> 10 QALY lost per death
Average age of the covid-19 dead in Sweden is 82, average life expectancy is 83. The majority of the deaths also occurred at elder care homes where the expected survival time is less than two years. And, just like everywhere else, the covid-19 dead are much more likely to belong to certain risk groups associated with earlier deaths as well.
10 QALY lost per death sounds way, way too high to me.
> To be clear, I think Sweden erred by not mandating masks, which seem cost-effective to me by that standard.
The reasoning behind this, which is the same in the rest of the Nordics and the Netherlands, is that a general mask mandate is counter-productive. No-one is arguing that medical grade face masks properly handled, worn, and disposed of help prevent the spread. The problem, and this should be obvious if you live in a place where masks are mandated, is that people don't have proper masks and don't wear them properly. So masks can create a sense of false security, and make people slack off on their distancing, which means a mask mandate can result in a net negative result.
Right or wrong, I don't know, and I don't know if we'll ever know, but that's at least the reasoning behind it. And it definitely sounds plausible to me.
I'm in Hawaii which has had a mask mandate for months now, and the way regular people are actually handling their masks in the real world is very, very far from the way trained medical professionals handle their masks.