Sweden's COVID response - "Oops"

[pauldun170]

Remember back in the old timey days where closet racists with black friends would claim Sweden is a magical land of COVID proof Aryans?
Nope

At 43 deaths per 100,000, Sweden’s death rate is among the highest globally and far exceeds that of neighboring Denmark and Norway, which imposed much tougher lockdowns at the outset of the pandemic.

Sweden chose a looser lockdown. The scientist behind the strategy now says the death toll is too high

Anders Tegnell says the Swedish approach, which has allowed citizens to continue to go to restaurants and gyms, should be adapted as deaths soar

fortune.com

 

[SmCaudata]

It definitely looks like they bet wrong in the short term. What's so odd about the Sweeden decision is that their economy could have handled the shelter orders. They wouldn't have seen the catastrophic job/wage loss. This gamble had basically no reward.

In the US because a third of our workers are effectively paycheck to paycheck due to removal of worker protections and bargaining power, we will have ongoing problems leading to increase in substance use and mental health problems. Of course increasing short term deaths shouldn't be the answer there either. We should be instituting a basic living wage for those affected and providing free health care. But this is the US under control of the orange menace and Mr Turtle. We know that won't happen.

 

[Bitek]

Sweden was pushed by US conservatives as the model approach to follow (even if they are dirty socialists... Lol) and urged the lockdowns were an overreaction.

Well, doesn't seem to have played out that way.

Still some shocking/confusing results across the globe. Areas you would have thought would get devastated haven't (eg India.) Will be very interesting once this is over to see what worked and what didn't.

 

[sandorski]

Worked for awhile, but...

 

[Commodus]

The notion of achieving herd immunity quickly sounds good on a superficial level, but the reality is that it still takes a long time to achieve -- if it didn't, you'd have a full-fledged crisis with a large chunk of the population sick. All you really do by implementing a Sweden-like policy is kill a bunch of people who didn't have to die.

 

[mikeymikec]

UK: Hold my beer

 

[Brainonska511]

The notion of achieving herd immunity quickly sounds good on a superficial level, but the reality is that it still takes a long time to achieve -- if it didn't, you'd have a full-fledged crisis with a large chunk of the population sick. All you really do by implementing a Sweden-like policy is kill a bunch of people who didn't have to die.

There was a good op-ed in the NYT a few weeks ago on herd immunity. If you try to get herd immunity from the start of the outbreak, you're going to have a huge overshoot of infections required for the herd immunity. It's just generally a bad policy for controlling a deadly outbreak.

 

[pmv]

Sweden was pushed by U.S. conservatives as the model approach to follow (even if they are dirty socialists... Lol) and urged the lockdowns were an overreaction.

FTFY (I was confused by your post for a moment there!)

 

[pmv]

Been watching Sweden race up the table (sorted by deaths-per-million) for some time now. Been clear for ages that their strategy was not a success.
Not clear why they went for it, though.

 

[pmv]

UK: Hold my beer

We've overtaken Italy, and are about to overtake Spain, on the same metric.

UK, US and Sweden may finish "top three".

 

[K1052]

We've overtaken Italy, and are about to overtake Spain, on the same metric.

UK, US and Sweden may finish "top three".

I think Brazil is going to make even us look like geniuses.

 

[Commodus]

There was a good op-ed in the NYT a few weeks ago on herd immunity. If you try to get herd immunity from the start of the outbreak, you're going to have a huge overshoot of infections required for the herd immunity. It's just generally a bad policy for controlling a deadly outbreak.

That's a good point. The fantasy is that you'll get about enough infected to achieve herd immunity, and that's it. The reality is that you'll likely get considerably more, and that you'll be faced with some pretty horrible situations, like full hospitals and large portions of workforces out sick. It's also a pretty big ask to tell the public to take a chance on a virus like this... hey, want to risk enduring the worst fever you'll ever have, if not hospitalization and a considerably higher than usual chance of death?

 

[Bitek]

We've overtaken Italy, and are about to overtake Spain, on the same metric.

UK, US and Sweden may finish "top three".

Brazil is set to make a strong run for it.

 

[Bitek]

FTFY (I was confused by your post for a moment there!)

Gotta fix that!

 

[Jhhnn]

Ugh. By the time the world comes out the other side of the pandemic the US probably won't be in a position to be critical of other first world countries. The power of the virus is just beginning to be felt & there's damned little we'll be able to do to stop it. We don't have the headset or the means to engage in a massive public health endeavor like the Chinese or a few other countries. When we rejected the idea of big government we rejected the means to stop it.

 

[Ajay]

Sweden was pushed by US conservatives as the model approach to follow (even if they are dirty socialists... Lol) and urged the lockdowns were an overreaction.

WTF? Sweden is a US puppet state?

 

[ch33zw1z]

WTF? Sweden is a US puppet state?

A
Umm, no. Conservatives in the USA were largely pointing to Sweden as the go to method of reaction to the virus. That's all I got out of that post.

 

[IronWing]

WTF? Sweden is a US puppet state?

He means US conservatives were pointing to Sweden as a model for pandemic response.

 

[dawp]

WTF? Sweden is a US puppet state?

I think you're misreading that quote, seems he's saying US conservatives want to copy the Swedish model, which is likely.

 

[pmv]

WTF? Sweden is a US puppet state?

The post you are responding to doesn't even begin to imply that - don't know where you got that from.

The "Swedish model" for responding to the virus has been pushed by macho libertarian types everywhere, despite the clear evidence that it wasn't working at all well.

I realise I've said this multiple times now, but it does seem relevant that Sweden, for all its leftist social-democracy, was really, really keen on eugenics for most of the 20th century.

 

[hal2kilo]

The post you are responding to doesn't even begin to imply that - don't know where you got that from.

The "Swedish model" for responding to the virus has been pushed by macho libertarian types everywhere, despite the clear evidence that it wasn't working at all well.

I realise I've said this multiple times now, but it does seem relevant that Sweden, for all its leftist social-democracy, was really, really keen on eugenics for most of the 20th century.

So you are saying this was a good culling?

 

[pmv]

So you are saying this was a good culling?

I'm saying that attitude may still be there, and influencing decisions, even subconsciously.

 

[Ajay]

The post you are responding to doesn't even begin to imply that - don't know where you got that from.

The "Swedish model" for responding to the virus has been pushed by macho libertarian types everywhere, despite the clear evidence that it wasn't working at all well.

I realise I've said this multiple times now, but it does seem relevant that Sweden, for all its leftist social-democracy, was really, really keen on eugenics for most of the 20th century.

Well, since several people point this out, I obviously read that post completely out of context.

 

[Brainonska511]

That's a good point. The fantasy is that you'll get about enough infected to achieve herd immunity, and that's it. The reality is that you'll likely get considerably more, and that you'll be faced with some pretty horrible situations, like full hospitals and large portions of workforces out sick. It's also a pretty big ask to tell the public to take a chance on a virus like this... hey, want to risk enduring the worst fever you'll ever have, if not hospitalization and a considerably higher than usual chance of death?

In follow-up to my early comment, here is the article I was talking about: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

But even assuming that immunity is long-lasting, a very large number of people must be infected to reach the herd immunity threshold required. Given that current estimates suggest roughly 0.5 percent to 1 percent of all infections are fatal, that means a lot of deaths.

Perhaps most important to understand, the virus doesn’t magically disappear when the herd immunity threshold is reached. That’s not when things stop — it’s only when they start to slow down.

Once enough immunity has been built in the population, each person will infect fewer than one other person, so a new epidemic cannot start afresh. But an epidemic that is already underway will continue to spread. If 100,000 people are infectious at the peak and they each infect 0.9 people, that’s still 90,000 new infections, and more after that. A runaway train doesn’t stop the instant the track begins to slope uphill, and a rapidly spreading virus doesn’t stop right when herd immunity is attained

 

[cytg111]

Yea good job Sweden. Wtf.
Now we actually have a picture of the threat vector for the virus... its pretty simple, prevent super spreaders from accessing large groups of people. So the distancing works. Shut down of festivals, clubs etc, and identify super spreaders equals control over the virus.
If we had a way to identify the supers......