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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

#91

Post by jchook »

kybernetikos wrote: post #60

It's so weird to see people still claiming this. Sweden has relatively few neighbors, but compare it with any of them, and it looks bad https://imgur.com/a/BlaU2SX Yes, Sweden did well compared to the EU average, but a country with very low population density, surrounded by very few neighbors that all got the virus under control very quickly has a lot of things going for it compared to the European average. The diffe…

Notice the article doesn't mention countries where proper lockdown worked very well and took only around 100 days.

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

#92

Post by jansan »

drudoo wrote: post #54

Non-Swede who lived in Sweden basically all of 2020 here. We basically self isolated most of the year and only did grocery shopping with masks and keeping distance but a lot of people really did not care about social distancing or masks. My wife and I were often very uncomfortable being out of the house and really did not like the relaxed guidelines. We commuted a lot to Denmark and the contrast was huge. We felt so…

So now that Denmark is lifting basically all measures, are you planning to move on?

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

#93

Post by Hamuko »

ismaildonmez wrote: post #90
gpsx wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment about counterfactuals reminds of a saying, or what I would call a more accurate version of a common saying - "Hindsight is 50/50". (Note, that doesn't make hindsight necessarily wrong, just difficult to have confidence in.)

"Hindsight is 20/20" because perfect eyesight is 20/20: https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/what-does-20-...

20/20 is actually just normal vision, not perfect eyesight.

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

#94

Post by guerrilla »

tomp wrote: post #74
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #35

Telegraph has an anti-lockdown agenda to push in the UK; it is not an impartial source here. In the UK the praise for the "Sweden model" comes particularly from the conservative-aligned pro-business anti-lockdown lobby; who are producing PR for their proposition that "lockdowns do more (economic) harm than they do (public health) good". Right or wrong, it's certainly not impartial reporting on a foreign country, it's…

Does "conservative-aligned" still mean anything at all in the UK, except an ad-hominem jab on a more liberally-oriented website like HN? There's basically no more serious non-conservative political parties in the UK (Labour is mired in one scandal after another and can't elect a proper leader), whereas the COVID lockdowns (lasting roughly 8 months) were enacted by a conservative leader.

I don't understand your argument. You seem to be saying that since there aren't any viable non-conservatives the Conservatives are not conservatives and that this newspaper isn't conservative.

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

#95

Post by ctvo »

lazyjones wrote: post #63
varjag wrote: post #40

Hope that offsets the excess 10k dead.

What "excess 10k dead"? Sweden basically only reported excess mortality in early 2020 and since then it has a mortality deficit.

I’m genuinely curious: Couldn’t a quick Google give you this data? Where did you get your position from?

Lots of folks have post fact information these days, based on FB articles and other sources, but how did you end up with yours as a long time user here?

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

#96

Post by irrational »

Hamuko wrote: post #93
ismaildonmez wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hindsight is 20/20" because perfect eyesight is 20/20: https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/what-does-20-...

20/20 is actually just normal vision, not perfect eyesight.

What is perfect vision? I thought 20/20 meant you don’t need glasses or any other aids to see. Would perfect vision being able to see everything in the electromagnetic spectrum? How big would one eyes need to be?

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

#97

Post by sergiosgc »

guerrilla wrote: post #87
sergiosgc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Sweden decided for no lock-downs, we knew very little about the virus. It was effectively a jump into the unknown. Even if the decision proves beneficial, it was an error, in the knowledge context of March 2020.

> Even if the decision proves beneficial, it was an error That's subjective: It depends on how much risk you're willing to take on. People here were pretty supportive of the policy, so presumably willing to take on more risk than you. Like you, I wasn't but that's just how it goes.

Except if the risk is unknown you don't know how much risk are you taking, and hence if it is above our below your threshold.

When faced with a cataclysmic, albeit low probability, event, the only course of action is the cautious one.

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

#98

Post by jmnicolas »

jchook wrote: post #91
kybernetikos wrote: post #60

It's so weird to see people still claiming this. Sweden has relatively few neighbors, but compare it with any of them, and it looks bad https://imgur.com/a/BlaU2SX Yes, Sweden did well compared to the EU average, but a country with very low population density, surrounded by very few neighbors that all got the virus under control very quickly has a lot of things going for it compared to the European average. The diffe…

Notice the article doesn't mention countries where proper lockdown worked very well and took only around 100 days.

It's not like there are no adverse consequences to lockdowns :

Tragedy: 1 MILLION more Brits have become alcoholics since Covid lockdowns began

https://notthebee.com/article/nearly-1-million-more-brits-ad...

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

#99

Post by tephra »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #84
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…

>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 I mean one reason why you might want to compare Sweden to other Nordic countries is because you might assume that Nordic countries are more similar to each other than they are to Italy etc.

While that is very true. One thing to note is that we are also very different countries. One of my main gripes during the last almost 2 years now is the implication that Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are basically the same. Which is far from true.

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

#100

Post by jansan »

mavhc wrote: post #59
Ntrails wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're pro having 30 people breathing in a small room with bad airflow for multiple hours when there's a pandemic? If you don't know how it's transmitted, then try various things and see if they help. We tried lockdown, and it worked. So we kept doing it, if it didn't change the situation we would have tried other things instead.

We tried lockdown, and it worked. So we kept doing it

No, we tried lockdowns, they did not work well, then extended them, then again. In my country some school children did not go to school for a whole year because people with anxiety disorder thought opening schools would kill children, parents and grand parents.

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