't cancelled pandemic preparedness measures as in the US and UK) and so on. The risk wouldn't be eliminated, but you could at least reduce it with some relatively simple measures.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#105

Post by [deleted] »

londons_explore wrote: post #99
leto_ii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important observation. In the Netherlands, where I live, I've had a number of people look at me with great surprise and mistrust when I mentioned that the Dutch have done a terrible job with this epidemic. The Guardian plots show that the Netherlands is one of the worst when it comes to under-reporting. This is not to say however that the Swedes have done a good job. While their numbers are credible, their…

In an average year, 13/1000 Swedes die anyway . Considering COVID has closed many of life's fun things, there will be an entire generation of people who have effectively "lost" a year of the things they hoped they would do in their lifetime. By stating open, Sweden might decrease life expectancy in years, but increase it in terms of 'things achieved in a lifetime'

[deleted]

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#106

Post by wbronitsky »

londons_explore wrote: post #99
leto_ii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important observation. In the Netherlands, where I live, I've had a number of people look at me with great surprise and mistrust when I mentioned that the Dutch have done a terrible job with this epidemic. The Guardian plots show that the Netherlands is one of the worst when it comes to under-reporting. This is not to say however that the Swedes have done a good job. While their numbers are credible, their…

In an average year, 13/1000 Swedes die anyway . Considering COVID has closed many of life's fun things, there will be an entire generation of people who have effectively "lost" a year of the things they hoped they would do in their lifetime. By stating open, Sweden might decrease life expectancy in years, but increase it in terms of 'things achieved in a lifetime'

The argument that some people die so it’s ok if more people die is not only horrific, but it makes very little sense.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#107

Post by nradov »

leto_ii wrote: post #90
bjourne wrote: post #68

You have to look at the excess deaths figures. That is, how many usually dies from January to June in a normal year and compare that to how many extra that died in 2020. For Sweden the excess deaths almost exactly matches the number of Covid deaths, give or take 10%. That is not the case for many other countries. For example, the UK had almost twice the number of excess deaths as Covid deaths in a few weeks in April.…

This is an important observation. In the Netherlands, where I live, I've had a number of people look at me with great surprise and mistrust when I mentioned that the Dutch have done a terrible job with this epidemic. The Guardian plots show that the Netherlands is one of the worst when it comes to under-reporting. This is not to say however that the Swedes have done a good job. While their numbers are credible, their…

What is the criteria for defining an acceptable number of deaths?

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#108

Post by sjg007 »

oxymoran wrote: post #53

I find this article a little disingenuous and here is why: Sweden-5420 deaths out of a population of 10 million while no lock down. Michigan-6005 deaths out of a population of 10 million and we have been locked down since mid March. To be clear, I was in favor of the lockdown at first and I still am in favor of keeping things like bars and casinos closed but it’s become clear that the virus doesn’t have much affect o…

The problem is that people ignored the lockdown. Also the virus doesn’t discriminate. Younger people will die but may take longer to do so. Also we are detecting cases earlier than back in March where you had to be really sick to get a test.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#109

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

londons_explore wrote: post #99
leto_ii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important observation. In the Netherlands, where I live, I've had a number of people look at me with great surprise and mistrust when I mentioned that the Dutch have done a terrible job with this epidemic. The Guardian plots show that the Netherlands is one of the worst when it comes to under-reporting. This is not to say however that the Swedes have done a good job. While their numbers are credible, their…

In an average year, 13/1000 Swedes die anyway . Considering COVID has closed many of life's fun things, there will be an entire generation of people who have effectively "lost" a year of the things they hoped they would do in their lifetime. By stating open, Sweden might decrease life expectancy in years, but increase it in terms of 'things achieved in a lifetime'

Such an odd argument. I wonder how would you reply to such a statement when you reach 65 years of age.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#110

Post by ncallaway »

nradov wrote: post #107
leto_ii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important observation. In the Netherlands, where I live, I've had a number of people look at me with great surprise and mistrust when I mentioned that the Dutch have done a terrible job with this epidemic. The Guardian plots show that the Netherlands is one of the worst when it comes to under-reporting. This is not to say however that the Swedes have done a good job. While their numbers are credible, their…

What is the criteria for defining an acceptable number of deaths?

I would generally go for "as few as possible given the circumstances".

Given how much higher they are over other nations—even taking into account excess deaths—I would say they have failed that metric.

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