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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

#171

Post by dwaltrip »

austhrow743 wrote: post #167
leto_ii wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In an average year, 13/1000 Swedes die anyway. Yes, people die. That's true of all countries and all times. What we might call civilized societies have however strived to reduce those numbers as much as possible. This was done by trying to avoid violence, improving lifestyles and developing better medical techniques in order to prevent or repair diseases and injuries. Containing and minimizing the effects of a pand…

>What we might call civilized societies have however strived to reduce those numbers as much as possible Unless you're claiming that no civilised society exists, that's not true at all. A civilisation built around minimising death as much as possible would look very differently to any that currently exists. Resources are always a trade off. People working at those festivals and cinemas could have went in to medical c…

I think it was implied that we try to reduce deaths as much as is reasonably possible, not at the cost of everything else.

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

#172

Post by nradov »

Traster wrote: post #8
jnwatson wrote: post #3

I don’t believe the article has addressed Sweden’s main argument for not shutting down: that herd immunity should be the prime driver. Essentially, that everyone is going to eventually have roughly the same death rate, so might as well get it over with. That remains to be seen; if Sweden’s peers can prevent flare-ups, it looks like Sweden was wrong.

Well it's not only that, if you overwhelm your healthcare system you're going to end up with excess deaths even if the same number of people get the virus in the end. Also, we've learned some mitigation techniques over the last few months (like steroids in late stage treatment) which means that the idea that 'everyone will get it eventually' just isn't relevant - its likely that our survival rate will go up over time…

Ironically, medical researchers wouldn't have learned those mitigation techniques (like Dexamethasone) without a large population of patients to use as experimental subjects. In other words, if we succeed in slowing down the spread (which would be a good thing) then medical research into treatments and vaccines will also slow down.

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

#173

Post by msbarnett »

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…

> How come 0.05% died and not 1% to 2%? Isn't this evidence that the coronavirus isn't as big as a threat as we thought? I mean 0.05% deaths is 40 times smaller than 2% deaths.

Naive death rate is deaths/totally cases of infection, not deaths/total population. Most of Sweden never contracted covid in the first place.

A first approximation of Sweden's covid death rate would be around ~7.4% to date (almost certainly lower in practice bc total infections > officially diagnosed)

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

#174

Post by latchkey »

glofish wrote: post #137

Sweden is much hated because it demonstrates how the scientific epidemiological models, the studies on mask effectiveness, lockdown estimations etc are all junk science. None of their models would have predicted the trajectory for Sweden, not even close. And that is because none are based on sound science but are guesstimates at best yet are paraded around as the product of the best minds in the world. Much is made a…

> I don't understand how people assume it is healthy to breathe through a mucus-laden cotton sheet filled with microorganisms captured from the air, ...

Tell that to the millions of people who go skiing every year, or the people who work in hospitals all day long, every day.

I wash my mask every time I use it and I rotate through several of them. Nobody is asking you to wear a dirty mask.

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

#175

Post by hyanaroo »

saalweachter wrote: post #52
drummer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately covid deaths are highly unreliable as there is lots of evidence worldwide that people dying with covid are also counted with those dying of covid. Also lots of cases of dead people being counted while not being tested or positively tested for covid.

During the peak of crisis in NYC, the death rate was ~6 times normal. If those extra deaths weren't from COVID-19, what were they from?

also this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4gGxRlzoKI

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

#176

Post by VectorLock »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #142
VectorLock wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that "its okay for more of other people to die so some people don't miss out on some fun" I find even more abhorrent.

It's an argument you have to accept on some level, unless you propose to make more radical changes to society. How many thousands of people could we have saved from car accidents in 2019 by banning nonessential driving?

At a fundamental level, yes. By degree of magnitude not even in the same galaxy. If you take a 200 million mile road trip you might contribute to one death, vs. going to a party and risk contracting and spreading a pandemic that has has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

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

#177

Post by grapehut »

leto_ii wrote: post #112
londons_explore wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'

> In an average year, 13/1000 Swedes die anyway. Yes, people die. That's true of all countries and all times. What we might call civilized societies have however strived to reduce those numbers as much as possible. This was done by trying to avoid violence, improving lifestyles and developing better medical techniques in order to prevent or repair diseases and injuries. Containing and minimizing the effects of a pand…

> It's not fun, but suggesting that your right to fun should trump others' right to life is, again, uncivilized, immoral and irresponsible.

That's not the argument he was making. And as a society we have to accept some negative externalities and weigh up the benefits, otherwise things like (recreational) road-trips would be banned.

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

#178

Post by yxhuvud »

nkurz wrote: post #82
DanBC wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the worst flu seasons still have a higher death toll than corona. Do you have a link to the statistics please? I think you're comparing two different methods of counting death. I think for covid-19 you're counting people who died after testing positive, or people where covid-19 is listed as the cause on the death certificate. But for flu I think you're counting excess mortality.

Not a scientific article, but this blog post gives some numbers for Sweden: https://emanuelkarlsten.se/more-swedes-died-in-one-month-199... . One big question would be why they chose April 2020 as the comparison point rather than May or June -- did the number of deaths per month in Sweden actually drop? (I haven't read the article closely, and don't have a horse in this race --- I just thought it was apropos. Feel fr…

Yes, the death rate has dropped and is now down to normal.

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

#179

Post by jariel »

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…

"On a country left completely unchecked?" not unchecked. There were a lot of closures and measures taken. Just not the same as elsewhere.

That would be almost 200 000 were it to be in America, and that's quite a lot of people to die in 3 or so months.

More than Vietnam+Korean wars put together and those wars lasted years.

So it's not a small number.

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

#180

Post by username90 »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #109
londons_explore wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People smoke, drink alcohol and do drugs. Those are much much worse than covid for your health. Sweden will still have much higher life expectancy than Denmark and Finland this year even though they got higher covid deaths since Sweden is much better at policing those drugs.
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