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A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

sebastianrushworth.com

31–40 of 340 posts

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#31
The author doesn't state (and I don't know the real-time info) about whether the country is locked down and social distancing/masks, etc.

If so, it's not like their laissez-faire attitude (the previous months) is the success he's making it out to be. They only have stabilized because they adopted the recommended measures finally, if that's true.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#32
post #7

There are a lot of highly problematic claims in the article. This one stood out to me: >Shutting down completely in order to decrease the total number of deaths only makes sense if you are willing to stay shut down until a vaccine is available. That could take years. No country is willing to wait that long. Actually it might very well just be half a year until we have a vaccine. Multiple candidate vaccines are in pha…

Unfortunately, it appears that a significant chunk of people are not interested in taking the vaccine. [1] If only half of Americans are going to get the vaccine (that figure is from May polling, referenced below), we can't pin all of our hopes on it. I should note that I'm not saying it's unreasonable of people to be hesitant to take this particular vaccine, given how it is being rushed. Even scientists have said th…

I suspect once it's generally available you'll see it required at many schools, workplaces, etc. Assuming it's available next year, expect this to be a massive controversy that doesn't fall along the usual political battle lines.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#33

Cynical perspective: Trump doesn't want to reopen too fast because it won't be clear by the election (October, when mail-in voting happens) that this was a good strategy. Democrats don't want to reopen too fast because keeping the economy shut down is bad for Trump's reelection chances. Too cynical? Perhaps. But I do think that perspectives like the author's are dismissed too quickly because neither 'side' sees a way…

Trump doesn't want to reopen too fast

Hasn't Trump been the one flippantly saying "it's not a big deal" and "we'll be back to normal quickly" and "we'll get the kids back to school shortly"?

How could anyone view his behavior as "not wanting to reopen too fast"? It seems the exact opposite to me.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#34

This doctor[1] is basically claiming that all of Sweden, or the vast bulk, have had SARS-CoV-2 and are now immune. This goes completely contrary to every medical authority, and is the sort of claim that generally gets something removed as disinformation. Disinformation does well on HN. Of course you get to the article's slant when it claims that Sweden is "normal" right now, which is an outrageous lie. Virtually all…

Yes, I was noticing this too -- author doesn't state whether the country is locked down and social distancing/masks, etc. now.

If so, they've only stabilized because they adopted the recommended measures finally.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#35
post #16

" Covid has at present killed less than 6000 in Sweden. It is very unlikely that the number of dead will go above 7,000. An average influenza year in Sweden, 700 people die of influenza. " The average number of people who die of influenza in the US is about 35,000. So we should expect 350,000 deaths and then we'll be all good?

um yes, it would be very good.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#37
post #20

Cynical perspective: Trump doesn't want to reopen too fast because it won't be clear by the election (October, when mail-in voting happens) that this was a good strategy. Democrats don't want to reopen too fast because keeping the economy shut down is bad for Trump's reelection chances. Too cynical? Perhaps. But I do think that perspectives like the author's are dismissed too quickly because neither 'side' sees a way…

>Trump doesn't want to reopen too fast because it won't be clear by the election (October, when mail-in voting happens) that this was a good strategy. >Democrats don't want to reopen too fast because keeping the economy shut down is bad for Trump's reelection chances. That's basically a conspiracy theory because the Democrats would need to coordinate this political stand and also conspire with medical health advisors…

I can't speak for the medical health advisors or their motivations. I think it would be very scary to be one of the medical folks in charge, and if I were them I would probably err on the side of medical caution. It is not their job, nor is it their expertise, to weigh medical costs against economic costs.

I don't know that Dems would all have to reach this result on their own — it's pretty clear that the Democratic party line right now (and since the beginning) has been "lock it down". Once that was established, it would have taken quite a bit of courage of convictions for a Democrat to have come out in favor of opening.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#38
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proud to see my fellow germans rise up: That is (luckily imo) only a tiny minority of Germans. I would be very interested: are the current restrictions really that bad? You need to wear a mask in supermarkets, do you think that's actually that big of a deal?

see my other comment. its not about the masks. the economy got ruined and its celebrated like we won something.

Even taking the claims in the article at face value (which is most likely not a good idea), we prevented 40,000 people from dying. That's a lot.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#39
post #16

" Covid has at present killed less than 6000 in Sweden. It is very unlikely that the number of dead will go above 7,000. An average influenza year in Sweden, 700 people die of influenza. " The average number of people who die of influenza in the US is about 35,000. So we should expect 350,000 deaths and then we'll be all good?

350k deaths sounds like a huge number, but it's important to take in account how many of those would have died anyway in the next two or three years. Dying at 80 is not the same as dying at 20.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#40
Sweden achieved zero excess mortality in June.

Excess mortality is the best measure, because it accounts for the impact of the disease, as well as the impact of actions taken to fight it (not all of which will be good).

Looking only at covid deaths is therefore misleading, as it only optimizes for that one thing. Looking at the big picture is the better way to make policy.

https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

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