Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 720 posts

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

#621

Post by bhupy »

Izkata wrote: post #419
bhupy wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been no more reactionary than most other nations in the world. There is absolutely long-term planning by the majority of states. To the extent that states are frantically changing their strategies, it's because we're learning more about the virus and how it spreads, and shifting our strategies. Take New York, for example. Its high death rate can be largely attributed to Governor Cuomo's disastrous decision to fo…

> To this date, Florida has among the lowest deaths per capita in the Union [4: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ ]. Check that ref again; Florida is ranked at almost exactly the midpoint.

Plot it out, the data points are not all equidistant. There is a huge drop-off after Massachusetts / Rhode Island.

While Florida is "ranked almost exactly at the midpoint", it's because it's part of a cluster of data points that have almost the same deaths per M.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

Washington and below all have close to equal death rates, and marginal differences are probably hard to attribute to any specific set of policy. This, of course, should not detract from the commendable numbers we see in Utah, Hawaii, Vermont, Texas, Oregon, etc.

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

#622

Post by drummer »

berdario wrote: post #60
drummer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32201354/ Some quotes: “Under these conditions, there does not seem to be a significant difference between the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 in OECD countries and that of common coronaviruses (χ2 test, P=0.11). Of course, the major flaw in this study is that the percentage of deaths attributable to the virus is not determined, but this is the case for all studies reporting respira…

You're omitting one important quote: "less than 4000 deaths for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of writing" That paper is worthless.

If you look at the responses regarding Norway and Germany above, this paper foretold the future. The authors deserve awards. Excellent science.

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

#623

Post by anoncake »

Leherenn wrote: post #613
anoncake wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the virus contained for years is unthinkable. If we don't get a vaccine by next year, we won't need it anymore.

With the current measures in Europe? Definitely doable. It's currently mandatory masks in public, keeping distances and washing hands, and no big crowds. Life feels pretty normal over here.

It's great that life feels normal for you, not everyone is that lucky. People have already started to disobey and it isn't even winter.

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

#624

Post by bhupy »

robinzfc wrote: post #597
bhupy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while in USA, as far as I understand, the constitution greatly limits the right of states to prohibit interstate travel. The US States have been imposing varying levels of requirements on inter-state travel from other states. New York requires anyone entering from a set of states to quarantine for 14 days[1]. Maine requires visitors from a list of States to have been tested (I'm traveling to Maine and will be getti…

> lower per capita death rate than the best EU member states (Germany, Denmark). You repeat that a couple of times in your posts, I am curious where do you get that from? Germany and Denmark are not "the best", they are both above the median in the EU.

The main point is that any criticism you might level against the US States for its supposed "lack of strategy", ought to just as easily be leveled against Germany. Instead, Germany is widely regarded as having a coordinated/successful strategy[1][2].

Even among the EU States with the fewest deaths / M — that is Hungary, Finland, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, Croatia, Latvia, etc — you have comparable US States in Maine, Utah, Idaho, West Virginia, Oregon, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/local-practical-apolitical-insi...

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/22/8808032...

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

#625

Post by thu2111 »

kolinko wrote: post #503
ljf wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree measuring excess deaths is wise, as it also measures those 'killed by the lock down' who couldn't get chemo etc. I am very pro lockdown, but that means we need the clear numbers all the more. Sweden is currently seeing 20 to 25% more deaths in year that they would in a standard year. Though their covid deaths have slowed so that will likely be around 10 percent by the end of the year if they don't see further…

Contries that early lockdowns had statistically insignificant excess deaths. So all those caused by lockdowns are insignificant compared to covid. Also, lockdown saved people’s lives in other way - less accidents etc.

That isn't correct. JP Morgan and UBS both analysed this with public data and concluded there was no correlation between severity/length of lockdown and outcomes. Not sure where you got the idea that countries with early lockdowns at 'insignificant excess deaths' in general.

Bear in mind you don't know how many people died OF covid, only those who died WITH it at the time of death, which is a totally different thing. Cases where there are no other obvious causes of death (e.g. amongst the young) are vanishingly rare.

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

#626

Post by bhupy »

roca wrote: post #397
bhupy wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a lot seem more like “people got tired of lockdowns and we kinda hope things might not get bad if we reopen, so we’re reopening” This isn’t unique to the US, the entire world is playing a giant game of economic chicken with COVID, and the entire world is beginning to re-open, even without a vaccine or any sort of “plan”. Just like the EU, the US is a mixed bag. You have States like Germany with exemplary planni…

Sure, there are many other countries that likewise lack a clear strategy. But it's not good to grade on a curve here. Americans should be demanding a clear strategy, both from the states and from the federal government; they mostly aren't, and I don't know why.

Nobody is grading on a curve here. The whole point is that, while it is fair to criticize certain States for their lack of a clear strategy (there are only a few), when it comes to COVID, the US as a whole is not a monolithic entity, it is a collection of States.

Each State has its own government, and each government has its own infectious disease agency (each with billions of dollars in funding), a chief executive, and a legislature. People forget that individual American states have GDPs on par with sovereign countries. California is comparable to the UK, NY to South Korea, Texas to Canada. The US State with the lowest GDP per capita, Mississippi, is comparable to Portugal.

At the outset of the outbreak, the vast majority of US States initiated systematic responses comparable to that of peer nation-states. Most citizens of most states ARE demanding a clear strategy from their State governments, and that's what they're getting.

The CDC provides an advisory role, and has no authority to issue lockdown mandates, close businesses, close schools, or issue testing or mask requirements. The US States may rely on the CDC advice, but it can also choose to ignore it or supplement it with the recommendations of their own State disease control agencies. Keep in mind that the CDC and the FDA both dropped the ball multiple times during this outbreak (dragging their feet on approving new testing, flip flopping on mask policy).

While it would be awesome for the Federal government to coordinate the perfect COVID response, the US is set up in such a way that the States don't need to rely on such an ideal.

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

#627

Post by simonh »

roca wrote: post #601
simonh wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course some countries have dramatically different demographics, geography and medical systems than others which can have a huge effect. As has been pointed out in a parallel thread Vietnam locked down all international travel very early, and demographically has a far younger population than most nations which has a huge effect on relative mortality rates. For New Zealand they have an extremely widely geographicall…

FWIW Vietnam's youthful demographics are pretty much irrelevant; what's impressive about Vietnam is not its mortality rate but that they shut down viral transmission. My point is that many countries with wildly different conditions have successfully suppressed the virus, which I think suggests that just about any country could have suppressed the virus with the right policies. At least, one should not confidently ass…

I'm not saying they couldn't have suppressed it, I'm saying they couldn't have done so without a lockdown. Once the virus is progressing through your population there's no other way, though masks certainly seem to help. With sufficient testing you can track it's progress and employ smarter lockdown strategies of course.

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

#628

Post by thu2111 »

ljf wrote: post #508
kolinko wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contries that early lockdowns had statistically insignificant excess deaths. So all those caused by lockdowns are insignificant compared to covid. Also, lockdown saved people’s lives in other way - less accidents etc.

I agree, but realistically we need to use the blunt number of excess deaths, as each country is handling the tracking of covid deaths so differently. And it also helps show if the lockdown caused issues - by comparing against other causes of desth where countries have been tracking covid deaths in a meaningful and repeated way. As I say, I believe lockdown, esp in the way that NZ/Australia/Vietnam/South Korea did - i…

Australia is locking people in tower blocks without warning, including people who were only visiting and thus have nowhere to sleep, including people who have run out of food. Even friends trying to deliver food were turned away.

https://news.google.com/search?q=australia%20tower%20block&h...

It's completely insane, unbelievably nasty, truly evil. The virus is not dangerous. I'll repeat: the virus is not dangerous. Excess deaths in the UK, relatively badly hit by a series of bad decisions, matches the famous plague of 1999/2000. You probably don't remember that one, because nothing happened.

NZ meanwhile is now terrified of re-opening their borders in the belief that this NOT DANGEROUS virus can be kept out forever. They have no plan for how to do this without going full-on North Korea. It's also incredibly self destructive. The Virus Is Not Dangerous.

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

#629

Post by Izkata »

bhupy wrote: post #621
Izkata wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To this date, Florida has among the lowest deaths per capita in the Union [4: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ ]. Check that ref again; Florida is ranked at almost exactly the midpoint.

Plot it out, the data points are not all equidistant. There is a huge drop-off after Massachusetts / Rhode Island. While Florida is "ranked almost exactly at the midpoint", it's because it's part of a cluster of data points that have almost the same deaths per M. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... Washington and below all have close to equal death rates, and marginal differences are proba…

There is also a dropoff below that, after South Carolina and Nebraska. The cluster Florida is in isn't very big.

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

#630

Post by bhupy »

Izkata wrote: post #629
bhupy wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plot it out, the data points are not all equidistant. There is a huge drop-off after Massachusetts / Rhode Island. While Florida is "ranked almost exactly at the midpoint", it's because it's part of a cluster of data points that have almost the same deaths per M. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... Washington and below all have close to equal death rates, and marginal differences are proba…

There is also a dropoff below that, after South Carolina and Nebraska. The cluster Florida is in isn't very big.

Yes, "among the lowest" != "the lowest". Great insight.

Just look at the data: the drop-off between Florida and Oregon (spanning 23 States) is equal to that between Mississippi and Colorado, which are adjacent data points.

Post reply on HN