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Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

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Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#51

Post by Y-bar »

gpm wrote: post #36
sweettea wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So the cumulative excess death since January 1st 2020 (in terms of percentage of expected) is Sweden: 5.21% Finland: 1.57% Denmark: -0.09% Norway: -0.85% And you think these numbers somehow argue that Sweden "no longer stands out"? Or tells a more positive story than the covid death numbers at least? Source (thanks tomp): https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... Data as of October 17th (the lat…

It is also worth noting that Sweden had negative excess mortality in 2019. Many elderly who would have normally died of the yearly flu survived.

Mortality for the five years prior: [1]

2015: 90 907

2016: 90 982

2017: 91 972

2018: 92 185

2019: 88 766

And 2020: 98 124

Had 2019 been in line with the previous years the excess mortality would have been noticeably less pronounced.

This does explain some (not all though) of the difference in excess mortality, especially the many elderly who died early on.

[1] https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i-siffror/mannisk...

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#52

Post by rich_sasha »

vladharbuz wrote: post #12
pedrocr wrote: post #3

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…

I would love it if we could get such clear-cut results from the numbers, and just be able to say “this strategy is good, if we do that everything will be fine” (not saying you're saying that), but I really don't think that's the case. 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 h…

> 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.

Another reason why such comparisons are hard: UK aggressively cleared hospitals in early 2020, in anticipation of case rises, and discharged whoever they could home.

This lead to thousands of old people being discharged to care homes, as it turns out frequently with Covid, with care home staff having not even the basic protective gear. IIRC 25% of first wave deaths were attributed to care homes, and due to various quirks of the number, this may well be an underestimate.

I guess you’ll see other cases where the general policy was good/bad but external forces skewed the result.

Poland do basically no protective steps until Autumn 2020, and despite that was totally spared the pandemic. Then later shit hit the fan pretty badly...

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#53

Post by jimmaswell »

GaryTang wrote: post #34
jimmaswell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such a political thing that many people are going to support government measures and wear masks at family gatherings for the rest of their lives. I wouldn't be surprised if some things like masks at the post office last forever at this point regardless of necessity.

This is location dependent. If you live in such a community, I recommend exploring your options.

The post office is a federal thing here so it wouldn't matter where I moved. My own state hasn't had general mask mandates or capacity restrictions etc. for most of the year.

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#55

Post by geofft »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #33
h0l0cube wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In modern times, you serve an economy because if you don't, you starve. This isn't star trek socialism. It's a survival of the fittest environment. The government stepping in and saying "NOPE! WE KNOW BEST!" and then basically forcing every citizen to restructure their lives for something that couldn't even remotely be contained just shows the abuse of power. Even among private institutions. Look how many took advant…

The economy, as you know it, exists because government says, "Nope, we know best!" It is a survival of the fittest environment solely because the people in charge of the government don't want Star Trek socialism.

It is true that the majority of COVID deaths are among the population that one government called "life unworthy of life." But the decision to let them die off for the greater good is, itself, a form of saying "Nope, we know best." When a pandemic hits, you don't get to not choose a response.

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#56

Post by havkd »

pedrocr wrote: post #3

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 must also take into account the effect on the economy, mental health, freedoms, etc.

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#57

Post by Jensson »

pedrocr wrote: post #3

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…

Expected lifespan under covid was still higher in Sweden than Denmark or Finland. So to me it seems like other healthcare or national policies matters much more than the covid response, overall covid had a very minor effect on healthspan compared to laws regulating alcohol or tobacco or similar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

I don't really see why people talk so much about covid when you can get way more health benefits just by limiting the hours you can buy alcohol on or similar, compared to limiting the movement of an entire population.

And next year as people got vaccinated the one year covid caused drop of 0.5 years will disappear and Sweden will be even better, while the huge push for covid measures didn't have any lasting impact. Imagine how many lives could be saved if the same amount of political will and resources were spent on more important things...

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#58

Post by kyrra »

NoPie wrote: post #24
vladharbuz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love it if we could get such clear-cut results from the numbers, and just be able to say “this strategy is good, if we do that everything will be fine” (not saying you're saying that), but I really don't think that's the case. 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 h…

We don't even know why covid has a seasonality. Obviously it has a physical cause but the interplay of all factors is so complicated that no one can really explain why peaks come and go, and at different times in each place.

Best guess I've seen on hit this has to do with how much time people are spending inside due to weather. See the screenshot of covid positivity rates at two different dates.

https://mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1457438899580456...

The screenshot is from the NYTimes covid tracker.

The guess was that more people were inside in the south the summer when it was hot, and they were running air conditioning. Now that the South has more reasonable temperatures, people are spending more time outside. While the north is starting to get colder and people are spending more time inside. This also seems to apply to California which has relatively stable temperatures all year, so they haven't been hit by either spike yet. Though the part that doesn't fit in here is the northeast corridor is not being hit as hard. My only guess is they were the ones hit hardest when covid started, so maybe they won't get as big of a spike now.

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#59

Post by yxhuvud »

inpdx wrote: post #40
vladharbuz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love it if we could get such clear-cut results from the numbers, and just be able to say “this strategy is good, if we do that everything will be fine” (not saying you're saying that), but I really don't think that's the case. 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 h…

While I agree comparing countries can be apples and oranges, it makes sense to compare the Scandinavian countries. That Norway and Finland were much lower strongly suggests Sweden's strategies worsened things.

Only if you assume the countries are similar in every other way that matter. But that is not the case, Sweden is for example by far the most urbanized country in Scandinavia - the share of people living in big or medium sized cities is 10% higher than other Scandinavian countries. Countries with high level of urbanisation have (so far, and especially early on) been hit way harder than more rural countries.

Re: Sweden no longer stands out in pandemic, says architect of ‘no lockdown’ policy

#60

Post by sofixa »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #33
h0l0cube wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In modern times, you serve an economy because if you don't, you starve. This isn't star trek socialism. It's a survival of the fittest environment. The government stepping in and saying "NOPE! WE KNOW BEST!" and then basically forcing every citizen to restructure their lives for something that couldn't even remotely be contained just shows the abuse of power. Even among private institutions. Look how many took advant…

> The government stepping in and saying "NOPE! WE KNOW BEST!" and then basically forcing every citizen to restructure their lives for something that couldn't even remotely be contained just shows the abuse of power

Because everyone knew everything in early 2020. Epidemiologists weren't sure about the details of the virus, its spread and how to contain it, but you can retrospectively claim that it couldn't be contained and it didn't make sense to try? Maybe you should revisit the statistics and reporting from Italy or any of the other highly impacted countries early on, the ones with the military hospitals, makeshift morgues, military run hearses and crematoriums, doctors having to choose who has a higher chance of survival under care and take them in, refusing the others.

> But most institutions serve people outside of that set

No, most institutions serve everybody. In countries with older populations, like Italy, Spain or Portugal, or countries with high percentage of obese or sickly people like the US or Mexico, are you really advocating that they should have sacrificed even 5-10%, or even more of their populations so that... The others could go to the cinema or restaurant? People like you are cold as fuck.

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