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

nytimes.com

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

#651

Post by pasabagi »

brnt wrote: post #557
leto_ii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important observation. In the Netherlands, where I live, I've had a number of people look at me with great surprise and mistrust when I mentioned that the Dutch have done a terrible job with this epidemic. The Guardian plots show that the Netherlands is one of the worst when it comes to under-reporting. This is not to say however that the Swedes have done a good job. While their numbers are credible, their…

The Dutch think of their healthcare as the Brits think of their NHS. It's more faith than fact. I find it impossible to have a reasonable discussion on the subject, even people in healthcare (I worked in a famous Dutch hospital). People are dug in, evidence-based medicine is a tool to improve statistics first, patient care second, and nobody knows what anything actually costs, despite the national DBC-accounting syst…

I think the NHS was at one point very good, especially in terms of price/performance ratio. What you see now is the result of over a decade of governments that have a fundamental antipathy towards any kind of public service, and who consider the NHS as an obstacle that must be torn down before a more private system can be established. The difference in quality of care is visible, and the policies the system must work under essentially amount to sabotage.

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

#652

Post by thu2111 »

ljf wrote: post #645
thu2111 wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is locking people in tower blocks without warning, including people who were only visiting and thus have nowhere to sleep, including people who have run out of food. Even friends trying to deliver food were turned away. https://news.google.com/search?q=australia%20tower%20block&h... It's completely insane, unbelievably nasty, truly evil. The virus is not dangerous. I'll repeat: the virus is not dangerous. E…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23767416 check out my other post. The virus can be dangerous, to healthy younger people and old. You might not know anyone affected, but I do.

Your post says your wife gets out of breath sometimes after a relatively mild COVID infection. That sucks and I'm sorry to hear it, but I'm not sure that rises to the level of dangerous, exactly. Lots of people end up out of breath just from obesity, which is I guess can be considered dangerous in some ways, but most people probably wouldn't actually describe it that way relative to many other medical ailments.

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

#653

Post by malandrew »

kolinko wrote: post #510
malandrew wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what we'll see years down the line. If there are excess deaths now and this disease disproportionately impacts the elderly, the assumption likely is that it's mostly picking people off early and that 1+ years from now we should observe a deaths deficit relative to the baseline years of 2018-2019. From there we should be able to start calculating the cumulative years of life lost.

So far the countries that got infections under control returned to baseline excess mortality.

That's what I would expect if they got it under control quickly. It's the countries where it has gone wild for several months, especially in long term care facilities, where I would expect the drop in future months/years.

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

#654

Post by stickfigure »

chimprich wrote: post #555
stickfigure wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people aren't just losing a few months of festivals. A generation of kids are losing a year (possibly more!) of schooling. Young adults are graduating into career-crippling unemployment which may haunt their lives for decades. People are getting laid off, burning through their meager life savings, losing businesses that they've worked themselves half to death to establish. Suicide rates are up. We're just begin…

> All so that 75 year olds can have an extra month or two of average life expectancy? One study found the average loss of life per COVID-19 death is 11 years for men and 13 for women. https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 It's potentially a lot more if you let the virus get out of control. The hospitalisation rate is difficult to pin down, but could be something like 4% for people in their 40s. That proporti…

That study estimates years of life lost for people that died, not the infected population:

Among patients dying of COVID-19, there appears to be a considerable burden in terms of years of life lost

I don't think you are deliberately misusing statistics here, but this common confusion massively overstates the risk of infection in the same way that the early focus on Case Fatality Rates did. To be meaningful, those Years Of Life Lost numbers need to be multiplied by the Infection Fatality Rate.

I can't find an IFR for 75+, but the CDC currently has 1.3% for age 65+. The average 65yo has 19.1 years of life remaining (2010 stats, also from the CDC).

1.3% * 19.1 years = ~0.25 years, or about 4 months.

This is probably a conservative estimate - older people have fewer years remaining.

Look, if covid-19 actually reduced the average lifespan of the population by a decade, I'd be in a panic too. Thankfully, it doesn't.

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

#655

Post by ljf »

thu2111 wrote: post #652
ljf wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23767416 check out my other post. The virus can be dangerous, to healthy younger people and old. You might not know anyone affected, but I do.

Your post says your wife gets out of breath sometimes after a relatively mild COVID infection. That sucks and I'm sorry to hear it, but I'm not sure that rises to the level of dangerous, exactly. Lots of people end up out of breath just from obesity, which is I guess can be considered dangerous in some ways, but most people probably wouldn't actually describe it that way relative to many other medical ailments.

She is a healthy 40 yo who used to exercise far more than me and do yoga multiple times a week. She's fit healthy and active until she was infected with covid. The breathlessness (sometimes accompanied with massively increased heart rate) also registers as very low blood oxygen levels on her meter. This isn't sometimes, this is after any activity. This is also just one of the symptoms she's had - massive fatigue, numbness, migraines (never had them before) - it goes on.

For someone like her to be breathless - is certainly a sign that something serious can happen to those that catch covid. This, while not happening to everyone is getting more attention now: Coronavirus: Thousands say debilitating symptoms last 'for weeks' - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53269391

The common theme on the Slack group she is on, is that these are younger and healthy people, and that their covid was not particularly severe.

She also struggles to concentrate for any length of time, even reading a kids book to the children can be too much for her. There is no way she could work right now, and can't even do much more than supervise the kids for short periods of time - I am very lucky to have a flexible employer.

This appears similar to post viral syndrome or ME - and is happening at far higher levels than seen with our more common viruses like the Cold or Flu - though was also seen in people who caught SARs - it was not questioned that a percentage of those who had SARs were ill n months later, I'm sure in time it won't be for covid too. Just in tne mean time it means people believe the only risk is of death and that it will only affect the old and infirm.

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

#656

Post by gridlockd »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #636
gridlockd wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact there shouldn't have been an argument at all. This is an awful way of thinking. > There was never a rational case for trying to avoid lockdown This is untrue. Many virologists and epidemiologists made rational cases against lockdowns. Sweden followed the strategy of Anders Tegnell, who is a renowned epidemiologist. The case for or against lockdowns was ultimately decided by the perception of public opinion,…

First of all no, not lower than France's, but it was much lower for a while. Secondly, their economic contraction might be somewhat less, yet the death toll compared to Norway much higher, which did not suffer much worse economically. The question boils down was it worth for a modest economical benefit allow 5000 people to die or not. Some people think it is okay, most do not.

> Secondly, their economic contraction might be somewhat less, yet the death toll compared to Norway much higher, which did not suffer much worse economically.

This is cherry-picking. You can always tell if somebody is making a bad argument when they pick Norway - a sparsely populated oil-rich welfare state - for a comparison.

> The question boils down was it worth for a modest economical benefit allow 5000 people to die or not. Some people think it is okay, most do not.

No, that's an oversimplification. You are assuming that the lockdowns could've prevented these deaths, yet we have other countries that had strict lockdowns and that had similar death rates.

You also have countries like Germany and Netherlands with modest lockdowns and lower death rates.

There are a lot of factors at play here and the numbers are all over the place, but there is no evidence that lockdowns actually do better in the long run. Part of the problem is that most countries did do some form of lockdown, so Sweden is one of few in the control group.

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

#657

Post by takeda »

ryandrake wrote: post #648
takeda wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You calling that a strict lockdown? When I go to a park and see tons of people there, half of them not wearing any masks. We aren't even fining people for not wearing them. Someone here mentioned how Vietnam handled it, they reacted quickly and had steep fines (for their income) and achieved 0 deaths and now it's 80 days since last infection was reported. There are other countries that handled it really well: Austral…

Assuming you're talking about USA. The USA is probably an outlier since it essentially had no lockdown, no enforced mask usage, and very weakly enforced business closures. All the states had were half-assed "Stay At Home suggestions" that people pretty much ignored (and still ignore). I wouldn't look at any state in the USA for evidence of whether lockdown works or not, because it pretty much wasn't done here.

Yes, I talked about USA, but the countries that did actual lockdown, especially early on got benefits of it.

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

#658

Post by stickfigure »

jacquesm wrote: post #532
stickfigure wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people aren't just losing a few months of festivals. A generation of kids are losing a year (possibly more!) of schooling. Young adults are graduating into career-crippling unemployment which may haunt their lives for decades. People are getting laid off, burning through their meager life savings, losing businesses that they've worked themselves half to death to establish. Suicide rates are up. We're just begin…

Newsflash: the world isn't steady state. What we think is 'normal' today can change, and by adapting to change we ensure our continued success and survival as a species. Entitlement as to what you feel your life should be like is a good way to be frustrated and rather than to see that a generation of kids lost a year of schooling (which isn't actually the case, most countries had only a few months interruption the bu…

I've watched an 8-year-old do "remote schooling". It is nonsense. We might have better luck with mature high school or university students, but the only young kids in my general vicinity receiving education are the ones whose parents can afford to hire private teachers.

It's not clear yet whether the schools here will be opened this fall. A lot of it depends on the outcome of discussions like these - and the "save lives at all costs" crowd is pushing strongly for "no". It really doesn't help to throw around terms like "survival of our species" - there is no plausible scenario where the survival of our species is threatened by Covid-19.

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

#659

Post by microtherion »

TMWNN wrote: post #359
sjg007 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s been no real progress in clinical treatment since March.

No longer putting everyone with a It's heartbreaking to read this article from three months ago ( https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-... ) and realize that everything those warning against overuse of ventilators turned out to be correct.

But even among people who do go on ventilators, there has apparently been a massive improvement in death rates: https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1280889429100552192

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

#660

Post by TMWNN »

microtherion wrote: post #659
TMWNN wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No longer putting everyone with a It's heartbreaking to read this article from three months ago ( https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-... ) and realize that everything those warning against overuse of ventilators turned out to be correct.

But even among people who do go on ventilators, there has apparently been a massive improvement in death rates: https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1280889429100552192

Yes, because they're now the ones who really needed mechanical respiration in the first place. The earlier "putting everyone with a harmed people by damaging healthy lungs via overoxygenation, and causing breathing dependence that doctors found difficult/impossible to wean from and all sorts of other complications, such as deep vein thrombosis. (This is what happened to Nick Cordero.)
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