Sweden did nothing to prevent Covid and had very few deaths. Some other countries had lockdowns, face coverings and had a lot of deaths.
What is the correlation then? Sweden has less dense population for one, maybe healthier overall too? Younger?
Is there any takeaway from this?
I had a couple of French co-workers that said it was very hard to form friendships outside work there (in Stockholm), while in the US (NYC) they had no problem.
Compare this to Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Albania, or other Mediterranean countries, which are polar opposite. People are friendlier, that talk to each other more, they hug, they kiss more.
If you go to smaller towns, you regularly see older people hanging out with each other, playing chess and socializing. You just don't see that in Sweden. I think this is one of the main reasons that some countries like Germany and Sweden are not fairing that bad, but the south gets hit harder.
Also, from my understanding, many folks in Sweden are practicing some form of social distancing, and many are working from home when they can. It is a 'voluntary' type of thing. Swedes tend to follow civi rules well in general, and are a homogeneous society, so I think that is contributing to the lower rates of transmission as well.
while the US attitude varies from wear a mask, to 'don't take my freedom away', i do what i want, type of attitude.
Ps. Here is what bus line looks like in Sweden (before the pandemic): https://i.redd.it/4q36jg5ofi831.jpg
Their culture just wants/respects people spaces more, and are more 'introverted' by nature. Swedes are friendly/polite, but not necessary 'warm'. And you can see with their social interactions as well. Hope that makes sense.
Good luck trying to replicate that type of distancing in most of the Europe or the US unless it is mandated (i.e. you will get kicked out of a store if you don't respect the line).
This is just an ridiculously offensive stereotype. If you were in downtown Stockholm this weekend, you couldn't even tell there was a pandemic considering how many people there are one the streets.
Is it offensive? Well, maybe, but that's tact. However, is it true? Bear in mind that an excessively gregious society, and yes there are differences in societies, cultures, might view a more reserved culture as such.
And the real reason I'm responding is, how many "people there are on the streets" is irrelevant, in terms of being 'social' or not. People going places != social. It can equal work, needing supplies, traveling, etc.
I grew up in a small town, population < 1000, in a massively large county (>1000 square km), with barely 15,000 people in it at the time. When I first moved to the city, I would walk down the street and wave at people. People reacted, to my perspective, quite oddly. Some actually shied away, others looked at me as if was a lunatic.
Yet where I grew up, not waving would have been beyond rude. In the city, it was seen as absurd behaviour.
I guess what I'm saying is, Sweden could be quite anti-social, without it being "mean" to say so. It's all perspective.
I was not doing value judgment, but just an observation
As per my example, it is rude to not wave, stranger or not, at least where I grew up. Yet when I moved to the city, entirely different! Same language, country, region. Just urban vs rural.
So it is not surprising to see nation-wide cultural differences.
My non-swede co-workers had one thing in common theme while living in there: loneliness...
Swedes usually stay in one tight group of friends... and don't branch out as much as other societies do.
I get you have the FIKA culture and all, but it always within your few friends/group. And during winter, most people hole up most of the time due to the weather.
I am neither american, nor a neighbor of yours, and I am just giving you my experience. (lived there for few months).
That's certainly not nothing, but it also doesn't seem to have been enough. Contra the linked article, Sweden seems to be suffering worse than its neighbors with stricter policies: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/11/sw...
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&are...
Keep in mind that giant spike in cases in July led to a reduction in COVID deaths in August and September according to the charts.
Case counts and death counts have been materially diverging for months now, because the early results were marred by adverse selection bias. With few tests available, testing was only done at the point of admission for critically ill patients, who naturally were the most likely to die of COVID. With broader availability of tests, the full picture starts to come into focus.
It's worth paying attention of course, and not hand-waving the spike, but let's not pre-judge yet. We'll have to see what this spike means in the fullness of time.
Lag effects are complicated. In many places young people are the main spreaders of the virus but don't get very sick, and it takes multiple cycles of infection for the virus to reach more vulnerable people (e.g. via care workers who are pretty careful but will inevitably get infected when they live in a COVID-saturated environment). So yes, we shall see.
Preatty drastic measures have been implemented (non essential shops closed, nigtly curfew, restaurants takeout only, all schools closed, mandatory masks in all public spaces) and the numbers are going down to about 2000 per day most recently.
The measures seem to have been effective, but a a cost of about 6000 more dead - and more can be expected due to the inherent delay.
So for that reason, percentage of positive tests really should be watched carefully.
We'll have to wait and see how overall mortality works out, but it seems very likely Tegnell's policy led to 6,000 preventable deaths in the first wave and did not have the benefits he expected.
The Swedes themselves have decided that more intensive measures are needed now: https://www.thelocal.se/20201116/breaking-sweden-introduces-...
Sweden: 60.53 per 100k
Denmark: 13.11 per 100k
Finland: 6.69 per 100k
Norway: 5.53 per 100k
That is misleading. Sweden is currently averaging at about 20 covid deaths per day. Some days they report 0, some days 40, but the weekly average now is about 20 deaths per day.
This is not true. Sweden limited mass gatherings to 50 people, high schools and universities went to remote learning, large part of white-collar work switched to remote (companies did this voluntarily), and many people voluntarily limited their activities. Also, their sick pay system allows every worker to stay home when they are sick.
That's one takeaway: lockdowns only delay the inevitable. Sweden just ripped the bandage off fast, and got all the deaths over with quickly.
As a consequence, there is the other big takeaway, the elephant in the room: covid doesn't kill more people than any other respiratory pathogen.
> covid doesn't kill more people than any other respiratory pathogen
How come then that there were so many deaths in Italy once their healthcare system toppled over?
From what I understand that even if Covid is not more deadly than say the flu, the fact that it spreads without symptoms means that in the end vastly more people get infected.
I see people on walks in a suburban neighborhood wearing masks. Even if you can't keep 6 feet of distance, the likelihood of contracting it from 3 seconds of outdoor exposure is negligible. CDC guidelines for when someone is exposed are closer than 6 feet for 15 minutes. Clearly people are wearing masks in some situations to make a point, not to make a difference.
Non-compliance however kneecaps the ability of lockdowns to be effective, leaving you in a worst-of-all-worlds situation with a damaged economy and a largely unaffected disease curve. I would say the better way to frame that is:
- "lockdowns only work if you actually take them seriously" (as evidenced by countries that did: NZ, TW, CN, AU -- look at their graphs [1], they work).
- and "lockdowns may not be necessary to achieve sufficient results."
[1] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?location=Australia&location...
Thats why it wouldn't work. You want everyone to stay inside for 3 weeks.
Even so, Sweden doesn't prove this. They have had lockdowns, e.g. severe limits on social gatherings. You can only say they haven't had lockdowns if you take the pedantic view that "it's not a lockdown if it's not legally enforced, even if everyone follows your rules".
Also, arguably the excess deaths in March/April (comparing to Nordic neighbours especially) and the surging cases now are not "reasonable results".
> "people won't comply with such police-state dystopian policies"
The "but muh freedom" argument is so tired. If folks had stayed in for a few weeks at the start, it would be substantially over now as evidenced by all the countries in which it's substantially over. Instead by going out like petulant children who won't be told no, we have a giant flaming disaster. That would be an example of 'disagree and commit.'
I'm open to the idea that a lockdown would work, and I'm also open to the idea it's not necessary because some subset of restriction is enough, or because we're willing to pay the cost of excess mortality during vaccine development -- the one argument I'm not open to is "but muh freedom."
I'm sorry that reality doesn't always map to the libertarian ideal. Sometimes you have to compromise temporarily for the greater good. For your own greater good. For a net gain in freedom.
[1] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?location=Australia&location...
I'm still open to the idea that a lockdown would work but not for this virus.
>For your own greater good. For a net gain in freedom
You mean for your greater good because it definitely not for my greater good.
And you should be upset about it, I am, it's been an abject failure. We've compromised so much, but just not quite enough, in part because of the uneven distribution of compliance. That has led to huge cost for zero reward.
No, because we don't even need the lockdown in the first place. I'm not saying nothing should be done to about this virus, but if the answer of 'doing something about it' is lockdown then I can't support because the harm is just immense (compared to the risk of this virus).
Yes, I am upset at the government reaction to this virus.
Although I will say, if "freedom" is the "one argument [you are] not open to" I don't think you have the moral high ground.
> Although I will say, if "freedom" is the "one argument [you are] not open to" I don't think you have the moral high ground.
We'll have to disagree on this one. "You can't make me" isn't going to win you any arguments at the supermarket with your mom, it's not going to win you any arguments at home with your spouse, it's not going to win you any arguments at work, and it sure as heck isn't going to win you any arguments in public health policy.
Again, I'm open to the idea they may not be necessary to achieve meaningful results, however that is a conversation that can be had without invoking the toddler clause.
Yes we will, since you are arguing in bad faith. I can smell the condescension from here. I never said "you can't make me" but YOU said "petulant children who won't be told no" and "toddler clause" and "muh freedom"
THAT is the type of rhetoric that "isn't going to win you any arguments at the supermarket with your mom"
In other words, the illness will die out, unless it doesn't. Here's some practical experience with this approach:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/
An outbreak of common colds at an Antarctic base after seventeen weeks of complete isolation.
They were effective in NZ, but NZ is still getting new cases, so it's remarkably hard to get 100%.
In fairness, those are due to quarantine failures, which were anticipated and planned for.
Why would a region with one person per square kilometer plan to quarantine people in a crowded hotel in the centre of a crowded city, and respond to the inevitable outbreaks which potentially expose millions of people to the virus, when you could divert all the jets to Woomera and stick everyone in tents for 14 days? That's a question which those responsible are trying hard to ignore.
And a strict lockdown would require most people to have enough supplies in place to last the few weeks, which is likely an impossible demand for our supply chain to meet, and also impossible for those who live paycheck to paycheck.