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Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

Sweden did not "go back on it". They remain with significantly lighter restrictions than ~all of continental Europe:

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency...

As far as I can tell, their most stringent restrictions are limits on group gatherings to 8, and closing bars at 8pm:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/swedish-h...

Contrast to France, Italy, the UK, Belgium, etc., where people have been forcibly restricted to their homes for a significant portion of the last year.

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And Sweden has the worst infection and death rates per capita compared to all of Scandinavia:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coron...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14034948209802...

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden

So, let's be clear: you make claims that aren't true (Sweden hasn't done what you originally claimed; they have significantly fewer restrictions than most of Europe, even today), and then when people point out the factual inaccuracies in your statements, you retreat to arguing about the wisdom of Sweden's choices.

Reasonable people can disagree about policy choices, but misrepresenting facts as a starting point does not make you look reasonable.

My claims are true, Sweden has significantly tightened restrictions. And to add insult to injury, their death rate is appalling, so their policy was indeed wrong on top of not working.

You said:

> Sweden had to go back on it

They did not. If your standard for "going back on it" is "adding some restrictions", then you are erecting a straw man argument. By this standard, every country in Europe "had to go back on it", as all of them changed their tactics over time.

Also, not incidentally: I'm aware of no legitimate source for the claim that Sweden's hospitals were "full" (which is a non-specific claim). Most sources I've read emphasized that hospitals were under stress -- like in most parts of the Europe -- with some hospitals closer than others to capacity, and resources being shifted around the nation to manage:

https://www.thelocal.se/20201211/is-the-second-wave-overload...

Again, you could take this article and put it in Paris, Berlin, London, Brussels or other major cities in Europe in December of 2020. Details matter, and vague claims that "hospitals are full" are meaningless.

When their policy is "let's avoid any restrictions and just ask people to stay away from each other", and then they add light ( compared to other countries) restrictions, how is that not "going back [on their initial policy]"? No other European country persisted with the "no restrictions" policy post-spring 2020.

And i never said the Swedish hospital system was "full", just that their death toll compared to their neighbours was appalling, and said neighbors had to add restrictions on movement from Sweden.

But they faired much better than e.g. Spain and Belgium.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/24/swedens-2020-death-...

Which are incomparable due to a vast amount of variables ( culture, population density, population spread in housing, temperatures, weather, etc.)

That's patently false.

Everyone compares countries all the time.

You literally just did it a few posts up by comparing it to other Scandinavian countries which are all different from Sweden.

Covid zealots compare other countries to New Zealand when it's convenient.

All with different cultures climate population density etc.

If what you're saying is true then you can't make any claims about any country's success rate because they're all unique.

You're just selecting Sweden as incomparable because it doesn't fit your narrative.

Scandinavian countries have similar cultures, population densities, climates, customs ( e.g. people don't kiss on the cheek when they meet, which is what French people used to do pre-pandemic). They're more comparable between themselves than with Spain, with an entirely different climate, people living much closer together, etc.

New Zealand are isolated by water from everyone, lockdown is drastically easier in that case.

Swedes are European and share as much in common with Europeans as they do with other Scandinavian countries. Comparing Sweden to other European countries is a perfectly valid comparison.

You're cherry picking and choosing cultural aspects and labeling it as 'unquestionable fact' with no scientific evidence.

Classic Covid zealot move.

As a matter of fact, we're all human beings that like to congregate together and eat out and go to bars and coffee shops and see live music, and our biological drives have way more significance than anything cultural .

It's extremely disingenuous.

You have never visited any of those places, have you?

I don't know what "Covid zealot" is supposed to mean, but i think you need a reality check.

My understanding is that these restrictions were only imposed in December of last year (and are in force until at least 30 June), so I would tend to agree with the parent that they definitely changed directions.

They added some restrictions, certainly, but it's completely inaccurate to suggest that they've somehow reversed course -- the OP is erecting an ideologically rigid, straw-man argument that Sweden can never do anything differently at all, or they are somehow "going back on" their initial approach.

Overall, Sweden has taken a light touch with the pandemic, and continues to do so, even though, yes, they've adapted over time.

Of course they went back on their initial approach, same as the UK. If you say "no need to restrict anything, it will go away", your death toll is significantly hire than comparable countries, and then you enact restrictions, what is that? Yes, the situation and our knowledge of the virus and the pandemic is highly evolving and the UK took barely a few months before making a U-turn, while Sweden persisted for many months with their strategy, in spite of the death toll, and some research saying that the economic impact is still significant.

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