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The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

telegraph.co.uk

431–440 of 442 posts

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#431
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why good analysis looks at excess deaths (ie, compared to the average over the last few years). The excess mortality graph you link to only goes back 19 months, not a few years. Here's an article which [0] references a paper which says that over the past 4 years there's no difference between all cause mortality in Sweden and Norway: > "Our study shows that all-cause mortality was largely unchanged during t…

> The excess mortality graph you link to only goes back 19 months, not a few years. The excess mortality graph only goes back 19 months, because that's when COVID start. It uses excess mortality, so those numbers are based on numbers in the previous years. It's like looking at a chart showing inflation over the past year and saying "this says nothing about the prices two years ago!" They're used to compute the number…

I mentioned this because the comment I was responding to was factually incorrect when they states that Sweden mortality rate was worse than Norway over the past few years. It was not.

The article I linked to explains the significance, which I tried to sum up in my comment:

> In other words, excess mortality from COVID-19 may be less conspicuous than previously perceived in Sweden, while mortality displacement may be used to explain at least part of the observed findings.

> More specifically, mortality displacement implies temporarily increased mortality (i.e., excess mortality) in a certain population as a result of external events, which likely arises because individuals in vulnerable groups die weeks or months earlier than they would otherwise – primarily due to the timing or severity of the unusual external event. The excess mortality is, thus, predated or followed by time periods of lower than expected mortality.

In other words, Sweden was better than Norway at keeping older people alive before the pandemic. Therefore during the pandemic there were more older people in Sweden. Older people are notably more vulnerable. This may be the explanation why more people died of covid in Sweden. It alludes to there being more factors involved than just the nearness of two countries and lockdown protocols.

Another way of saying this, exaggerated for clarity: More people will die of covid in a country of 80 year olds than in a country of 20 year olds.

Remember that only 1 out of 695 people have dies from covid in Sweden since the start of the pandemic [0], two thirds of them over 80 years old [1]. This is consistent with the above information.

[0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-corona...

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't doubt you have Swedish family, I would like to see your data for the French economy being "killed". Certainly the economy contracted somewhat, but they seem to be doing just fine now.

France has increased its public debt enormously (100% to 120% of its GDP). Maintaining the economy had a cost which may have serious consequences.

Isn’t the interest rate close to 0%? If, like in 1918, they come back stronger than places which had more disruption due to deaths and prolonged closures that’s not anywhere near a crushing level of debt for a rich nation-state with a diverse economy.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timing. I sat in the UK for weeks looking at what was happening in Italy and wondering why we weren’t doing anything at all.

Yeah, the lockdowns in the UK were interesting, particularly were they would announce them ahead of time, giving everyone time to travel and/or bar hop. I also thought it was interesting that the delta wave seemed to disappear in the UK without the benefit of lockdowns. The same in India. The same in India. I've been wondering if these waves of infections come and go without much regard for typical lockdown measures…

I’m not sure that it is disappearing - in Scotland today we have the highest number of recorded cases since the pandemic began. Schools just returned last week too so that won’t help.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lock up 6000 people for one month to save one life that had 10 years left. Still not worth it to me.

Ok, how many years would be worth it?

Logically it has to be 600, no? Which makes no sense.

But doesn’t it place a reasonable scale upon what a trade might look like.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the lockdowns in the UK were interesting, particularly were they would announce them ahead of time, giving everyone time to travel and/or bar hop. I also thought it was interesting that the delta wave seemed to disappear in the UK without the benefit of lockdowns. The same in India. The same in India. I've been wondering if these waves of infections come and go without much regard for typical lockdown measures…

I’m not sure that it is disappearing - in Scotland today we have the highest number of recorded cases since the pandemic began. Schools just returned last week too so that won’t help.

The number of cases has never been less relevant than when the majority of the country has been vaccinated.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure that it is disappearing - in Scotland today we have the highest number of recorded cases since the pandemic began. Schools just returned last week too so that won’t help.

The number of cases has never been less relevant than when the majority of the country has been vaccinated.

It’s relevant to people who haven’t been vaccinated yet. I’m 37 and I’m only just passed the 2 weeks cool-off of my second jab.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timing. I sat in the UK for weeks looking at what was happening in Italy and wondering why we weren’t doing anything at all.

Yeah, the lockdowns in the UK were interesting, particularly were they would announce them ahead of time, giving everyone time to travel and/or bar hop. I also thought it was interesting that the delta wave seemed to disappear in the UK without the benefit of lockdowns. The same in India. The same in India. I've been wondering if these waves of infections come and go without much regard for typical lockdown measures…

It's not over till it's over.

"U.S. (Civid-19) deaths in the week ending Monday totaled 7,225. By comparison, about 5,400 Americans died in the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks combined. "

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/delta-driven-surge-in-us-e...

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan had only a few weeks of full lockdown last year, and then a few months of softer lockdown during the second outbreak this year. During the recent outbreak it was WFH and takeout from restaurants with certain businesses closed. About 100 days later most things are open again. They resisted a full lockdown and doubled down on contact tracing. Went from 500+ cases a day to just a few now.

Contact Tracing sounds like an Orwellian nightmare.

Contact tracing is looking for people that came in contact with infected individuals. When a coworker gets covid they investigate where they went and who they came in contact with so that person can get tested. Not sure how that is Orwellian.

What people would consider Orwellian is the app you can use to scan in at places. That's voluntary, but almost everyone uses it and you still have to sign in on paper if you don't.

Personally, I don't mind. We all carry around GPS tracking devices every day, and it's silly to think that governments can't already track those. Even with GPS off you can be tracked if hitting wifi or different cell towers.

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#439
post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been done for at least a hundred years, well before Orwell. Nice try though.

Not with this level of technology and with this big of scale. Come to think of it when has contact tracing been done before?

All communicable diseases (measles, etc) in western countries, especially starting with smallpox eradication in the 1950s. Look it up!

Re: The Sweden experiment: how no lockdowns led to mental health, healthier economy

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m looking at those numbers and the worst was Peru - 0.5% excess deaths. Am I the only one whos just thinking none of this matters? The reality is Sweden is doing an amazing job if there’s no lockdowns. Those lockdowns led to a massive increase in suicides[1], economic damage[2], inflation[3], massive increase in drug abuse[4], lost years in education[5]. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine this virus would cause more har…

Your reference [1] does not talk about suicide, but suicide attempts, and to the extent it correlates with "lockdowns", it seems to directly contradict your claim: > Among adolescents aged 12–17 years, the number of weekly ED visits for suspected suicide attempts DECREASED DURING SPRING 2020 compared with that during 2019 [...] mean weekly number of ED visits for suspected suicide attempts were 22.3% HIGHER DURING SU…

>>The deaths have, naturally, dominated the headlines, but there are other disabilities. One acquaintance in her early 20s has yet to regain her sense of smell after 8 months, and that's not all that rare a phenomenon: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/when-wil...

Anecdotes should not be the basis for unprecedented forced quarantine policies that target not the sick, but the healthy majority. To demonstrate the unreliability of anecdotal evidence, see how a large study on heart inflammation in young athletes caused by covid have debunked earlier anecdotal evidence on the issue:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/03/few-pro-...

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