Sweden Dealing with Covid the Right Way

[beepbeep]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Success is measured my death. Pretty simple.

Yes. Success is measured by how little excess death you have compared with rolling average period for years prior to C19. Basically, how more dead people you have vs "usual" toll.


This measuring stock internalizes or externalities: direct C19 deaths+ indirect C19 deaths (untreated cancer patients, heart diseases, Domestic Violence due to lockdown, mental health issues, suicides due to worsened economy etc. etc.

The whole point if Swedish approach is to lower final impact. Daily figures are just sampling noise. We are nowhere near being able to tell what works and what does not.

[techweenie]

According to the latest number I've seen (yesterday), Sweden has had 2,679 deaths. Extrapolating from population size, that number for the US would calculate to 85,700.

[island911]

Originally Posted by techweenie

According to the latest number I've seen (yesterday), Sweden has had 2,679 deaths. Extrapolating from population size, that number for the US would calculate to 85,700.

Why not take NY and extrapolate that number for the US?

Or.. MA... extrapolate that number for the US...

You people cherry picking and extrapolating...

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by beepbeep

Yes. Success is measured by how little excess death you have compared with rolling average period for years prior to C19. Basically, how more dead people you have vs "usual" toll.


This measuring stock internalizes or externalities: direct C19 deaths+ indirect C19 deaths (untreated cancer patients, heart diseases, Domestic Violence due to lockdown, mental health issues, suicides due to worsened economy etc. etc.

The whole point if Swedish approach is to lower final impact. Daily figures are just sampling noise. We are nowhere near being able to tell what works and what does not.

"The whole point if Swedish approach is to lower final impact."

A worthy goal but in my opinion, one best left to situations that aren't life and death.

Sooner or later hasn't done the math and I'm sure he won't, but someone should. What do the mortality rates have to be on a weekly basis for neighboring countries Finland, Norway and Denmark have to be over the next year just to meet Sweden's rate? At 6 to 12 times their mortality rates, at what rates do the other countries have to suffer to catch up to Sweden?

And given the New Cases charts below, will they ever even come close to Sweden's mortality rate? Even adding in subjective data, I don't think they will come close.

2769 deaths



214 deaths



484 deaths



230

[island911]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

..
214 deaths


...

How can this be so low?

I mean Norway reopened their schools after just a couple weeks of being closed.

[island911]

Could there be any other factors besides social distance?

[island911]

Schools are said to be focal points for virus transmission.

So what gives Shaun?

Shaun hasn't done the math and I'm sure he won't, but someone should.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by island911

Why not take NY and extrapolate that number for the US?

Or.. MA... extrapolate that number for the US...

You people cherry picking and extrapolating...

Even if you accept that extrapolation and apply it to the US, Sweden’s approach seems successful.

Using TW’s extrapolation the US would have 85,000 deaths. Our panic driven, highly unscientific, economic nuclear bomb, one sized fits all (treat essentially the entire US like NYC) approach has resulted in 68,000 deaths.

So the Swedish approach/extrapolation would result in 17,000 more deaths.

But for that, we’d get: All schools under high schools remain open. Most businesses remain open. Negligible impact on our economy. Millions of jobs and businesses saved. *Far reduced “second wave” deaths. Far less corona indirect deaths- for example s lot of people are dying at home because they aren’t going to the hospital for heart conditions, cancer treatments, surgeries. Less suicides (there’s a stat for how much suicides increase in the US for every percentage unemployment rises, it is significant).

From a money standpoint I now hear our nuclear carpet bombing approach is going to cost $10 trillion. Even assume 60% of that, that’s $6 trillion. Divide that by 17,000 lives saved, and that’s s cost of $350 million per life.

In a world where 3 million die each year from starvation, if the goal is to save as many lives as possible the $6 trillion could have been used to save 100x more lives.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by McLovin

Even if you accept that extrapolation and apply it to the US, Sweden’s approach seems successful.

Using TW’s extrapolation the US would have 85,000 deaths. Our economic nuclear bomb, one sized fits all (treat essentially the entire US like NYC) has resulted in 68,000 deaths.

So the Swedish approach/extrapolation would result in 17,000 more deaths.

But for that, we’d get: All schools under high schools remain open. Most businesses remain open. Negligible impact on our economy. Millions of jobs and businesses saved. *Far reduced “second wave” deaths. Far less corona indirect deaths- for example s lot of people are dying at home because they aren’t going to the hospital for heart conditions, cancer treatments, surgeries. Less suicides (there’s a stat for how much suicides increase in the US for every percentage unemployment rises, it is significant).

From a money standpoint I now hear our nuclear carpet bombing approach is going to cost $10 trillion. Even assume 60% of that, that’s $6 trillion. Divide that by 17,000 lives saved, and that’s s cost of $350 million per life.

In a world where 3 million die each year from starvation, if the goal is to save as many lives as possible the $6 trillion could have been used to save 100x more lives.

Sweden is different from the U.S. in every way imaginable. A comparison can't be made. Or maybe you are onto something and we should use the Madagascar approach, 149 cases, 0 deaths, yes, ZERO, with 99 recovered. Seems like a winning strategy. Birx and Fauci have it all wrong. We should be using the Madagascar Method.

[island911]

Shaun, what you are missing is that this virus did not come into all areas equally. Nor do all areas have the same elder populations.

Look a little South... Belgium, right next to Germany... Huge dif.

Austria with 95 deaths (6 /mill) right next to Switzerland with 1784 deaths (206 /mill)

And here you are splitting hairs because countries neighboring Sweden have some less death. Meanwhile MAGNITUDE of differences in other neighboring countries doing pretty much the same counter measures. But those comparisons don't matter to you because you have an OCD fixation on a piece of propaganda.

[island911]

Originally Posted by McLovin

.... Divide that by 17,000 lives saved, and that’s s cost of $350 million per life.
....

Yeah, but for the typical Covid 85 y/o's that $350 million each buys them at least a few more months of enjoying lime jello at the nursing home - YOU MONSTER!

[spuggy]

Originally Posted by McLovin

Even if you accept that extrapolation and apply it to the US, Sweden’s approach seems successful.

Really? There's a number of people in Sweden who would disagree with you:

From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52525531

Sweden has now recorded around three times as many deaths as its Nordic neighbours combined.

...

A total of 2,769 people are known to have died with the coronavirus in Sweden. Sweden has focused on voluntary social distancing, in contrast to Denmark, Norway and Finland, which introduced stricter measures.

And https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/catastrophe-sweden-coronavirus-stoicism-lockdown-europe

Panic, though, is exactly what many within Sweden’s scientific and medical community are starting to feel. A petition signed by more than 2,000 doctors, scientists, and professors last week – including the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Prof Carl-Henrik Heldin – called on the government to introduce more stringent containment measures. “We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we have let the virus loose,” said Prof Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, a virus immunology researcher at the Karolinska Institute. “They are leading us to catastrophe.”
...
But such a situation may become inevitable. “The government thinks they can’t stop it, so they’ve decided to let people die,” Söderberg-Nauclér said. “They don’t want to listen to the scientific data that’s presented to them. They trust the Public Health Agency [Folkhälsomyndigheten] blindly, but the data they have is weak – embarrassing even.

“We are seeing signs of a higher doubling rate than Italy, Stockholm will soon have an acute ICU shortage, and they don’t understand that by then it will be too late to act. All of this is very dangerous.”

[island911]

"Sweden has now recorded around three times as many deaths as its Nordic neighbours combined."


And in my example Switzerland has 19x more deaths than neighboring Austria.

Is 19x more than 3x ?

Is Switzerland some poor country which can't afford good health care?

c'mon.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by spuggy

Really? There's a number of people in Sweden who would disagree with you:

From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52525531



And https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/catastrophe-sweden-coronavirus-stoicism-lockdown-europe

This is starting to get pretty circular, but apparently the vast majority of Swedes (over 80%) agree with me:

“More than 80% of Sweden’s residents say they think their country’s approach is the right one. Life has changed, but kids can go to school, people can work, and businesses have not been uniformly shuttered.”

https://qz.com/1842183/sweden-is-taking-a-very-different-approach-to-covid-19/

Objectively, minimal disruption to their lives and economy, minimal cost and impact on future generations, and thus far 2600 deaths out of 10 million people, it’s not surprising that most Swedes think they are taking the right approach. It’s their country, their economy and their lives, so what some Americans think doesn’t really matter to them.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

I took a small tour of my small tourist town. Beautiful day, as was yesterday. On May 4th, unless it's a stunami, monsoon or hurricane the place would be packed, no parking anywhere, restaurants and bars teeming with people.

Today: Nothing. A ghost town. Every busines had an 8X11 piece of paper taped to the front door saying various things like CLOSED for the VIRUS, CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR.

The only traffic I encountered was local people checking out the flooded areas because the Great Lakes are at record highs. And a few families riding bikes.

I have never in 40 years seen anything like this.

not since 1918 has there been anything like this

[McLovin]

Sweden has taken a science based approach, based on the science of this particular virus.

The US and many other countries have embarked on a grand unproven experiment.

When in the US’s 245 year history has the entire country shut down, unemployed tens of millions of people and spent $10 trillion because of a virus? Esp. a virus with a 0.xx% death rate?

An amazing, unprecedented $10 trillion experiment Fauci is conducting on the American people.

[jyl]

“Minimal” - demonstrably not true.

https://e-markets.nordea.com/#!/article/57278/sweden-macro-review-awful-pmi-report

Sweden is headed into a recession as deep as or deeper than 2008/09.

https://e-markets.nordea.com/#!/article/57281/sweden-macro-flash-swiftly-increasing-layoffs

Permanent plus temporary layoffs off the charts.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

It is humorous that Americans are arguing to use the Swedish strategy that isn't even working for Sweden.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by jyl

“Minimal” - demonstrably not true.

https://e-markets.nordea.com/#!/article/57278/sweden-macro-review-awful-pmi-report

Sweden is headed into a recession as deep as or deeper than 2008/09.

https://e-markets.nordea.com/#!/article/57281/sweden-macro-flash-swiftly-increasing-layoffs

Permanent plus temporary layoffs off the charts.

Oh. In that case they should have shuttered all their schools, closed all their businesses, orders everyone to stay home, put 25% more of their population on unemployment, bankrupted a bunch more of their businesses and spent 2X their national budget on this. That would have helped.

[McLovin]

But again, like In every country, we’ll see.
They aren’t idiots in Sweden. In fact, their approach is very different than an American approach. Their chief epidemiologist freely admits there’s unknowns and it remains to be seen what happens. They aren’t stuck on dogma and will change course if necessary, based on science and results.
So different than most of the thinking here, which seems to be “Fauci knows everything, and we know with absolute certainty that his approach was right 100% in every regard and any questioning of that makes you a ______ (fill in your favorite political team insult).”
But as of now the vast majority of Swedes agree with the choices their elected government has made, view the balances that were made as thus far being successful, and at this stage of the game it seems unlikely that they are going to have to change course (thankfully, at least to me. And apparently disappointingly to some).