Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by aeternum » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:41 AM UTC

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 argue a decent metric is human hours. For example, if a safety protocol costs n people x hours in return for saving y lives, then we can strike a balance. In general I'd argue that n * x ~= y * (human life expectancy in hours).

You could apply this to things like airport security and check how the sum of all the time passenger spend in line compares to the lives saved. My guess is especially in the airport example the lines have taken more human life than terrorists.

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

#422

Post by jussij » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

glofish wrote: post #321

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the estimated risk of death, not the risk of becoming a carrier of the disease, possibly an asymptomatic one, who spreads it to others. This is what's really frustrating about this whole "trade-off" argument: it's fine to make trade-offs for yourself, but you do not have the right to implicitly force your choice on others. If you sit within six feet of me not wearing a mask, my risk of falling off a mountain…

how is anyone forcing anything on you? also where and in what way did the mask pop into this at all? we are talking about what a person would trade aka risk vs reward

The OP is just pointing out you live in a community.

So this is not just about what is good for you, but instead what is good for the community.

For example, having you out of quarantine early might be good for you, but it will definitely not be good for many others.

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

#423

Post by Markoff » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

this was supposed to be about economy? I thought they just wanted to preserve their way of life without draconian measures of countries which took those measures and got Fd anyway in matter of deaths or economy

it was pretty clear from beginning it won't have big impact on their economy either way

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

#424

Post by yibg » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

tux1968 wrote: post #259

latchkey wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vietnam is zero deaths and At first, I thought it was the govt covering something up, but after so many months, along with closely monitoring things, I trust their numbers. It is literally a source of national pride for them to have done so well, it would be very hard for them to hide things. Quarantine, masks, isolation, cleaning, testing, contact tracing. ALL WORKED.

What if next year a more virulent strand of Covid comes along that kills almost everyone in the world who didn't get exposed to Covid-19. Will you still consider their measures as ALL WORKING? We have no idea how the future is going to unfold. Everyone is faking it while demanding that everyone do as they say.

What a strange argument to make. What if next year we discover anyone that is infected with the current covid all drops dead after a year of infection? We have no idea how the future is going to unfold so let’s all do random things?

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

#425

Post by arcticbull » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:47 AM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #415

arcticbull wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developed in time, yes. So far, at least using the US as a benchmark, it's not.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to use the US as a benchmark for any thing Covid.

Point well taken.

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

#426

Post by yters » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:51 AM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #169

leto_ii wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any death is unacceptable. This is, of course, unattainable in practice, so I would suggest looking at Eastern European or East Asian societies for a rule of thumb (e.g. Czechia, Slovakia, Greece, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam etc.).

> Any death is unacceptable. This is not how society works. We could drastically curtail the number of deaths by outlawing cars, alcohol, and social interaction indefinitely, regardless of covid, but we don't. Refusing to understand that tradeoffs are involved is not helpful.

Also leads to undesireable conclusions. If the metric is minimize death, best way to achieve this is kill everyone alive today, or at least sterilize them. Everyone alive today will die someday, guaranteed. If they do not have any kids, there will be consequently be no further deaths. Same outcome for all sentient life. If minimizing suffering is the ultimate meteric, then the optimal solution is elimination of all sentient life.

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

#427

Post by yters » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:55 AM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #331

leto_ii wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not explicitly specified, my comment was referring to deaths caused by the coronavirus. If you read past the first sentence you will also notice that I explicitly said that this is an unattainable standard and I have provided a number of countries that can be taken as reference for what an acceptable death rate might be.

Some deaths are caused not by the coronavirus itself, but by the lockdown. Suicides, as well as consequences of foregone or delayed diagnostic tests and other medical appointments, for example. In the US, where unemployment often means no health insurance, many thousands of lives are lost per percentage point of unemployment. I'm the third world, you've got future deaths due to foregone immunizations. So the goal is…

Also, how many elderly people have died due to flatten the curve procedures that sent positive cases back to nursing homes to free up hospital beds for younger patients? An enormous percentage of the US deaths were nursing home occupants. It is precisely the lockdown procedures that have resulted in such high death rates. This is the huge uncovered scandal of the pandemic response.

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

#428

Post by CaptainZapp » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

revnode wrote: post #361

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all problems caused by the economic system. If an economic system can't cope with a relatively minor external stressor - and Covid is not nearly as dangerous or destructive as some stressors - then the problem is with the economic system. Actions do indeed have consequences - and trying to use the wrong tool for the job because you can't imagine a better tool is possible is not a wise action.

> These are all problems caused by the economic system. What problems? There are no major structural problems yet. There will be major structural problems if OP's ideas are implemented because they're not sound. That's not related to the economic system, that's related to OP's ideas.

> What problems? There are no major structural problems yet.

I'd argue that a 40% jobless rate is a major structural problem.

The real shame about this is that it's absolutely avoidable to a big degree.

At a cost? Sure, but I'd argue that it's exactly this, which a civilized society makes.

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

#429

Post by EdwardDiego » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

tomerico wrote: post #353

EdwardDiego wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty obvious at this point that a general lockdown is worthless as a replacement for locking down care homes specifically New Zealander here, our general lockdown went very well and enabled us to isolate clusters of transmission and prevent it becoming community transmission. While two of our clusters were rest homes, several others were not - a school, a St Patrick's Day celebration at a pub, and a wedding,…

New Zealand is a special case where it may be feasible to isolate yourself from the rest of the world and reach zero cases. With that said, it remains to be seen that it is possible to maintain zero community spread over the long term, and whether the economic impact of isolating yourself from the rest of the world is worth it.

We're only isolating human traffic. We're not isolating exports or imports of goods.

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

#430

Post by nabla9 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

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.…

Extra deaths don't have to come from underreported covid deaths. For example suicides and untreated medical conditions during social distancing and lockdowns can increase the number of deaths.