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Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

bbc.com

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Re: Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

#13

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

One thing I think is important to point out is that Sweden has the highest percentage of people living alone of any country in the world, and it is much less common than, say, Italy to have older people living with younger people.

Similar to how NYC, the densest place in the US, has been hit so much harder than elsewhere, I think it does at least make a good argument that approaches should be regionally based.

Re: Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

#14

Post by jariel »

Cases have not really plateaued.

The large graph in the article is very misleading because it's a type of 'epi curve', the reporting is late on the data points making it always 'seem like' it's tilting down, even if it never actually is.

With an epicure - you don't know until some time after the flattening that it has happened.

Daily cases are here [1]

It's inconsistent largely due to the cyclical nature of testing and reporting, but it's softly trending upwards.

Note of course that it's not exploding, however.

It'll be at least a couple of weeks before we see if it's plateauing.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Re: Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

#15

Post by Herodotus38 »

kilroy_jones wrote: post #3

And all it took was a few thousand unnecessary deaths. Vietnam and Taiwan temporarily shutdown, and the former had 0 deaths while the latter has had less than 10.

Sweden’s population is 10 million. They have had 2194 deaths as per the WHO’s latest data: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...

The US has a population 328 million, or roughly 33 times higher. On the face of it with rough calculations their per capita death rate if it was the Us would be around 70k deaths vs the 40k deaths we have so far.

So I think it’s a good point you bring up.

Re: Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

#16

Post by keithnz »

not sure they are a shining example, they are just over twice the population of NZ, they have had over 2000 deaths, we have had 19. Yesterday we had 1 new case.

Today in NZ is the first day out of our strictest level of lockdown and a large number of businesses are going back to work as long as they follow strict distancing, and safe interactions. Also public facing businesses can't open, if you are a shop, you need delivery options or contactless pickup / payment options.

Re: Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

#17

Post by davidw »

Herodotus38 wrote: post #15
kilroy_jones wrote: post #3

And all it took was a few thousand unnecessary deaths. Vietnam and Taiwan temporarily shutdown, and the former had 0 deaths while the latter has had less than 10.

Sweden’s population is 10 million. They have had 2194 deaths as per the WHO’s latest data: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... The US has a population 328 million, or roughly 33 times higher. On the face of it with rough calculations their per capita death rate if it was the Us would be around 70k deaths vs the 40k deaths we have so far. So I think it’s a good point you bring up.

> 40k deaths we have so far.

You're off by at least 10,000.

Re: Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued

#18

Post by cryptonector »

kilroy_jones wrote: post #3

And all it took was a few thousand unnecessary deaths. Vietnam and Taiwan temporarily shutdown, and the former had 0 deaths while the latter has had less than 10.

Hmm? Plenty of countries that did shutdown did experience "a few thousand unnecessary deaths". What's your point?

OP's and/or TFA's point, as well as many people's who talk about this, seems to be that Sweden is faring as well as its neighbors that did shutdown. That's a big deal.

And did Taiwan shutdown? IIRC they did not. They were able to get way ahead of everyone and stop the spread of covid-19. Since most other countries did not, it's not fair to compare Sweden to Taiwan.

Some people are bent on there being shutdowns no matter the cost, no matter the cost-benefit analysis, no matter if there is no real benefit.

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