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Comment by gorkempacaci | Hacker News Reader

Sweden didn’t go into total lockdown but still did a lot. In the grocery store the cashiers are in a plastic bubble. Wherever there is a line there are marks on the floor to show where to wait to keep distance. Nobody shakes hands for quite some time. Yes, people go to Cafes/restaurants but restaurants have been assessed and assigned covid-friendly seating layouts. There are many more things that clearly separate today from last year for daily life in Sweden.

So numbers going down and death rate staying low should be partly connected to this. Also, Sweden is quite a different country to begin with. Sparsely populated and half of all households are single person. So this ‘doctor’ is a bit careless while he tells the world to do like Sweden. It might end up much worse.

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Also Stockholm in summer is empty. People leave the town and go on holiday, retract to the country side.

I also don't understand when he says there is/was no social distancing. That is totally not my experience here, a lot of people were working from home and commuter trains were quite empty.

What about the photos of people happily seating in groups in restaurants and even attending sports events? I never seen anyone in those photos with masks. Also, I believe schools were kept open at least before summer vacations? I am not living there but very curious about how the life was during COVID period there.

It is some cherry picking of photos. Public space activity did drop alot in Mars due to people not following recommendations (not a typo). There still was normal eg. restaurant activity just with fewer guests.

The main problem was that the authority leaders don't believe in wide testing, PPE for nursing home workers or asymptomatic transmission, I guess.

In general, any photo you see anywhere is going to be cherry-picked. Of course, that only goes so far. If you have a crowded school corridor with almost no one wearing masks, well--that happened. But it's hard to draw broad conclusions generally because of what seems like a somewhat crowded restaurant or an empty street.

A lot of people also bring their own beliefs about what is appropriate to the interpretation and discussion.

Ye, I agree. As a note, schools up to 15 y.o:s were open so photos of those should show a lot of pupils.

Although lots of promises in many places about distancing and masks and so forth that no one who has ever been or ever been around anyone from Kindergarten kids to college students actually really believed.

>What about the photos of people happily seating in groups in restaurants and even attending sports events?

they obviously don't distance (by definition), but economic indicators suggest that Swede's do behave similar to countries that went into formal lockdowns. GDP in the second quarter was down 8.5%, which is not far off from the 10% in Germany or the US.

> Sweden didn’t go into total lockdown but still did a lot.

Indeed; both Sweden (https://ycharts.com/indicators/sweden_unemployment_rate) and Norway (https://ycharts.com/indicators/norway_unemployment_rate) have experienced anomalous increases in their unemployment rates that seem clearly linked to the pandemic.

If the article's thesis is correct that Sweden minimally-disrupted the status quo, then we would have expected to see little employment response.

That would assume Sweden's economy is completely independent of its European neighbors and even the rest of the world. In 2020, that's not true at all. Even without Covid, recessions in the US or Germany or other large economic partners will cause problems for small countries like Sweden.

their economy sure shrink less than many other EU economies

assume there won't be any effect does not make sense in interconnected EU economies

But people still don't socially distance in stores. I have had people walk so close they are touching my hands, thst never happens usually.

My experience is that most people do keep their distance. But even if 90% do, you'll be getting way too close to a couple of people when say shopping for groceries. Fuck those people.

That's helpful as we Americans don't have much visibility into what it's actually like in Sweden.

I think the big differentiator is that for California at least, people have been staying at home since late March, with the exception of essential workers (~20%?). Many are working from home, but many are unemployed too.

So while Sweden still did a lot, the distinction is pretty large with regards to disruption to "normal" life. A year or so when we look back, it will be interesting to see how big of an impact that decision had!

> That's helpful as we Americans don't have much visibility into what it's actually like in Sweden.

I wish we had the technology to broadcast images from far away lands. Alas ..

In Stockholm (where I lived), the recommendation was to work from home if possible. My workplace had had >95% of staff working from home from the beginning of march. Most of my friends here, except for those in healthcare or education, faced the exact same situation. So, institutions did keep people at home if possible, and companies did too.

At my Stockholm office in march; one monday everyone was at the office then on tuesday 1% came to the office, now it's up at 5%-10% feeling crowded.

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