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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

#201

Post by mc32 »

argonaut wrote: post #193

The jury is still out on "economic failure." The evidence cited on the economy is thin at best. The main piece of evidence is that "Sweden’s central bank expects its economy to contract by 4.5 percent this year, a revision from a previously expected gain of 1.3 percent." Economic forecasts are ridiculously unreliable. In the US, economists forecast (on average) that 8 million jobs would be lost in May. Instead there…

The NYT has fallen into the bad habit of writing to a narrative, conscious or unconscious, rather than investigating more honestly.

In this case they want to paint the alternative path as wrongheaded and foolhardy. I’m glad someone tried something different in light of a lack of hard evidence. Time will tell if one or the other was better, but at least we’ll have baselines to compare against.

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

#202

Post by nodamage »

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…

While Sweden did not have a mandatory lockdown, it wasn't like they stood by and did nothing either. They actually implemented many measures to reduce the spread of the virus:

- Closed high schools and universities.

- Banned gatherings of over 50 people.

- Banned visits to nursing homes.

- Reduced restaurant capacity and required social distancing in restaurants.

- Recommended social distancing, working from home, and avoiding unnecessary travel.

If you look at mobility data you'll see that even in the absence of official lockdown policies people were already changing their behavior to protect themselves, and the difference between Sweden and other places is not actually as big as people think.

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

#203

Post by jdminhbg »

dwaltrip wrote: post #171
austhrow743 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> I think it was implied that we try to reduce deaths as much as is reasonably possible

But this is just a tautology now, as the entire question is what constitutes "reasonable."

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

#204

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?

looks like that nurse has a fb page of anti vaxx and lots of beaseless claims,wasted my time dammit :(

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

#205

Post by glofish »

latchkey wrote: post #174
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.

none of that mask wearing is done at the scale and in the manner forced upon the population

nurses change their masks all the time, nobody skis every day for eight hours, (FWIW the vast majority of people skiing don't wear masks over their mouths)

> I wash my mask every time I use it and I rotate through several of them

Like every hour? If not good luck with that, it is a pit of infection, a wet and warm substrate for bacteria and fungi.

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

#206

Post by ziga »

systemvoltage wrote: post #43
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 very large percentage of US deaths are also from the same type of residents - care homes, elderly communities and such. I read that it was as much as 40%. I need to find source.

43% according to NYT (includes residents and workers): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-nurs...

55k+ deaths, 296k+ cases, staggering numbers. Out of a 1.3M nursing home population (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/nursing-home-care.htm), which makes you wonder if the recent decrease in deaths is driven by the fact that the majority of the susceptible nursing home population has already been affected.

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

#207

Post by johnyzee »

argonaut wrote: post #193

The jury is still out on "economic failure." The evidence cited on the economy is thin at best. The main piece of evidence is that "Sweden’s central bank expects its economy to contract by 4.5 percent this year, a revision from a previously expected gain of 1.3 percent." Economic forecasts are ridiculously unreliable. In the US, economists forecast (on average) that 8 million jobs would be lost in May. Instead there…

The EU zone as a whole just adjusted their projection for the year to contract 8.3%, FWIW.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/07/eu-cuts-economic-forecasts-f...

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

#208

Post by a3_nm »

I think it's misleading to phrase things, as the article does, as just "more deaths" vs "the economy". The drawbacks of a large-scale mandatory lockdown (as opposed to asking people to do their own social distancing) also include other things like psychological effects on the population, political consequences (setting a precedent of severely restricting personal freedoms), and, well, enjoyment: making 10 million people more happy for a few months doesn't seem entirely negligible from a utilitarian perspective.

This isn't to take position for or against Sweden's policy here, but there are far more variables than simply excess deaths (or DALYs) and economic impact.

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

#209

Post by croes »

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.…

It's bit early to compare death figures. We are in the middle of a pandemic. A second wave can change the numbers. My main problem with the swedish way is, that it all depends on building herd immunity without even knowing if an infection leads to a long term immunity neither do we know the long term effects of an corona infection. Studies found lung damages in people with mild symptoms, if these will heal or be permanent is unknown. Also other long term effects are unknown. For examlpe the corona virus just has to raise the probability of lung cancer and the swedish way will have severe consequences.

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

#210

Post by arexxbifs »

addicted wrote: post #161
heavyavocado wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swede here. The leadership in Sweden has consistently tried to find different ways of justifying the strategy. Blaming the results on failing elderly care has been one such tactic. When you compare the raw numbers the proportion of elderly care deaths is actually in line with (or even less than) neighboring countries.

I feel like Tegnell’s original mistake was his disbelief that asymptomatic spreaders existed. His entire strategy was based on this and worse, he loudly and publicly criticized other countries that chose to lockdown because unlike him they were fully convinced about the existence of asymptomatic spreaders. Once his strategy to protect the vulnerable failed dramatically due to asymptomatic carriers (and the fact that…

He's made a long string of bad judgement calls and spurious statements.

However, I'm more appalled by the government's complete mismanagement. They have completely pushed responsibility onto this single man, who cannot be held accountable in public elections. His job is to be a key advisor. The politicians are the policymakers and the only enforceable decisions they've made is pretty much to prohibit gatherings of more than 50 people and close down high schools.

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