Ask HN: Why isn't everyone using Sweden's Covid strategy that seems effective? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why isn't everyone using Sweden's Covid strategy that seems effective?

8 pointsjulienreszka11 comments

From what I hear from my Swedish friends the differences between Sweden's and other European countries' responses has been exaggerated. In Sweden, too, many children did not go to school or kindergarten. Many shops were closed and generally people adhered to pretty much the same rules as most other European countries. From a economic perspective, the GDP in Sweden is projected to contract 5,3% [1] which is pretty much the same as e.g. Germany. The mortality was higher than in most other nothern European countries. So I would say the strategy was 1) not that different and 2) not that effective.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-per...

My understanding is that Sweden's strategy seemed effective only until a couple months passed. When more data was available, Sweden's death toll fared poorly compared to neighboring countries.

The last time I noticed a news update on this was several weeks ago. Either the situation has switched back to Sweden's favor (seems unlikely), or your news source on this story is several months out of date.

Aside from that, Sweden's strategy was predicated on assumptions about Swedish society and climate, so even on its own terms (with which I don't necessarily agree), it wouldn't transplant to countries where people speak to, and associate with, strangers more often.

That speaks rather to the media that you're reading. I just had a quick look at the numbers; Sweden's doing rather well at the moment, yet this is unreported. When it looks to be doing relatively badly, it's all over the press.

All the media is equal. They report when there are is something important, where important usually means a lot of death. (And in sometimes zero cases for a long time, but death sells more.)

For data, I use https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?tab=tab...

I use a window of 1 week, because there is too much daily variation (nobody likes to fill paperwork on weekends).

Sweden is now in the 22th position in death per million. In two weeks, it will be in the 24th position assuming the simplified model were death rate remain constant. (This is an useful approximation for one of two weeks. Using this approximation for longer periods is a bad idea.)

Conclusions based only on clinical data (deaths) miss the point. A cost/benefit analysis (in any country) would also take into account the effect of any measures taken (including lockdown) on issues like mental health, children's education, bankruptcies, unemployment among non-state employees (especially in the travel, performing arts, hotel and trading sectors) and the psychological effects of isolation on some people, to mention only a few. Such a study would not invalidate a 'lockdown' but might suggest nuance in its application.

I don't know why people say that Sweden's strategy is effective. Sweden's death rate is 1,144 deaths per million population. That's a bit less than Spain's, which is 1,263. But nobody is saying we should follow Spain's strategy.

By comparison, Germany, with eight times Sweden's population, has a death rate of under 700 per million. Canada is 531. Denmark is 370. Sweden's other neighbours, who closed their border to Sweden because they trusted Sweden's approach so much, have death rates of 122 (Finland) and 104 (Norway).

Regarding the economic side: 2020 Q3 growth in Germany was 8.5% vs 4.9% in Sweden. In Q1 and Q2 the slump was 1.7% worse than in Sweden.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55347021

> Coronavirus: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

> Sweden's king has said his country "failed" to save lives with its relatively relaxed approach to the coronavirus pandemic.

> King Carl XVI Gustaf made the remarks as part of an annual TV review of the year with the royal family. ...

> Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said he agreed with the king's remarks.

> "Of course the fact that so many have died can't be considered as anything other than a failure," Mr Lofven told reporters.

His comments were widely circulated but are just that, his perspective, which seems influenced by outside pressure to admit failure where there isn't, because the data still makes Sweden look like they've done quite well

For more related discussion, see /r/LockdownSkepticism

Let's see the surplus mortality, gdp and employment figures.

Same reason everyone doesn’t speak Swedish.

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