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

telegraph.co.uk

111–120 of 442 posts

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

#111

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 whic…

I suggest the measure density is a single value based on housing units and not the right measure to care about in itself. Instead look at public and private hygiene, isolation practices and incident response profiles, per hundred thousand or so.. not hectares per hundred thousand.

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

#112

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 whic…

Sure, there're a lot of factors that can affect how disease spreads, like demographics, genetics, climate, health system, sociability, temperature, cafe culture, saunas, wfh incidence, international travel, travel links, tourism...

I'm quite happy to accept that 'population density' is inadequate - I mention it only in passing in my comment, the point I'm making is that Sweden is not a country you would expect to perform at the european average, and given that, the most natural thing to do is to compare a country with its neighbors. Neighboring countries usually share many factors, and on top of that, they have a direct transmission effect too.

Sweden did much worse than its neighbors. The explanation for that is either in the ways that Sweden is different from its neighbors, or in the difference in public policy.

I certainly don't know which to blame, but I don't want to hear any more lionization of the Swedish approach that doesn't solidly get to grips with that question.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry I saw this circulate a few days ago and linked the first thing I found on DDG.

I have no reason to think it's fake news.

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

#114
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...

[deleted]

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

#115
I see a lot of articles about how government reactions were good or bad for COVID. I have seen nothing regarding how a country's environment and population density affect COVID, I guess it is hard to push an agenda with that narrative. It seems the country's that "responded" the best all have low population density and/or are physically isolated from other countries. I see people praising leadership from places like New Zealand and South Korea, but maybe it is just easy to keep people out of these places.

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

#116
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...

Ref this

> Sorry I saw this circulate a few days ago and linked the first thing I found on DDG. > I have no reason to think it's fake news.

I think the expectation is that you should have a reason to think that it's not fake news before spreading it.

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

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry I saw this circulate a few days ago and linked the first thing I found on DDG. I have no reason to think it's fake news.

> I have no reason to think it's fake news.

Very sound logic (/s)! With this sort of reasoning people invaded the Capitol on January 6th, because they were certain their country was about to be taken over by a Chinese-backed coup. Guess what, they also think what they heard was legitimate, and they think their reasoning work(ed) perfectly fine.

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

#118

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…

The Telegraph is essentially the mouthpiece of the British commercial property landlord classes, who have a vested interest in getting people back into the offices and shops in their portfolios. On an average day you'll notice multiple anti-remote working articles parroted by Cabinet ministers. Why should they care how businesses conduct their business, especially if it's more convenient and can lead to a happier and more efficient workforce? Follow the money.

It used to be - many years ago - a stodgy and conservative yet reputable newspaper (they fired Boris Johnson for lying, now he moonlights as a columnist). As with other newspapers (e.g. WSJ) it went off the deep end a long time ago.

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

#119
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,…

Stefan Löfven made a surprise announcement today that he'll be stepping down in November Again? He got kicked out and reelected two months ago. This government is a damn yo-yo.

Yeah.. the electoral situation in the parliament hadn't really changed, so that was kinda stupid. Mostly it was just a way for the socialist (borderline communist) eternal support party to the social democrats to flex its muscles, for once.

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

#120
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there's graphs, lockdown enacted, cases go down, lockdown stopped, cases go up, repeat.

Oh really? https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/

(This should be a submission in its own right.) Really interesting data.
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