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Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

And that's despite nearly nationwide shelter in place measures. If those hadn't been implemented, the toll could well be an order of magnitude higher.

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Are infections and death tolls in the countries with much less restrictive measures an order of magnitude higher?

Yes, actually. Here's an example, probably the best natural experiment we're going to see in this context. Five times more, depending on your idea of "order of magnitude".

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-loc...

An order of magnitude usually means 10x, ie 140 vs 14. According to your article, Sweden has had a lower death rate than the UK, Spain, or Italy.

Ah, this is hacker news - to me, an order of magnitude means double, 2^n where N=2 and N=>4, on deaths per 100k. Those are different countries, though, with much higher population density. This is the only case where culturally and demographically similar countries pursued different courses in a way that makes them eligible for direct comparison.

One can compare it to its immediate neighbors (Finland, Denmark, Norway) and get your order of magnitude right there. Norway: 206 deaths, population a bit over 5.8 million. Finland: 199 deaths, population a bit over 5 million. Sweden: 2,355 deaths, population a bit over 10 million. I'll let you carry out the division yourself.

Comparing to its geographical and cultural neighbors helps deal with differences in city structure, public health system, trust in government, population density, etc.

You’re comparing apples to oranges here - Sweden is pursuing a narrow tall spike before getting to herd immunity, and Norway and Finland are trying for a looooong shallow curve. The area under the curve is what counts, and we won’t know those numbers for months.

Can we compare New York with its neighbors?

Compare it with equally dense neighbors, sure!

All of these European countries are more similar than different. What we see here is significant data that contradicts the conclusions in the article. In other words, it is possible that Sweden's policy is working.

The goal of the shelter in place is to “flatten the curve” so that the medical system is not overloaded. According to that article, they believed that their medical system could handle the load and has.

And if true they are just bringing them forward.

NPR reported that 1.3 million would have died without social isolation in the US. This is 20x higher than the latest estimate. On hacker news I've seen people claim figures ranging from 1-2 million, to 3-6 million on the more extreme end.

Even if we take Sweden's case at face value this is still 1/4 the multiplier that people seem to think it is. Furthermore, Sweden is pursuing a strategy of herd immunity: let people get infected so that the populace becomes immune. They should see a higher rise in deaths, but also a faster decline as the virus runs out of viable hosts. A tall, narrow spike versus a wide, shorter curve. The area under the final curve is what we're looking for.

They do a good job making Sweden look bad till they mention UK, Spain, Italy. Then go on to say it's a bit more complicated.

Don't need to look at other countries just compare New York with LA.

I am definitely on the lockdown side of things, and I think NYC especially bungled their response, but I also don't think this is a fair comparison- NYC is so much more densely packed.

There's lots of counfounding factors, especially since there are basically no countries with no restrictions (Sweden has the same level of restrictions as many US states, for example).

But in general, yes. Areas with stronger restrictions have significantly fewer deaths, and areas that enacted restrictions saw deaths drop by 3-5x already, with continued downward trends as opposed to upward exponential ones.

Early in the outbreak, Italy locked down cities in the North, but not the rest of the country. Areas just within the lock-down area fared much better than those just outside it.

See Figure S3 here: https://t.co/JYf1F5GnYu?amp=1

New York has >50x deaths per capita as SF, which sheltered-in-place a week earlier (and which had been steadily moving in that direction for two weeks prior).

This could be a different story a year from now, where NY ripped the band-aid off and achieved herd immunity long before SF, and SF took a much longer time resulting in a longer economical slump and still similar deaths over a longer period of time.

I'm not saying it will be that way, but it's worth considering.

And even that could be skewed by the more at risk populations fleeing for the relative safety of the suburbs and then dying there.

That's not what happened during the 1918 Flu: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/upshot/corona...

Why do people keep linking to cnn.com? You don't think they have an agenda of their own?

Link to something a bit more credible.

What happens to at-risk people lockdown ends? They could continue to shelter, but if the rest of the world isn't, anybody they make contact with will put them at higher risk due to decreased practice of social distancing.

A natural byproduct of a functioning society has always been otherwise avoidable deaths: car accidents, workplace accidents, flu deaths, etc.

The idea that we can hide out until the virus completely disappears is a fantasy. The only sustainable path forward is targeted lockdown and isolation for the most vulnerable along with mustering our energies for testing and treatment.

Not quite true because you can avoid overshooting herd immunity with the slowed spread we will hopefully see now.

That’s not a good argument - we cannot possibly get to herd immunity with the infection rates we’re seeing under lockdown. Without loosening of the restrictions and a measured return to work, we’ll be stuck in Shelter mode for years before we get to 60+%...

And yet Sweden is doing fine without such orders: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-st...

Sorry but there are other paths to containing the virus without resorting to draconian measures, especially when those measures are indiscriminate blunt instruments (for example applying same restrictions to urban and rural areas).

Sweden's first case with community spread was from the end of February, so it's been spreading for a month or two less than in, say, Germany.

Despite that Sweden has the same per capita infection rate and a per capita death rate of around 3x Germany's.

And that's still with some social distancing requests, there just isn't a stay at home order.

So yes, unless Sweden tightens restrictions, I'd expect to see it hit an order of magnitude harder than nations doing more restrictions, despite still having some.

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