Hacker News Reader

Comment by zarkov99 | Hacker News Reader

This is such bullshit. As soon as the body count starts to rise all this nonsense is going to out the window and the "exceptional" Swedes will be ordered to cower in their homes just like everybody else.

View on HN

The thing is, at least for now, they seem to be in line with other countries that took all the measures. Sweden has a very similar number of cases/deaths and population as Portugal which locked schools 3 weeks ago, and the rest of the country 2 weeks ago, but Sweden [1] had the initial reported cases many weeks before then Portugal [2] (for deaths [3]). (I couldn't find number of tests done in each country so that may be a variable there that may mess these values)

I guess the next couple weeks will show which approach is better.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102203/cumulative-coron... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107359/coronavirus[-cas... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102203/cumulative-coron...

Yeah, I'm watching closely. There is no actual evidence supporting strict lockdowns, despite everyone talking about them as if they're proven to be the only solution. So far, Sweden is showing that perhaps a balanced approach that doesn't destroy your economy can work equally well. Hopefully soon there will be some evidence one way or another.

> There is no actual evidence supporting strict lockdowns

That's false. Aside from common sense, that restricting contact would decrease transmission, China and Italy both reduced their infections by employing a strict lockdown. These policies are being borrowed straight from China and Italy. They both had it really bad, and they managed to get on the other side of the peak.

No, it is not false. "Common sense" is not evidence, and neither is the experience of China and Italy, because both imposed strict lockdowns.

In order to say that these measures were supported by evidence, you would need a country that did not impose strict lockdowns in an otherwise-similar situation, but which had a worse outcome. Sweden may end up being that country, given time, or it may not. As a third possibility, Sweden may impose a strict lockdown, causing us to remain without evidence for the efficacy of strict lockdowns vs. softer measures.

Both China and Italy had major outbreaks, which were controlled by imposing lockdowns. That's sufficient evidence.

The problem is you can't be 100% if it was because of the lockdown or how the virus plays out.

We in HN and other science based forums always want double-blinded trials of just about anything, but for this lockdown, we just assume it is 100% right and nothing else. I believe a lockdown/travel restrictions would have been effective on case number 1. When you do it on case 1000 it is just ... well... useless I guess?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent

Sweden is quite different as a society and societal habits than the rest of the world, I don't think we can apply much of what they are doing to India or Iran, perhaps it's applicable to Norway or Finland.

I think Stockholm / Copenhagen would be a pretty good comparison.

Good point. Sweden is a small country and not very densely populated, even in the metro areas.

Just to be clear, even here in Sweden the economy has taken a big hit. People lose their jobs, companies go bankrupt. So the situation is still dire.

Understood - one would hopefully expect the impact to be somewhat lesser, but if people choose to impose the lockdown on themselves without the government enforcing it, I guess it could end up being much the same.

Looking at European flight statistics [1], Portugal looks to have ~3x as many passengers flying to/from Italy than Sweden does, with a similar population. From that, it seems reasonable to expect that Sweden would have an easier time of things, at least in the beginning stages.

[1] https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=avi... (change Geopolitical entity to Italy)

It may be the reason, or even that in PT personal space is measured in cms vs meters (part jokingly), too many variables.

But taking in account the supposed 'exponential' growth of the virus, we should have seen a more aggressive curve in Sweden vs Portugal if the lockdowns were the solution.

(I am personally against the lockdowns as they were implemented as I think long term they ill do more harm than good, but I'm trying to keep my biases from these discussions and use impartial data sources)

100%

This was exactly UK / Boris Johnoson's approach. He flipped as soon as the updated models indicated that 100k+ people will die. No leader wants that as their legacy.

You get it wrong; the Swedes are permitted to do stuff and encouraged not to, Boris went around doing the stuff Swedes are encouraged not to, until he changed his mind.

The Swedes aren't a people who have to be forced to be careful and will look for every opportunity to cut corners. Non sono furbi.

Trump seems to be ok with it in so far as he’s telling people to accept it as a good outcome.

This virus has been circulating Europe for more than two months now and people keep parroting the same old "in two weeks time, expect 600K deaths because its exponential" line.

It's like some of you WANT this doomer scenario to play out. If anything, this crisis seems more like one of purpose than a sanitary one.

To everyone who's reading this: stay safe, spread positivity and most importantly find your purpose.

And to the Swedes: keep being awesome, I hope you come out of this stronger because we're definitely going to need new furniture when this whole thing blows over :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com