The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by guerrilla » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #97

guerrilla wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't know what model you're using in order to be able to say that and I don't have any way to quantify it either but clearly some people are willing to jump off cliffs without knowing whether there's spikes or a mattress below and it's obvious that they're willing to take more risk than people who aren't, so your quantification point is moot.

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

This is nothing but extreme risk aversion. Some people, most, do not share it with you.

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

#102

Post by yodsanklai » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

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…

Sweden is a different country than Norway or Finland, even though they are neighbors. Also, being low population density is irrelevant (you could have a huge country with everybody crammed in a city, actually Stockholm is much denser than Oslo for instance). Also, even within a single country, fatality rates vary greatly.

I don't think anybody knows how Sweden would have done with a different response to the Covid. In any case, on an objective scale, I think they've done quite well and they had a less miserable experience than the rest of us.

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

#103

Post by Gwypaas » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

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…

Why are people still arguing about a countries population density in late 2021? It is a completely irrelevant metric, lets include the Canadian arctic when calculating the density of Toronto and the effects of Covid, makes a whole lot of sense! A measure which actually has some relevance on country scale is population weighted density.

"Population weighted density refers to a metric which measures the density at which the average citizen lives. It is calculated by taking weighted average of the density of all parcels of land that make up a city, with each parcel weighted by its population" [0]

By that measure we get Sweden is at 2693, Denmark at 2399 and Finland at 1741. [1] Concluding that Denmark did amazingly well given the cards they were dealt and Sweden is at the average of Europe due to very a urbanised population compared to the size of the country.

[0]: https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset/jrc-luisa-udp-pwd-ref2...

[1]: https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/LUISA/Secon...

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

#104

Post by tinus_hn » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

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,…

Such an easy argument. The no lockdown failed, but it also succeeded because people locked down anyway.

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

#105

Post by dijit » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #102

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…

Sweden is a different country than Norway or Finland, even though they are neighbors. Also, being low population density is irrelevant (you could have a huge country with everybody crammed in a city, actually Stockholm is much denser than Oslo for instance). Also, even within a single country, fatality rates vary greatly. I don't think anybody knows how Sweden would have done with a different response to the Covid. I…

> Sweden is a different country than Norway or Finland

Pedantic “every country is a different country” aside; Norway and Finland are absolutely fine comparatives.

The population density (in the populated areas), culture and genetic make-up of these countries is so similar that they may as well be considered the same country socioeconomically.

Hell, they used to even _be_ the same country (the union of Kalmar).

I’ve lived in Finland and currently live in Sweden. As a British person I see more similarities than differences. (Language of Finland vs the Scandinavian languages not withstanding)

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

#106

Post by duskwuff » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

jmnicolas wrote: post #98

jchook wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Do you have any direct source for that statistic? The article that you've linked to is the Babylon Bee -- a site best known for their satire and fake articles -- lifting some infographics from an (uncited) article in the Daily Mail. Neither of these sources inspires confidence.

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

#107

Post by gpsx » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

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-...

Yes, that is the point. The original saying is Hindsight is 20/20, implying it is very accurate. This version of the statement contradicts that, implying you can't really say what would have happened if things were different.

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

#108

Post by afuchs » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

jmnicolas wrote: post #98

jchook wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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

This is very clearly a link to a satirical comedy site (in the same category as The Onion).

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

#109

Post by schoen » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #96

Hamuko wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity#Expression

> Some birds of prey, such as hawks, are believed to have an acuity of around 20/2; in this respect, their vision is much better than human eyesight.

The scale of how good vision can be keeps going and going indefinitely (presumably until you get into physical limitations to resolution related to wavelengths). While 20/20 is considered normal and not in need of correction, it doesn't mean it's the best vision observed among human beings, or the best that's physically possible (for human beings or other animals).

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

#110

Post by ctvo » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #66

mavhc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup. I think that fucking up the education of children, especially those from low socio-economic status backgrounds, is worse than the deaths not doing it causes. It is not that lockdown is bad or wrong. It is that I do not agree with all the things which were hit. I acknowledge there is a price to keeping education open but I believe it would have been worthwhile. Perhaps you missed my point? Governing is about more…

> Perhaps you missed my point? Governing is about more than keeping the most people alive.

Actually I believe that’s table stakes for good governance. Trading known deaths for possible impact to development of children isn’t even in the realm of equal, which is why most places didn’t do it.