Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#361

Post by revnode » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #248

revnode wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many ways of mitigating the harmful effects of the lock down. State aid targeted directly towards individuals (and not corporations) is a good idea, I think. The same goes for a freeze on mortgage payments, rents, evictions etc. I think it's a bad idea to have people with little understanding of economics, but a high sense of moral superiority, fix the problems they create through their incompetence. Poli…

These are all problems caused by the economic system. If an economic system can't cope with a relatively minor external stressor - and Covid is not nearly as dangerous or destructive as some stressors - then the problem is with the economic system. Actions do indeed have consequences - and trying to use the wrong tool for the job because you can't imagine a better tool is possible is not a wise action.

> These are all problems caused by the economic system.

What problems? There are no major structural problems yet. There will be major structural problems if OP's ideas are implemented because they're not sound. That's not related to the economic system, that's related to OP's ideas.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#362

Post by ghaff » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:42 AM UTC

lsllc wrote: post #50

mettamage wrote: post #17

Edit: I'm letting my original comment stand as it shows how I was subtly misinformed regarding the situation of Sweden. I don't think I'd be the only one. Wait, with all due respect, 5420 deaths on 10 million people? On a country left completely unchecked? That doesn't sound like the impending doom I thought the virus would bring. I thought the novel corona virus had a death rate of about 1% to 2% and a bigger spread…

For comparison, Massachusetts with 8000 deaths out of a population of 6.9M (which is #4 for deaths per-capita worldwide after NY, NJ and CT). For some reason MA is now being held up as "the exception to America's coronavirus failure": https://theweek.com/articles/923075/massachusetts-exception-...

It's honestly hard to find a lot of fault with Massachusetts' response compared to most other places--at least within the constraints of testing availability and other constraints at a national level. And people have been pretty good at following restrictions as far as I can tell.

That said, like elsewhere along the Northeast Corridor, outcomes have not been great overall especially in poorer immigrant communities. But that doesn't align nicely with a narrative that bad outcomes are a result of bad government policy or kids going to the beach or whatever.

As Nate Silver has noted on multiple occasions, we'll probably come out of this maybe not understanding why results were so different in different places or, at best, understanding that the differences are due to factors that couldn't realistically have been controlled for.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#363

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #356

claudeganon wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly believe the difference between South Korea and the US’ outcomes is those few days? The difference in response on any dimension between the two countries, from their testing to contract tracing to on-demand hospital expansions is so staggering as to make this claim absurd. I’m not sure what you’re talking about with airports. South Korea has had less incoming travel restrictions than the US.

I was referring to New Zealand. I don't think comparing SK to USA is nonsense but I do think comparing Sweden to China or New Zealand to USA is complete nonsense. If anyone feels compelled to do so they need to realize they are cherry-picking and compare NZ to Utah instead.

[deleted]

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#364

Post by TMWNN » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #158

cm2187 wrote: post #117

To me this is moving the goalpost. The stated objective of the lockdown was not to overwhelm the ICUs. As far as I know the ICUs in Sweden have not been overwhelmed. So how is that a failure? As for the economic impact, given the amount of life support injections into the economy, I think the real economic impact of the shock is yet to be seen. Defaults are only starting to rise.

I have been willing to be frustrated with moving the goal post, but there is new information that mayors and governors know that the general public doesn't have a good way to know: The low mortality rate and managed ICU capacity isn't the whole story. there is a large population of recovering and recovered that have serious complications, that seem random and are unproductive to our society. Blood clots resulting in…

99% of the cases that last for months, like Nick Cordero, are from the early days of the pandemic where doctors mistakenly put people who didn't need mechanical respiration on ventilators, damaging healthy lungs and causing breathing dependence that doctors found difficult/impossible to wean from and all sorts of other complications, such as deep vein thrombosis (again, see Cordero's case).

The mean time between symptoms and death is two weeks (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...). Anyone with symptoms is in two weeks, three at the most, either going to be at home wondering what the fuss is about—the vast, vast, vast majority of cases—or dead.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#365

Post by refurb » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

_-___________-_ wrote: post #323

leto_ii wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any death is unacceptable. This is, of course, unattainable in practice, so I would suggest looking at Eastern European or East Asian societies for a rule of thumb (e.g. Czechia, Slovakia, Greece, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam etc.).

The inclusion of Vietnam on these lists always surprises me. There is no excess mortality data for Vietnam, nor any data on infections (e.g. from random population sampling). All we have is their self-reported number of cases (i.e. confirmed infections) and deaths (zero!), which come from triumphant news releases from the Communist Party (usually paired with reminders about how great this success will be for their ec…

I have family in Vietnam and from what they’ve told me, Vietnam is taking it very seriously.

- folks that are high-risk and quarantined are monitored (guards posted outside residence)

- if you fail to self isolate, you go to a gov’t camp

- all int’l flight have been stopped; only repatriation flights are happening

- for those foreigners who made it in before the flights stopped, they all went to gov't facilities

- if someone tests positive, they will lock down all the people around them for 24hr, disinfect common areas and test

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#366

Post by catalogia » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

glofish wrote: post #198

username90 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exchange rate for the most successful lock-downs of corona is about 60 years of lock-down for 1 year of life. Edit: Note that USA is doing much worse since so many are dying there even though you lock down.

is a year in the life of an 82 year old (median age of covid death) the same as a year in the life of a 10, 20 or 30 year old? I sure think not. So the comparisons are a bit moot. trading 60 years of 30 year olds for 1 year of an 82 year old is a trade that probably no 82 year old would want.

This is precisely why I think impact to average life expectancy should be considered the most relevant metric.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#367

Post by nmfisher » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:45 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #310

dvdplm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what needed to be done, in Sweden and elsewhere. Pay staff triple and have them stay with the old folks and get everything delivered by externals with as little contact as possible. And no new admissions into the care homes.

Will you force them with a gun? To forgo all friends, family, comforts of home, and be literally trapped at work for months? Money doesn't just buy people. You'd essentially be drafting them.

> Will you force them with a gun? To forgo all friends, family, comforts of home, and be literally trapped at work for months?

Seems far more reasonable than locking down entire countries for months, asking people to forego friends and family (without even mentioning the consequent unemployment).

You wouldn't need to force anyone with a gun. A five-fold increase in wages - untaxed - would be more than enough incentive. The cost would be a drop in the ocean compared to the damage wrought by the measures adopted so far.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#368

Post by refurb » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

leto_ii wrote: post #166

jlmorton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Containing and minimizing the effects of a pandemic is just one aspect of what we might call a civilized attitude towards human life. Conversely, not doing so is uncivilized and I might add immoral and irresponsible. The reality is that everyone is prepared to allow others to die for their own convenience. I intentionally phrased that harshly, but it is indisputably true. In the US, 70,000 people died from the infl…

All preventable deaths should be prevented - this is the gold standard. In reality, of course, things don't work out that way. The analogy with a flu season is deeply misleading. The coronavirus has, in half a year, killed more people than the worst flu seasons, with extraordinary measures in place all over the world. It's completely reasonable to assume that without lockdowns we would have had millions of deaths alr…

Casually weighing human life against economic cost is not acceptable in what we might call a civilized society.

Casually? Sure that’s not good. But we weigh human life against cost all the time.

In the U.K. they value 1 QALY (Quality adjusted life year) at $50k. It’s very explicit.

People forget that economic activity is what pays for healthcare, welfare, etc.

You can’t ignore economics.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#369

Post by jlmorton » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #345

jlmorton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Containing and minimizing the effects of a pandemic is just one aspect of what we might call a civilized attitude towards human life. Conversely, not doing so is uncivilized and I might add immoral and irresponsible. The reality is that everyone is prepared to allow others to die for their own convenience. I intentionally phrased that harshly, but it is indisputably true. In the US, 70,000 people died from the infl…

So let's expand on that a bit then. Cancer is a rather big problem. It taxes society quite a bit, costs a lot of money and in general inconveniences quite a lot of people that need to support or help cancer patients. Would you agree then that perhaps it's a better idea to let cancer patients die rather than try and find cures or reduce the chances of dying? Why or why not? If you had cancer but of the curable kind, w…

My point is not that society should take no effort to reduce preventable deaths. Society should do whatever we collectively want to do.

Rather, my point was that it's hypocritical to argue that anyone that does not want to continue major disruptions is either immoral, uncivilized, or an absolute monster.

Everyone attaches some value X to human life, and some value Z to normal functioning. Not everyone values these things the same. But everyone certainly has a value, and almost everyone is okay with allowing many tens of thousands annually to die a preventable death in order to avoid disruptions to life. That being true, let's stop the moralizing arguments, and focus instead on why coronavirus is worse than other illnesses, and why it's worth it to continue our efforts to disrupt it.

In other words, my argument is really about language and rhetoric, not the coronavirus itself.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#370

Post by throwawaysea » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

Sweden recorded its first week of no excess mortality over a month ago: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden...

The economic gains part of it is not really relevant. Today each country is exposed to the global economy. If everyone else has economies that are broken then that will trickle over to Sweden inevitably. But that doesn’t mean that it is not worth pushing for Sweden’s strategy. If more countries did so, perhaps Sweden would collect economic gains.