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

#561

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:01 AM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #521

twblalock wrote: post #499

Any coherent explanation of this pandemic is going to need to explain why some countries that didn't do very much (e.g. Japan) ended up with far fewer deaths per capita than countries that locked down (e.g. EU countries and the United States). Sweden is somewhere in the middle -- they are being criticized, yet other countries in Europe which locked down have ended up with a higher per capita death rate. Why is it tha…

It’s not about comparing policy from the top down but rather comparing public opinion of the virus from the bottom up. Asian cultures have take the virus much more seriously than European cultures and regardless of government policy that is going to be a major determinant of how much the virus spreads. Put in another way, two countries can apply the exact same policy against the virus but have diverging outcomes beca…

[deleted]

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

#562

Post by pas » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:02 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #371

pas wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan is/was also to understand it, find effective protocols for managing it, etc. (And we also have pretty good chances of coming up with a vaccine in about 1 year.) It's not "just the same amount of death, but slower, so the crematoriums don't get overwhelmed".

...pretty good chances of coming up with a vaccine in about 1 year. This is just wishful thinking. We've never had effective vaccines for this sort of virus. (The yearly flu vaccine is like 30% effective.) Sure lots of research groups are working on vaccines, but many of them are academics who have no particular duty to work on research likely to have an immediate payoff. The researchers who do have such a duty, i.e.…

At least one phase 3 clinical trial is about to start this month. I too am surprised that the one year estimate is not complete nonsense, but it seems it's not. (Of course the mRNA vector might simply not pan out, but there are still others currently undergoing phase 2.)

Efficacy is always a question, sure, yet it seems the spike protein is stable (conserved across mutations).

If the mRNA stuff works well then it'll likely work for the flu too. (It be easy to pack one shot full if flu strains.)

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

#563

Post by wwweston » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:08 AM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #500

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…

Young people aren't just losing a few months of festivals. A generation of kids are losing a year (possibly more!) of schooling. Young adults are graduating into career-crippling unemployment which may haunt their lives for decades. People are getting laid off, burning through their meager life savings, losing businesses that they've worked themselves half to death to establish. Suicide rates are up. We're just begin…

> All so that 75 year olds can have an extra month or two of average life expectancy?

Extra years. There's plenty of elderly with additional risk conditions who could manage and live with them for years w/o the extra strain of a poorly understood high-impact novel infectious agent.

But the idea that vulnerability is confined to the retired is wrong. Excess death stats are also up in the 45-65 range. And I'm personally acquainted with cases 45 & under people are already looking at severe lasting health effects and have been informed of COVID attributable deaths in that age range a degree or two out from my circle. This is unsurprising at a certain breadth of infection no matter the relative difference in risks for younger demographics. Very small numbers across very large populations = large absolute impacts. Let it burn through the population without suppression measures and it's not going to look prettier.

And that includes the economic effects. They're bad. But the idea that we could have chosen not to have them is false. Once contact takes on additional risks, some large portion of people stay away from contact underlying many economic activities whether there's civil direction or not, because all transactions are still cost/benefit. The only way to stop that would have been to totally suppress knowledge of the pandemic or have crushed the disease itself from the start. Distancing measures and other civil restrictions we're left with are basically a question of how coordinated activity is, not a difference in the order of the impacts. That kind of reduction happens when people are confident they're safe and they don't present a risk to those they care about.

Also, while everyone whose career has crossed the last crash or two knows it sucks, it isn't clear the impacts move beyond economic:

https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-e...

And while we're considering quality of life issues -- are we really saying that a year of public education is worth the tradeoff of having a parent or grandparent relationship? I think it's interesting that some of the societies that are doing much better than the West seem to have a culture of respect for the contributions elders make to their families and societies in general. I wonder if there's a connection.

And as for whether people should be moralizing: these are moral issues, which usually makes it a good time to do so. Apparently you agree, given that your own comment does. Which might even be appropriate if your moral case were the stronger one.

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

#564

Post by fluffything » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:09 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #546

georgespencer wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner (American w/ Chinese parents) strongly believes a major difference is the sense of collective responsibility in Asia. A kind of deferral of individuality to benefit society.

Fine, but how does that explain disparities in outcome between European countries?

A German college truly believes that this virus was created by Adolf Gates to enrich themselves with the pandemic while helping China destroy the German economy.

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

#565

Post by new2628 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:09 AM UTC

dynamite-ready wrote: post #531

twblalock wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you explain the differences in outcome between European countries, or even just between the Scandinavian countries?

Geography is part of it too. Some countries are densely populated, and some aren't. And echoing the comment about behaviour, the difference between the culture of say, Norway and Britain, is vast in some respects. Or even the likes of Germany and Italy, which are neighbours.

> Germany and Italy, which are neighbours.

This is new to me :)

Your point stands of course..

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

#566

Post by luckylion » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #546

georgespencer wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner (American w/ Chinese parents) strongly believes a major difference is the sense of collective responsibility in Asia. A kind of deferral of individuality to benefit society.

Fine, but how does that explain disparities in outcome between European countries?

Collectivism/individualism and obedience towards the state/authorities are very different within EU as well.

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

#567

Post by taneq » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

LeanderK wrote: post #550

taneq wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some countries that didn't do very much (e.g. Japan) Japan had a strong preexisting culture of wearing a mask when going out in public if you're the slightest bit sick. > countries that locked down (e.g. EU countries and the United States). The early EU countries (Italy, France, Spain) and the US didn't lock down until far too late when their local epidemics had already spiraled out of control. The US in particular…

yeah, i think the cultural aspect can not be ignored! The stereotypes of some cultures being more cold and wanting to keep their distances is grounded in reality. In e.g. france or italy having very close contact for example when greeting is the norm. I can imagine that it helps to spread the virus. Others don't have to adjust too much.

Good point about greetings. Places where people get all over each others' faces to say hello have had a worse time of it than places where people bow politely from a distance.

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

#568

Post by chimprich » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:12 AM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #200

leto_ii wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many ways of mitigating the harmful effects of the lock down. State aid targeted directly towards individuals (and not corporations) is a good idea, I think. The same goes for a freeze on mortgage payments, rents, evictions etc. These are all measures that a modern state can take to prevent people from suffering economically.

The only bummer is that a lot of this amounts to expecting the young to pay for this the rest of their lives. Politicians keep kicking the can down the road and it is not fair to future generations. Nobody seems to be talking about that.

Depends. If you give someone a furlough handout, they can keep buying food, paying rent, paying for services (keeping other people's jobs viable, basically).

If you let someone go bankrupt, lose their job, house, etc. they are suddenly not contributing to the economy and other people start losing their jobs. And that person then needs welfare payments anyway to avoid starving to death etc.

In the former case the government might borrow to pay for that, but if you borrow money, you have to borrow it off someone. Someone has to buy those bonds; e.g. pension funds.

"The young" will be not will be worse off overall; it has to balance out overall. Some of them will be creditors. The balance won't be evenly distributed, but future governments can decide by how much with tax strategies.

Compare to climate change, a problem we are very definitely kicking down the road to future generations.

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

#569

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #546

georgespencer wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner (American w/ Chinese parents) strongly believes a major difference is the sense of collective responsibility in Asia. A kind of deferral of individuality to benefit society.

Fine, but how does that explain disparities in outcome between European countries?

There are singificant cultural differences. According to an italian friend of mine many italians disrespected the distancing measures, plus there are differences in how closely people generally interact and their living situations.

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

#570

Post by belorn » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #499

Any coherent explanation of this pandemic is going to need to explain why some countries that didn't do very much (e.g. Japan) ended up with far fewer deaths per capita than countries that locked down (e.g. EU countries and the United States). Sweden is somewhere in the middle -- they are being criticized, yet other countries in Europe which locked down have ended up with a higher per capita death rate. Why is it tha…

You have to look at where in the population the deaths occur in combination with policy and cultural behavior.

In Sweden the wast majority occurred in elderly care homes located mostly within strong mass transportation distance. (The image in the article is almost ironically capturing the wrong demographic in the wrong location in the wrong part of Sweden, in a time period after the one for which they base the article, but it is eye catching so for nytimes I guess that is the editorial guidelines that they will use).

Japan with a large portion of the population being elderly, and with a strong mass transportation system, I do wonder why they have so few deaths. Maybe they imposed very strict testing and restriction for all workers getting anywhere near such places? Maybe they use a lot of automation in elderly care resulting in significant less human contact and exposure? Cultural difference?

Finland did one thing that Sweden did not. They closed the capital. No one in, no one out. I am not sure how the elderly care homes outside that zone managed in regard to finding replacement for employees, but it seems to have been an effective measure. They also seem to have implemented rules for zero visitors.