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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

#661

Post by YZF »

jtbayly wrote: post #604
YZF wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's look at British Columbia, Canada where we have managed to stabilize at ~10 cases a day. How long before we get the same number of deaths with our population of 5 million people. Hmm, 5 million divided by 10 divided by 365 is 1369 years. Even if we consider 10 cases for every one detected case that's ~137 years! Longer than a human life span. Ignoring things like improved treatment options, vaccines, and other t…

They have only stabilized at that level if you are willing to permanently keep things the way they are. Are you comfortable with the restrictions currently in place being permanent? Hopefully a vaccine is discovered.

I think we can keep things where they are. The current restrictions aren't great but they are sustainable:

- Virtually no travel in and out of the country (goods still flow though).

- No gatherings > 50 people.

- Keep 2m away from others (except for "bubbles").

- Wash your hands.

- Masks in certain situations (not mandatory for most).

- Various limitations in place as to how businesses operate, e.g. distance between tables in restaurants, physical barriers, cleaning, one way aisles in stores etc etc.

Since I'm not the type or age who goes partying out in crowded bars or to packed concerts that stuff doesn't really bother me personally. Sure, it's no fun, but the alternative seems like a lot less fun. In my (global) company we all switched to wfh when this started and I'm fine with that.

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

#662

Post by jacquesm »

stickfigure wrote: post #658
jacquesm wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

Well, one of my kids is an 8 year old and did 'remote schooling' and managed to keep up with the regular curriculum just fine. The big difference is in the schools, not in the kids.

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

#663

Post by aeternum »

ljf wrote: post #485
aeternum wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue a decent metric is human hours. For example, if a safety protocol costs n people x hours in return for saving y lives, then we can strike a balance. In general I'd argue that n * x ~= y * (human life expectancy in hours). You could apply this to things like airport security and check how the sum of all the time passenger spend in line compares to the lives saved. My guess is especially in the airport ex…

That isn't really how terrorism works though is it? 'they' want the population to be fearful doing normal things - it isn't just the life lost but the changes in behaviour people have to make. Similarly if I died of covid now, it isn't just the 40ish years of life ahead I lose, but the impact on my wife, children and wider family. I've seen friends lose 72 yo grandfathers - who could have provided years ahead of fun…

My point is life is still being lost, the life lost is just being amortized over many people so it doesn't feel as bad.

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

#664

Post by ljf »

ljf wrote: post #655
thu2111 wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, num…

More here: Scottish universities join Covid-19 long-term health impact study - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-tayside-central-5...

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

#665

Post by lsllc »

lsllc wrote: post #328
toss1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massachusetts is the exception because our re-infection rates (Rt) have been successfully driven down to well below 1.00 (~0.90 in a recent report), despite having started with a nearly out of control situation. We've gone from thousands of new cases per day to now averaging ~100. The doubling days started out at around 2.4, stayed stubbornly in the dozens for many weeks, then rise, to now averaging well over 400. Th…

Not sure they were "driven" down by policy per-se: According to rt.live, we started March 3rd with an Rt of 2.22 and were already in a steep Rt decline by the time Baker issued the stay-home request on March 24rd (Rt 1.22) and got below Rt 1.0 a week later on March 31st. Baker issued his mask order May 6th (Rt 0.88) and we've been bouncing around at that since although we're creeping up now from our low of 0.75 aroun…

A day later, 30 more deaths and we're now 7th lowest, our Rt is up to 0.99 and 3-day hospitalization average is now going up for the first time in a while. The state is now also offering expanded free testing to anyone so it'll be interesting to see how that changes it.

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

#666

Post by arcticbull »

ljf wrote: post #483
rimliu wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get many younger ones disabled, when younger ones are barely getting ill? It is a desease that affects the older ones much more.

I've posted elsewhere but my wife (40yo and in great health) has been suffering from a range of issues since her infection over 100 days ago. She cant climb stairs without getting out of breath. Her covid symptoms for the first two weeks was relatively mild. She is in a Slack group with over 7000 others. Predominantly women over 40 or men 2o to 50. All with serious long term issues after getting covid. It is a small…

Yep but to be fair that isn’t a younger age group. Broadly speaking under-20s are pretty much unaffected. 20-40 aren’t particularly affected either if in good health and without comorbidities. 40+ can be quite seriously affected and over 65s it’s a double digit risk of death. It’s super non-linear.

It seems speculatively like this is due to age-linked expression of ACE2.

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

#667

Post by arcticbull »

anders_p wrote: post #411
arcticbull wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot know that until after the pandemic is over. The Swedes are betting that nobody in the world will be spared from COVID and therefore the delta in deaths is temporary. They are front-loading it while attempting to keep the economic impacts as low as possible. They anticipate the rest of the world will be contending with shutdowns, re-openings, shutdowns, re-openings, and when all is said and done, the death…

They haven't seen any benefit to their economy compared to other nordic countries at all. Partly because they are export dependant and nobody's buying & partly because enough swedes are staying home (not going to pubs etc.) for the economy to tank but not enough to avoid 10 times as many deaths as their neighbours. So, yes, time will tell. But for now they are getting the worst of both: Many dead and no economic bene…

Again we cannot know this until after.

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

#668

Post by Leherenn »

anoncake wrote: post #623
Leherenn wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the current measures in Europe? Definitely doable. It's currently mandatory masks in public, keeping distances and washing hands, and no big crowds. Life feels pretty normal over here.

It's great that life feels normal for you, not everyone is that lucky. People have already started to disobey and it isn't even winter.

Are those measures really unbearable for you? I feel like we are talking about different situations, and I'd like to understand your point of view.

I'm talking from the perspective of a European country with <100 cases/day.

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

#669

Post by belorn »

dropstickle wrote: post #548
Shalle135 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem in Sweden hasn't been the rejection of a lockdown, it's not protecting the elderly care well enough. But this is what happens when there are barely any educated people within it. Compared to Norway for example that have a mandatory 3 year nursing education to be working within the elderly care. Heck the absolute majority of the elderly didn't even get any treatment once the infection was a fact. And…

You are allowed to travel everywhere in Norway now if you are a resident, even if you are from Oslo. However, there was a couple of weeks where that was not allowed. Norway is actually almost back to normal,except you can't have gatherings of over 200 people. It has been this way for almost a month now, and there have not been any increase in confirmed covid cases yet, which is surprising.

The big question is how did Norway handle elderly care. Did they have employees traveling from Oslo and going from home to home, and house to house, often without time enough to even wash their hands?

Because during the worse time, that was the kind of environment being reported around Stockholm. There were not enough people and a universal lack of safety equipment. Many workers also had to rely on the mass transportation system in order to get between homes. Elderly care, both private and state owned, often operate from a single cental point and fan out.

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

#670

Post by georgespencer »

twblalock wrote: post #546
georgespencer wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner (American w/ Chinese parents) strongly believes a major difference is the sense of collective responsibility in Asia. A kind of deferral of individuality to benefit society.

Fine, but how does that explain disparities in outcome between European countries?

It doesn't, and it doesn't need to for it to be true.
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