11–20 of 199 posts
Halting an economy to the point of economic depression levels (early on) for the sake of people who were already vulnerable (look at the US, lockdowns but people still left the house cause duh...groceries and jobs) was a dumb idea. The government was trying to play god with it's citizens and they couldn't even police simple things like "stay at home" orders. So what was the point in even shutting down everything and…
There are several of these articles trying to redeem Sweden's choices. Here are the results versus their similar neighbors in deaths per million people[1]: Sweden 1478 Denmark 474 Finland 219 Norway 173 They're 3 to 8 times worse. They now do compare favorably to Portugal for example at 1796. When did Portugal have the huge spike in deaths that propelled it in front of Sweden? When it decided not to do lockdowns, eve…
Here in Switzerland, we had plenty of lockdowns, followed the scientific wisdom and so on, and we're at 1375 deaths per million.
The UK has shifted strategies around a bunch, but they have one of the highest vaccination rates, and have had multiple lockdowns, but are still at a very high 2119 deaths per million.
I'm not trying to say this or that approach is good or bad, and I'm happy we've had lockdowns here in Switzerland. I'm just saying that correlating the number of deaths with the implementation of lockdowns definitely does not fully explain what we've seen so far.
There are so many other factors, such as excess mortality, compliance with measures, psychological impacts on both mental and physical health, international travel, local variants, and a lot of factors we don't even know exist yet.
There are several of these articles trying to redeem Sweden's choices. Here are the results versus their similar neighbors in deaths per million people[1]: Sweden 1478 Denmark 474 Finland 219 Norway 173 They're 3 to 8 times worse. They now do compare favorably to Portugal for example at 1796. When did Portugal have the huge spike in deaths that propelled it in front of Sweden? When it decided not to do lockdowns, eve…
In terms of saving lives, it clearly wasn't the best strategy. In terms of securing a reasonable standard of living, keeping the economy going, keeping mental health effects limited, it was reasonably measured.
Bodies weren't piling up in the streets.
In my wider circle of acquaintances, I know of exactly two people who got sick during the pandemic. Maybe a few more did but didn't tell anyone, but it wasn't anywhere near the apocalyptic tales you see on the Internet, especially from people who haven't even been to the country.
There are several of these articles trying to redeem Sweden's choices. Here are the results versus their similar neighbors in deaths per million people[1]: Sweden 1478 Denmark 474 Finland 219 Norway 173 They're 3 to 8 times worse. They now do compare favorably to Portugal for example at 1796. When did Portugal have the huge spike in deaths that propelled it in front of Sweden? When it decided not to do lockdowns, eve…
You're citing known COVID deaths, I think, while the epidemiologist points out in the article that a better metric is excess mortality: >Sweden had one of the lower excess mortality levels in Europe Presumably, excess mortality includes the effects of overloaded hospitals, delayed medical care, lockdown-related depression, and undiagnosed COVID, which are hard to measure any other way, and which seem logically much h…
Looks like Sweden's (cumulative) excess mortality shot up at the beginning of the pandemic, and has since trended downwards, whereas other nordic countries have been fairly low but trending upwards.
We'll see how this plays out. Could be that Sweden simply killed off larger percentage of the old and frail at the start, who are now dying in other countries. Or maybe Swedish population got infected more, and now has stronger protection than other countries.
Halting an economy to the point of economic depression levels (early on) for the sake of people who were already vulnerable (look at the US, lockdowns but people still left the house cause duh...groceries and jobs) was a dumb idea. The government was trying to play god with it's citizens and they couldn't even police simple things like "stay at home" orders. So what was the point in even shutting down everything and…
Whatever your stance on the merits of lockdowns, I think this is a question that very much needs asking and analysing objectively. Sadly I suspect that too many political careers are at stake across the board for the answer to this question to be answered objectively for a long time yet.
Halting an economy to the point of economic depression levels (early on) for the sake of people who were already vulnerable (look at the US, lockdowns but people still left the house cause duh...groceries and jobs) was a dumb idea. The government was trying to play god with it's citizens and they couldn't even police simple things like "stay at home" orders. So what was the point in even shutting down everything and…
Should an economy serve humanity or should humanity serve the economy? It's largely a moral choice, but how a population answers it determines their political response
Humanity is economy, no money on the table means no food and no shelter.
There are several of these articles trying to redeem Sweden's choices. Here are the results versus their similar neighbors in deaths per million people[1]: Sweden 1478 Denmark 474 Finland 219 Norway 173 They're 3 to 8 times worse. They now do compare favorably to Portugal for example at 1796. When did Portugal have the huge spike in deaths that propelled it in front of Sweden? When it decided not to do lockdowns, eve…