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The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#41

Post by wldlyinaccurate »

spookthesunset wrote: post #34
tpmx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Swedish. I think the most important difference is that ~50% of the population here thought the government was being incompetent/paralyzed and then performed a voluntary lockdown, much harsher than the government-mandated restrictions. Since lots of those people who disagreed with the government (in)actions work as "knowledge workers", it was also relatively easy to make the switch to work from home, and they did,…

That doesn’t prove the people doing these voluntary lockdowns had any different of an outcome than if they did nothing at all. Way to many people just blindly assume these interventions worked. The fact is we have zero clue if they did anything or the outcomes experienced by different regions was a result of a bunch of stuff that is completely out of our control. If I was gonna bet, my money would be on the lockdowns…

> If I was gonna bet, my money would be on the lockdowns not doing anything. The virus did what it did no matter how hard humans tried to control it

Tell that to New Zealand, who have had less than 3,000 cases in a population of 5 million. They did this with strict border controls (people on inbound flights must isolate for 2 weeks) and quick response to community transmission (several lockdowns totalling 40 days).

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#42

Post by neither_color »

marderfarker2 wrote: post #25
warning26 wrote: post #17

What I find particularly interesting is that Sweden wasn't the only country that did this -- Brazil also did a no-lockdown strategy, and it was basically a disaster there. Evidently, there must have been some other factors at play besides the boolean of lockdown true/false. Better healthcare, maybe?

China did the opposite by sealing everything up in the beginning, and now everything has gone back to normal for them bar international travel. Probably it’s down to developed countries having a well-defined response protocol AND its citizen sticking to it.

They've had regular city-wide/regional lockdowns all throughout. If someone in your apartment complex tests positive SURPRISE you cant leave for two weeks. Normal is gone, it's not coming back. When you move the goal post from "not overwhelming our medical system" to attempting "covid zero" this is the new normal you end up with, somewhere between China and Australia.

August 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/millions-under...

June 2021 https://www.scmp.com/coronavirus/greater-china/article/31380...

January 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/asia/china-covid-lo...

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#43

Post by richardw »

spookthesunset wrote: post #29
warning26 wrote: post #17

What I find particularly interesting is that Sweden wasn't the only country that did this -- Brazil also did a no-lockdown strategy, and it was basically a disaster there. Evidently, there must have been some other factors at play besides the boolean of lockdown true/false. Better healthcare, maybe?

See but since there was no actual randomized test the fact that Brazil did a no-lockdown strategy (which I guess some say is false)… it could have been just as big of a disaster even with a lockdown. There is basically no real way to prove that lockdowns did a single thing. The fact so many countries were so willing to jump onto a completely unproven non pharmaceutical intervention that has massive negative side effe…

Its proven. It’s physics. I can’t catch covid from you because we’re probably on different continents. Living across the street works as well if I don’t open the door. This has been tested for every transmissible disease every organism has had that we’ve managed to witness. Similarly, fewer interactions result in fewer opportunities for transmission. Reduce transmission and the numbers go down. What’s to prove here?

Didn’t vote you down.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#44

Post by jeltz »

alecst wrote: post #22
dance-me wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to quote that, you should add the directly relevant information from the other side: * "But that death rate is lower than the average for the European Union as a whole (1,684), and well below those of France, Spain, Italy and the UK" * Dr Bhatt concedes "it worked for Sweden" * Dr Bhatt is "one of the team at Imperial College who pushed the UK's lockdown strategy" That last detail is important. Of cou…

Edit: I am wrong. The population density of the Stockholm urban area is 4200 (2019), not 400 as I originally said. That number is for the county, not the municipal area. Leaving the rest of the comment so others can learn. Clearly the population density of Stockholm, which holds about 10% of the Swedish population, is not the relevant factor. > Of course he has to say it couldn't have worked in the UK. I'm guessing h…

As someone who lives in Stockholm and who has visited Milan multiple times I would say both cities have a pretty similar population density and any difference you might see will be due to how the city borders are selected. Neither city is particularly dense or particularly sparse.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#45

Post by Ntrails »

TheCowboy wrote: post #32
weego wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that in any give situation, the only correct decision in the absence of any knowledge is the most conservative one. Which this would disprove and thus the argument is provably false.

Except that being wrong about how bad a virus is can be catastrophic, especially when nearly every nation was woefully underprepared. You can easily do math to demonstrate how small changes in the variables of a virus can lead to more dire outcomes. What if China had taken the most conservative policy in response to the appearance of covid-19? Maybe we would have been spared the turmoil and disruption of this pandemi…

The job of Governing is not solely to minimise loss of life, or to utterly avoid tail risks irrespective of cost. (imo)

Focussing so myopically on the above has had unmeasurable consequences on a huge variety of fronts. My prime fury is reserved for closing schools. Extraordinary damage done, gulfs in opportunity and experience widened. Nobody cares much. Death stats are, after all, the only thing that matters to the media at large

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#46

Post by elliekelly »

tpmx wrote: post #30
warning26 wrote: post #17

What I find particularly interesting is that Sweden wasn't the only country that did this -- Brazil also did a no-lockdown strategy, and it was basically a disaster there. Evidently, there must have been some other factors at play besides the boolean of lockdown true/false. Better healthcare, maybe?

I'm Swedish. I think the most important difference is that ~50% of the population here thought the government was being incompetent/paralyzed and then performed a voluntary lockdown, much harsher than the government-mandated restrictions. Since lots of those people who disagreed with the government (in)actions work as "knowledge workers", it was also relatively easy to make the switch to work from home, and they did,…

Your comment reminds me of the NYC Metro use data that (I think) was posted here at the very beginning of the pandemic. IIRC it showed subway use plummeted before the city or state government enacted any measures to combat the pandemic at all.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#47

Post by TheCowboy »

elliekelly wrote: post #46
tpmx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Swedish. I think the most important difference is that ~50% of the population here thought the government was being incompetent/paralyzed and then performed a voluntary lockdown, much harsher than the government-mandated restrictions. Since lots of those people who disagreed with the government (in)actions work as "knowledge workers", it was also relatively easy to make the switch to work from home, and they did,…

Your comment reminds me of the NYC Metro use data that (I think) was posted here at the very beginning of the pandemic. IIRC it showed subway use plummeted before the city or state government enacted any measures to combat the pandemic at all.

Yep. A lot of what got blamed on lockdowns was widely happening without government mandates, and I don't get how people keep making mistakes about this when looking at the effects of policy.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#48

Post by wk_end »

alecst wrote: post #38
wk_end wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the population density of Stockholm county. The population density of the city of Stockholm is 5200 per square km.

You are right. I am wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_urban_area I find ~4200 on Wikipedia but your point stands.

FWIW, the main Wikipedia page on Stockholm lists a “Density” of ~5200, an “Urban Density” of ~4200 and a “Metro Density” of ~400. I admittedly don’t know which is the most useful one here. Population density metrics are tricky.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm

And not to be too scold-y, but 400 people per sq km is the population density of small middle-American towns. I know Stockholm isn’t the biggest city by any means, but it’s still a national capital and a cosmopolitan old-world city; a moment of reflection tells you it’s gotta be denser than, like, Little Falls, Minnesota.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#49

Post by giorgioz »

Is it just me or there are A LOT of articles about how Sweden is better in doing X coming from the US and the UK recently? What's going on here? Frankly it seems a bit of nationalist content marketing after the 10th article I read in 3 years. Most of the times the articles claim Sweden is doing better X but that X could easily be applied to several other countries in Europe. "Sweden offers free health care and education"... yeah A LOT of countries in Europe do that. For this article too it seems the overall achievement of Sweden are shared by many other countries by somehow Sweden is being singled out.

I even googled it and found this: https://si.se/en/annual-report-of-the-image-of-sweden-abroad... Is there a cultural infatuation between the US/UK and Sweden? Is Sweden activally investing resources to improve their perceived image?

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#50

Post by TheCowboy »

Ntrails wrote: post #45
TheCowboy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that being wrong about how bad a virus is can be catastrophic, especially when nearly every nation was woefully underprepared. You can easily do math to demonstrate how small changes in the variables of a virus can lead to more dire outcomes. What if China had taken the most conservative policy in response to the appearance of covid-19? Maybe we would have been spared the turmoil and disruption of this pandemi…

The job of Governing is not solely to minimise loss of life, or to utterly avoid tail risks irrespective of cost. (imo) Focussing so myopically on the above has had unmeasurable consequences on a huge variety of fronts. My prime fury is reserved for closing schools. Extraordinary damage done, gulfs in opportunity and experience widened. Nobody cares much. Death stats are, after all, the only thing that matters to the…

This isn't what my comment is arguing. This is about the outbreak phase when we don't know much. I appreciate some of the points you're making but it's also not a binary choice.

As we acquire more information, policy should evolve with it. Limits on individual freedoms are blunt policy tools that should be used only when necessary, because they aren't zero cost.

I don't think we should have forever lockdowns at all. I'm in the camp of "get vaccinated and move on with your life" and that we should be more upfront about how covid-19 isn't going to be eradicated anytime soon.

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