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Comment by oxymoran | Hacker News Reader

I find this article a little disingenuous and here is why: Sweden-5420 deaths out of a population of 10 million while no lock down. Michigan-6005 deaths out of a population of 10 million and we have been locked down since mid March.

To be clear, I was in favor of the lockdown at first and I still am in favor of keeping things like bars and casinos closed but it’s become clear that the virus doesn’t have much affect on younger populations and that the death rate has been dropping. Here in Michigan, while our daily new cases is still creeping up, our 7 day moving average of deaths has continued to plummet.

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While Sweden did not have a mandatory lockdown, it wasn't like they stood by and did nothing either. They actually implemented many measures to reduce the spread of the virus:

- Closed high schools and universities.

- Banned gatherings of over 50 people.

- Banned visits to nursing homes.

- Reduced restaurant capacity and required social distancing in restaurants.

- Recommended social distancing, working from home, and avoiding unnecessary travel.

If you look at mobility data you'll see that even in the absence of official lockdown policies people were already changing their behavior to protect themselves, and the difference between Sweden and other places is not actually as big as people think.

Thank you! I'm tired of the "Sweden ignored coronavirus" meme that simply isn't true.

Sweden and Michigan have about an equal number of cases (~74k) but Sweden has a better survival rate so far.

Is it possible Sweden just has a healthier population than Michigan? Life expectancy in Sweden is about 4 years higher than Michigan. This also means their population skews older, but means people are healthier on average.

Sweden also has better healthcare. Are there stats on survival rates of patients with serious symptoms?

The obesity rate in Michigan is about 50% higher than Sweden. Numerous studies have shown that obesity is a significant risk factor for COVID-19 death.

>it’s become clear that the virus doesn’t have much affect on younger populations

That was something expected before the lockdowns. The lockdowns were sold as a way to buy hospitals time, by flattening and slowing down the spread.

How can you even compare Swedens rate until the whole thing is over, everywhere? A flattened curve will take longer. Sweden purposely chose the frontloaded, higher initial rate.

Part of the trouble so many folks are having with modeling this disease is that there are several "tiers" of geographic division that are involved and different densities of community spread at each tier. There's spread at the level of countries/nations, at the level of states or provinces, and all the way down to the level of neighborhoods. A few cases in a country is very different from a few cases in a household in terms of density of cases, likelihood of spread, and mortality rates.

Without knowing those distributional statistics at different levels, all you get are lies and damned lies, not statistics.

About 50% of the deaths in Sweden have occurred in Stockholm per the Financial Times[1], which has a population under a million. Just by looking at a smaller geographic division - a city/metro area - we get near an order of magnitude higher per capita case rate and mortality rate.

At the same time, San Francisco County - comparable population to Stockholm - has had 4023 confirmed cases and 50 deaths. Alameda County has a population about 60% larger, and has had 6,991 confirmed cases and 140 deaths. So, it is possible to have a comparable population and a comparable density to Stockholm, Sweden and yet have many times fewer cases and deaths.

We could go back and forth until we're blue with why that might be the case, but I can tell you empirically, looking at some Bay Area counties versus Detroit or Stockholm, it is possible to have many times fewer cases and deaths than they've experienced. And that is a tragedy that is unfolding every day in those places.

[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06...

Those numbers are for Stockholm county which is close to 2.4 million people. Close to a quarter of the population lives there.

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

Thank you. It's still sad to see that Alameda County has 2/3 the people and 1/20th the lives lost. Sweden's strategy deserves criticism because it is demonstrably not necessary to lose that many lives.

Your comparison is valid if, and only if, all other social metrics are equal between Sweden and Michigan.

For example, do Michiganers have the same level of access to quality medical care as Swedes?

What are the smoking rates in Sweden compared to Michigan?

What about the housing quality?

Etc. etc. etc.

In other words, there's a lot of variables at play here.

Well Sweden closed its borders, where Michigan can’t close its borders to other states, so Michigan’s is naturally higher.

Sweden did not close its borders, although it followed EU guidelines to close its borders beyond the EU. The US closed its borders to certain areas of the world, which is what this is comparable to.

Well all other countries in the EU closed their borders to them, so it’s effectively the same thing.

No they didn't. Danish, Finnish and Norwegian tourists are still coming to Sweden. It is just that Swedes can't go to them.

And that is a textbook example of insanity. To be fair, I do think that they are supposed to self-quarantine when returning home?

All the states around Michigan were locked down too. I’m sure there were a small amount of people crossing but we were effectively closed.

We had a pretty strict lock down here and people followed it better than I expected they would. I’m not sure what to think but I do find it odd that 2 similar sized populations took radically different approaches and ended up in essentially the same spot.

US states can impose mandatory quarantines on people arriving from other states. However as a practical matter that will be difficult to enforce in any state with a long border.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-in...

The problem is that people ignored the lockdown. Also the virus doesn’t discriminate. Younger people will die but may take longer to do so. Also we are detecting cases earlier than back in March where you had to be really sick to get a test.

> Also the virus doesn’t discriminate

I mean, of course the virus "discriminates" in the sense that there is a huge disparity in mortality rate between age and pre-existing condition groups.

Sure, it can infect anyone but it's obviously false to act like the effects are equal across demographics.

Younger/healthier people are far less likely to die.

But they can be a great vector of infection to others.

It's been verified that primary school teachers, who have all gone to work as usual, as primary schools never closed, haven't shown a significantly higher number of infection than others.

Which country?

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