Comment by jariel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jariel | Hacker News Reader

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"but people are simply being reasonable."

The Swedes have taken this line as well, saying they 'trust' their citizens.

I think it's not very rational, and also borderline chauvinist for people to say this.

First - what evidence does anyone have that Swiss/Swedes or anyone for that matter are consistently behaving in one way or another that is more 'responsible' or 'sensible' than others?

I don't see any evidence.

A nationalist self-image of responsibility doesn't count as Science, and neither does a few images of fools on a Florida beach as it's all rather anecdotal.

The other issue is that policy is material, not just 'responsibility' - for example - we know from Wuhan that restaurants and other places are a vector for transmission. So it doesn't matter if certain groups are 'behaving responsibly' so much - if they are going to restaurants, hotels, tanning salons etc. - even that otherwise 'responsible behaviour' inside the scope of 'following the rules' that is actually causing transmission.

Given all of the variables we have to look at, the last place I think we can infer variation is with regards to who is 'being reasonable' by some arbitrary definition.

That said - it would be really good to look at different nations varying policies and see how it works.

It could be that <5 people is 'enough' to keep the R1 below 1, though there are obviously other factors. Maybe the Swiss have found the 'sweet spot'?

In Canada, the problem was stopped, but there's already a continued second wave in long-term care homes, it's possible those are structured differently in Canada than other countries.

Putting Switzerland and Sweden in the same bucket here isn't fair, IMO. In Switzerland, most things were closed down like in our neighbor countries (some things are reopening now, but still very limited). A difference was that while other countries said no groups of >2 people, in Switzerland the rule was no groups of >5 people, so in that sense it was more lax, but it's far more strict than Sweden's policy.

I'm not sure what people are reacting negatively to in your post but I thought this was a really well stated point:

"A nationalist self-image of responsibility doesn't count as Science"

What counts as science is results, and Sweden is flattening the curve just as well as the UK and Canada, so the system is working, whatever it is.

I mean, take a look: https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?location=Canada&location=De...

I'm not sure why people are having such a hard time accepting that what Sweden is doing is in fact working, in the face of a pretty clear graph. Just because it appears counter-intuitive or possibly not in line with their preexisting ideas of what should be done?

There's still 5 US states without any form of lockdown (the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas), too, so you could say they're "following the Swedish model." Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma are only under regional partial lockdowns, too. Of course they only account for about 5% of the population but it remains notable.

Ok, I took a look and it doesn't look good ... Compare Sweden to the list of its Nordic neighbors: https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?location=Denmark&location=F...

Or, for a more direct comparison: https://i.insider.com/5e9d6a5015ea4b315c0b4d0a?width=1100&fo... (from https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sweden-and-norway-handle...) - Sweden's population is 2x that of Norway so keep that in mind when comparing, but the difference is really apparent.

I don't disagree that they're not doing as well in terms of absolute numbers of cases as their neighboring countries in absolute lock-down. However, that's also intentional: they believe they won't be affected by a second wave of cases, whereas their neighbors will, so any delta in death count is simply a deferral. Similarly, they're seeing way less flu deaths and way less car accidents nearby.

To the extent their new case burden remains flat and their medical system capable of treating cases as they arise (which they seem to be) then they are meeting their objectives.

Their goal was never "pretend its not happening and hope it goes away" -- and it certainly was never to have fewer cases than neighboring countries -- so it seems a strange way to compare them. Their goal isn't zero new cases, either. With that said, a flat case count is certainly positive and totally compatible with their goals, which makes it IMO a fair axis of comparison.

I disagree that a flat case count is positive. That strategy is essentially a bet on others failing to contain the virus. If you assume 90% of infections go undetected, you're looking at 2+ years until you reach 60% of immune people (10M Swedes, ~4300 new cases per week), so the time frame is probably dictated by the availability of a vaccine which - I hope - should be available sooner.

If other countries do succeed in containing the virus, that means travel in and out of Sweden will have to be restricted in that time frame, and death rates will have been higher (and not just a deferral effect).

Since some countries apparently have been succeeding in containing the virus, I don't think that is a good bet to make.

> Since some countries apparently have been succeeding in containing the virus, I don't think that is a good bet to make.

Some islands. Those, naturally, have well-defined borders due to their being surrounded by water. I'm not sure any non-island nation has had any luck.

"I'm not sure why people are having such a hard time accepting that what Sweden is doing is in fact working"

1) The evidence doesn't look that great for Sweden.

2) But my issue is not with their specific policy - I'm saying the Swedish rhetoric of 'we trust our citizens' doesn't make sense because 'trust' isn't really the issue, it's actual policy.

So as for 1) you show a graph of 'cases' but testing rates, and the size of the countries are different, so it's hard to compare.

If you look at the growth of daily cases, Sweden doesn't look like it's peaking, also, they are doing less testing - covid is likely more widespread than indicated.

Sweden has 2x the rate of death of Canada.

But it's not 'terribly bad' - and they are not 'exploding' so is helpful information for countries that may want to 'relax' to Swedens level.

Here is Sweden daily cases [1] it wavers because they publish on different days of the week, but it's still trending up.

Here is the US [2] - slightly trending down.

Switzerland is clearly locking it down [3]

2) But 'trust' is not a policy.

Swedish public health officials have reiterated several times as that 'citizens will behave responsibly' - but I don't think this really is the issue at all.

If Swedes are allowed to eat at restaurants, and Canadians are not allowed - well that's just a matter of policy - not a matter of 'responsible behavior'.

'Trust' and 'responsible behavior' really are a matter of how well those countries actually adhere to the policies laid down - and there is no evidence that Swedes or the Swiss are more faithfully carrying out the orders of their public health officials, than folks in other countries.

I don't think we should accept without evidence that certain groups are behaving in a specific way without evidence.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [3] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/switzerlan...

While there are no directly comparable pandemics in recent time, there are plenty of data concerning other related health issues where some countries enforce by law what is a matter of individual responsibility in neighboring countries.

One clear such example is the vaccination of children, which has been repeatedly cited as one data point on how to set policy.

There are medical professionals dedicating their careers to policy issues. It is very far from a "nationalist self-image". If you have doubts about the quality of data used for setting policy, there are plenty of ways to express this in a qualified manner.

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