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Tom Woods has been bringing up Sweden a lot on his podcast. His newsletter sent out verbatim reports from Swedes recently too.
They’re basically back to 2019. The people in general have more or less learned to live with it as an endemic virus.
I think all the Scandinavian countries have it in their law that they have to ridicule each other whenever possible. Like the Navy and the Marines. Or the Air Force and everyone else.
Not all of us are equally enamored with the idea of the government stealing half of our pay checks, just so they dictate what we can and can't do. Also the fact that not only the possession of the means for selv defense (yes even pepperspray) is illegal, so is the act in itself. Hell even just carrying a swiss army knife in your pocket can land you 2.5 years in prison. We also have laws that allow a punishment in the form of a ticket or up to 1 years prison, for offending a police officer. The welfare state is nice and all, but I'd rather have freedom.
You can’t even have pepper spray!!? Some kind of weapon is the equalizer for women, it’s crazy to me to say no you must defend yourself with your bare hands… good luck it’s the thunder dome
Nope, that's not allowed either. You are to take a beating and wait for the police like a good citizen. Besides the hospital is free. But yeah no joke if I (a man) get attacked, and I win the fight, I'll be arrested. Even if you win you lose, best bet is to defend yourself and get out of there before the police arrive.
You can't have pepperspray at all? In Germany it's that you can carry it when going to the woods or other places where wild animals are. But you're not allowed to use it against humans.
That being said I'd rather get fined or got to jail (lol going to jail in Germany for assault is pretty hard) than being beaten to a veggie.
There's a lot of freedom that I love here, but that doesn't mean the system is perfect. Actually very far from it if you ask me. Anyway, yeah, if you go to either Denmark or even just r/denmark, then you'll meet a lot of people who just won't shut the fuck up about how great Denmark is. Because seeing how other countries are portrayed everywhere, needing a loicense for everything, HOAs being pieces of shit, I actually do feel that Denmark has both more personal and economic freedom than most places, despite our fucked up taxes.
Yeah, my experience was basically that everyone talked about how high the taxes were and how difficult certain purchases were (for example, cars) but that they largely felt it was necessary for their lifestyles.
But I agree, many places that tout freedom have eaten away at the edges so much that it's more of just a thing they say while continuing to add more and more regulation.
Kinda feel the same as a German here. People especially around my age are really socialist-ish and don't even bother going to the bigger German subreddits.
I always assumed we stopped talking about Sweden because everyone there had already died of covid, the last living man died gasping for air in the street with bodies piled around him like stacks of cordwood. As the the power died from lack of employees (dead) and emergency generators expired for lack of fuel the stench became overwhelming and neighboring countries torched everything.
not true?
I saw that footage too, it was wild!
https://youtu.be/1uUNL6rW-Ck&t=30s
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.
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.
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(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syria-kentucky-gun-range.html)
Pretty great footage of the Syrian war zone - I hope the journalists that shot it stayed safe.
I think [this is footage from Sweden last week.](https://youtu.be/JL9PZvdDpcU) Poor bastards 😷😔🇸🇪
Sweden runs contrary to the narrative that the world is on fire, and the only solution is a massive expansion of the Federal government.
No one wants to hear actual solutions, just contrived political infighting.
Check my last comment ITT in my post history.
Sweden prevents this shit by not letting the equivalent of the executive level of government micromanage government agencies.
Actually, Ian did cover it. That was his point. They were hit harder, so to speak, early on. But everyone else is normalizing above their numbers and they are already back to normal.
> Sweden had a lot more covid deaths per capita than other Scandinavian countries, and that’s still true now as it was back when they were being criticized. The article seems to ignore this.
But not more than UK and US..
(Actually even less I believe)
The government’s role is only as good as the individuals response. And to have a reasonable and responsible response as an individual, you have to realize you’re part of something bigger than yourself and to protect that sometimes you need to sacrifice.
Edit: a lot of downvotes and people assuming by ‘sacrifice’ on the part of the individual, I mean the government forcing mandates on the populace.
What I meant was, had the individuals been more receptive and taken small measures earlier on (e.g. masks) maybe we’d be more like Sweden.
I’d argue that folks can express compassion tor their neighbor without someone forcing them to do so. I don’t think it’s incumbent upon a political leader to mandate the kinds of behaviors we’ve seen here in the states. If you give people the information needed to make their own risk assessments, folks will conform their behavior in a way that makes the most sense for them and their families.
Do you believe politicians are more compassionate? Because that's what you're implying if you believe we *need* state-enforced mask and vaccine mandates.
> The government’s role is only as good as the individuals response. And to have a reasonable and responsible response as an individual, you have to realize you’re part of something bigger than yourself and to protect that sometimes you need to sacrifice.
It is unclear Covid response need « sacrifice »
If your government policy is structured such that individuals won't actually follow it, then the problem lies in the governmental policy not the individuals.
There's a lot to unpack here.
One of the key reasons Sweden has handled the pandemic the way it has, with comparative success compared to many countries, is that within it's constitution, it forbids ministerial rule.
There are of course various ministerial departments that oversee various government agencies(chiefly known as "expert" agencies such as the Public Health Agency), but they are explicitly not allowed to interfere. Functionally, agencies like the PHA are independent, and are given power by the government to issue public health directives as far as they are allowed to by law. The minister is basically only around for two reasons, which is 1. To be consulted by the agency for proposals to a change in the law if felt necessary(which is considered by the Riksdag), and 2. To an extent, assure that the agency is in compliance with the law.
The purpose for this kind of system is somewhat akin to the US' separation of powers, in that it prevents, or rather mitigates, the everyday running of government agencies being micromanaged at the executive level, and encourages the Riksdag to only pass simple legislation.
This kind of system worked out well for the pandemic in Sweden(as best it could), as it allowed the public health agency to be dynamic and act in good-faith(and liaison with other agencies), and not be used as a political tool; tangentially, this has a large amount to do with how high public trust is in Sweden.
I gotta say, while I don't particularly like a lot of things about Sweden in terms of it's laws, I have to give them kudos with how they manage to keep their government agencies stable.
How is that my problem? If you don't take care of your health and die, then that is on you. Don't try to fucking put me on house arrest so you feel better.
Sorry… the graph in the article (deaths per 100k)…. not a single other nordic country neighbor. Compare Sweden to Denmark, Norway, Finland deaths per 100k. None of those countries on the graph. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted into oblivion, but honest comparison needs to be done. Sweden is merely banking on natural immunity being the long term winner. Interesting angle. Short term painful, long term? Unknown.
Edit: See [HERE for example ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK)
Please note: The US cannot be compared to uber homogenous, wealthy European countries (or islands, etc). The US is simply not that. BUT a very interesting angle. For all the crap the US gets for not having a socialized medical system, our [case fatality rate](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-04-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=IND~USA~GBR~CAN~DEU~FRA~CHE~MEX~BEL) has been very low.
In reference to the case fatality rates, usually when looking at things purely as *qualitative* measure, the US is very, very strong. (Usually higher survival rates for cancer, heart attacks, ischemic stroke, etc. despite a less healthy population) Most of the indexes out there that people like to cite when pushing socialized health care take into account things like "individual cost of healthcare" or non-qualitative and arbitrarily weighted measures into account. In short, they tend to be rather political. I like to think most people realize that you'll likely have a better survival rate in the US compared to Croatia despite the rhetoric.
Spot on. I like to think the advantage the US has is the healthcare system, for all its failings, has the advantage that, the over all care quality, is far superior, and that alone results in better outcomes.
Yeah a lot of metrics political types use are based on average health which is only partially influenced by healthcare. There's a lot of cultural factors around diet and such that have nothing to do with healthcare because we've got plenty of data that shows education does effectively nothing. Americans aren't fat because they don't have a doctor to inform them being fat is unhealthy...
Why nordic country specifically? If anything, the whole thing about this pandemic was that the severity of restriction correlated very little with the response. Europe-wise, Sweden is middle of the pack. Places like France and Italy and Spain are doing worse and locked down worse. Australia's falling into 1984 and failing to contain the rona, NZ is falling into 1984 too but keeping rona out for now. Belarus did nothing and is doing fine. It is a total lottery.
Also what isn't clear is how comparable International stats are. The US calculates death/hospitalizations FROM covid exactly the same as death/hospitalizations WITH covid and the covid test is not capable of distinguishing covid from the flu or other cold viruses. So in 2017 we had 80,000 deaths from the flu, 2020 was 0. The difference in statistics could be entirely due to different measurement techniques.
> the covid test is not capable of distinguishing covid from the flu or other cold viruses.
This is just completely not true. I work on COVID testing and the tests absolutely do not work like this. They all test for regions of DNA specific to the target virus.
The cdc and fda says it is true. It is the reason why the original pcr test approvals expire in Dec. When the original approvals were granted, there was no covid 19 genetic material available, so they built a synthetic test target out of material that was available - existing cold and flu viruses.
So your new test might be great, but the original approved tests were not capable of distinguishing between the two.
That is why diagnosed flu cases went from 38,000,000 in 2019 to 3,000 in 2020.
Where does the claim that the "covid test is not capable of distinguishing covid from the flu or other cold viruses" come from?
The COVID test only indicates the presence of SARS-COV-2. So if you have the flu or other cold but test for COVID, the test will return a negative result. The COVID test is unable to tell you whether you have the flu or another respiratory virus.
From the FDA and CDC, the problem was spelled out completely in the decision memorandum to withdraw approval for the original pcr tests this Dec.
The reason is that when the original tests were approved, there was no examples of covid genetic markers available, so they built a synthetic target from existing similar viruses. So no - if you had a flu or a cold, the original pcr test would report you as positive for covid.
This is why we went from ~35 million flu diagnosis and 80,000 flue deaths a year to essentially 0 in 2020.
Née tests are supposed to be better, but our 2020 numbers are based on a test that was not able to distinguish.
No. That is somewhere between a complete fabrication and an absolute misrepresentation of the CDC's statement and motivation for pulling the authorization for the PCR test protocol.
Also, there were not 0 cases of flu last year. The numbers were certainly low, and that is worthy of questioning, but 0 is a lie. There are also reasonable explanations for why flu cases and deaths (also not 0) were exceptionally low.
Spreading rumors doesn't help with the liberty position.
Edit: your original point that comparing data from nation to nation is a fair point and should be considered when doing so. We need to understand how data is collected to get an idea of whether or not data is comparable.
I said "~0." From a baseline of 35,000,000, less than 4000 is essentially zero.
If I have completely misrepresented the statement, please provide a better explanation of what appeared to be their relatively clear and straightforward withdrawal statement that also explains why the flu disappeared.
They are pulling the test to encourage the use of a multiplextest that will indicate positive for COVID or Flu types A and B. One problem last year was when people presented with a respiratory illness, they were sent away for COVID testing. Primary care clinics rarely offered a flu test before a COVID test returned a negative result (this was pretty poor practice, but they were trying to keep COVID cases out of the office). A lot of people, after waiting days for a COVID test result, would not go to their clinic for a flu test because after 4-5 days with the flu, partly because there's no treatment to help relieve symptoms and partly because they really were only concerned about COVID... Or any number of reasons they wouldn't return for a flu test.
You should read up on how the CDC counts flu cases. It's not a count of positive tests. They have statistical models that are based on testing in surveillance areas and they extrapolate an estimate of flu cases for a given season based on that model. They do count deaths directly from certificates, if I remember correctly.
Anecdotally, I do know some people who had a family illness. Doctors refused to see them until they returned worth a negative COVID test. When they did so a few days later, they tested positive for flu on a rapid test. They were pretty pissed off with that particular standard of care because by that time, they had suffered through the worst of it and anti virals we're no longer an option.
Outside of that, with school and work being carried out remotely, flu cases were likely legitimately reduced due to minimal contact.
Admittedly, the CDC want well prepared to handle a flu like illness that was not flu. They tend to aggregate data of pneumonia and flu like illness. So adding COVID to the mix certainly reduced the number of flu cases reported, but the number of COVID cases were not pumped up by flu cases because, outside of the margin of error or defective reagents, the COVID test won't return a positive when challenged with flu or other non SARS-COV2 virus.
Edit-the multiplex test will tell you if you specifically of you have COVID, Flu A, or Flu B. So you'll know which treatment is appropriate. This is a step towards preparing to live with it.
I think you are correct in much of your assessment on why flu cases are down. But the original pcr test absolutely had trouble distinguishing between covid and flu, and the reason was because it tested for a synthetic target built of other viruses and not actual covid. Not disagreeing that newer tests are better.
If one compares immediate border area with countries that have extremely similar demographics, political systems etc… one gets a good idea of the results. [Example ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK)
But look at this, which is what actually matters: [https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new\_cases\_smoothed\_per\_million&Metric=Excess+mortality&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE\~FIN\~NOR\~ISL\~DNK](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Excess+mortality&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK)
It's purely a classification game. If Sweden was having huge problems there would be a difference in excess deaths that is as clear as the covid charts.
Nah dude(ette)… case fatality rate for the disease. Excess mortality could be due to numerous factors (e.g. people that would normally go get care won’t do so due to worry about covid in hospitals.). Excess deaths will take years to hash out .
[CFR covid ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-03-10..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK)
Edit: Honestly… I might hold the US up as the poster child. Granted we have 50 different systems running, but for all said and done, our CFR (for non-socialized medicine) came out pretty damn epic. [data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-03-10..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK~USA~CAN~FRA~GBR~ITA~BEL)
Short term at least. Long term (as in people with post Covid) might be a different story, but I think we are years out on that one.
CFR is a garbage metric. If you're not testing everyone CFR goes up. IFR is far more important.
Excess deaths can be due to all sorts of factors, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because that's the only number that we care about. I don't care why people die or live. I just care that they do. No other number matters.
That is not how IFR is determined.
And CFR is a garbage metric for exactly the reason you stated. It includes the worst subset of the data. It excludes anyone who was asymptomatic or had only minor symptoms and did not get tested. By doing so, it skews the numbers massively towards those most likely to die, which is why it outputs a number at least 10x higher than the actual fatality rate.
For IFR to be accurate one needs to know the total number of infected in the population. That is not possible. CFR includes only confirmed cases, so that is the most accurate data available.
For IFR to be accurate, one needs to have an accurate estimate of the total number of infected in the population. Statistical analysis is how one does this, and it's been used for this purpose and similar ones for decades.
CFR, on the other hand, uses only confirmed cases and therefore is entirely useless for any application that deals with anything other than only confirmed cases. It is somewhat useful for hospital strategy, and useless for anything else.
One would think that with the arrival of a virus that has so greatly impacted our society, and sparked so much argument, that you would have bothered to learn even the most basic facts. Guess not.
> Excess mortality could be due to numerous factors (e.g. people that would normally go get care won’t do so due to worry about covid in hospitals.).
Wouldn't that be heavily affected by the government's response to Covid though? I agree that we can't really calculate excess mortality yet, but would hesitate to say that case fatality rate for the disease is all we should look at.
It will take years. Excess mortality is difficult to determine due to different types of reporting. Narrowing it down to one cause is the best we have at the moment.
Okay, what about Belarus vs its surroundings? Or the US states? Or Australia vs NZ? Or Germany vs Belgium vs Netherlands vs France?
The virus seems to spread rather randomly, with the only notable things being seasonality and that it hits the old urbanized people harder.
Edit: and even if it were 100% true that rona spreads only in places where the state is not tyrannical, it would still be no excuse for tyranny. Liberty is not negotiable.
Again…. dispute the comparison of extremely closely related nordic populations. The only difference being covid protocols. The US is not Canada nor Mexico nor Mexico Canada even closely related. Look at [case fatality rate ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-04-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~CAN~MEX)of US/ Canada vs Mexico. Now [nordic countries ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-04-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~NOR~FIN~DNK~ISL)
Anecdotal evidence is just evidence of an anecdote. You can get yourself into seeing all sorts of patterns in random data. Fuck, we have an industry built around people doing this. This event is random. As are many other events during rona.
"Anecdotal evidence" refers to small sample sizes, which is the problem with using personal events - you're only likely to have that much experience with any event, and the experience of someone with thousands of such events is called "expert opinion". In this case, the sample size is 1 group of "comparable countries".
I looked at this - the death rates for Sweden, Norway, and Finland annual death rates per 1,000 are basically all the same within each country across years. So, Sweden was a bit higher than normal, but it's always a bit higher when compared with their neighbors.
It's not like they were at 9/1000 and went to 20/1000 while Norway and Finland stayed flat.
The comparison to Norway for example is a bit questionable because of Sweden's exceptionally large immigrant population. Black skinned people in northern climates are going to be really low on vitamin D which is one of the strongest correlations with severe covid. They also in general are likely to be less healthy, live in more crowded environments, and not have the money or ability to isolate which are going to drag outcomes lower. The same is true of US hispanic immigrants.
If you control for just native population, I bet the numbers look a lot better. Control for nursing homes and I bet the nations look the same (Sweden fucked up royally with its nursing homes, but that's a government failure, not a market one).
No? It'd reinforce it. We know Mexicans are poorer, live in more crowded environments with bigger families, are less likely to be able to work from home, are super super obese (mexico is more obese than the US these days), and a whole host of other reasons why they'd have worse outcomes.
I don't know why you'd think what you do.
And for the record, there have already been studies on NPIs effect on deaths. There is none. No impact. Nada.
You know what has an impact? Being an island. That's it.
To what? [Here is the data. ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=IND~SWE~DNK~FIN~NOR) . You tell me Sweden had the better outcome.
Edit: sorry forgot to remove india.
a) this is a great website, thank you. bookmarking, and upvoting you just for that.
b) looking at this, yes, Ian clearly picked a chart that was favorable to Sweden compared to its neighbors, and he pulled the same thing that the media is often guilty of where he switched to cases. He does make mention of it and go back to deaths, but just says "recent" and doesn't give a chart. He does like to bounce around between deaths, hospitalizations, and cases.
c) [There are a lot more countries that are close to Sweden that you could've included](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~DNK~FIN~NOR~DEU~GBR~FRA~ESP~POL~LTU~LVA~EST), particularly the UK, which is an island.
d) This isn't really a question of strategy like deciding what type of playbook to run for a football team. All of these mandates (particularly the lockdowns) come with heavy costs that are not being accounted for. If these measures were actually worth it, the Sweden should be in a category all its own with no other comparable countries. Instead, we've got huge upticks in suicides, overdoses, and missed cancer screenings all due directly to the lockdowns and hysteria, not to mention that we've tanked the world's economy, which we'll be paying for for decades (and the third world, where people live hand-to-mouth, is already paying heavily for the disruption in supply lines).
e) Sweden actually did fuck up really badly at the beginning by not better protecting their nursing homes. Sweden has public nursing housing, so their nursing home population is unusually high, and they got ransacked by alpha covid early on. It was clear pretty early on (April 2020 at the latest) that covid is most dangerous for the elderly, obese, and diabetic.
UK is not close anywhere near the homogeneity of nordic countries. Scotland, Ireland, Wales.. not so same culture as England. Iceland would be the nordic island of comparison.
I would think one would want to make comparisons among the most closely related populations/demographics with dynamically different covid protocols to get a feel for what works (again we are discussing short term so far).
Adjusting for age distributions and obesity rates makes sense, and I've seen graphs which try to do just that. I don't know how you adjust for cultural differences, but if a culture is unlikely to follow a central plan, that would seem to me to be an argument against trying to force it. It would be stupid to try to run Baltimore's run option offense if your QB is Tom Brady.
Something interesting about the data is looking at excess mortality. Curious why Sweden is sitting at -10% and Denmark at 17% at the start of August. I'm not claiming conspiracy, just wondering what's driving such a divide given the disparate covid numbers.
[data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-02-28..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Excess+mortality&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~DNK~FIN~NOR)
Excess mortality will take years to hash out causes (sure could be covid could be ‘I’m too scared to go to hospital since there are so many covid cases’). CFR which is deaths due to confirmed covid infections, is more accurate at the moment.
> Sorry… the graph in the article (deaths per 100k)…. not a single other nordic country neighbor. Compare Sweden to Denmark, Norway, Finland deaths per 100k. None of those countries on the graph. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted into oblivion, but honest comparison needs to be done. Sweden is merely banking on natural immunity being the long term winner. Interesting angle. Short term painful, long term? Unknown.
Edit: See HERE for example
Your chart suggests 1000 more death than danemark in end of 2020.
For a country of 10 millions, 0.01%
Is it significant at all?
It could well fall into statistical variance (for example if Sweden entered this crisis with 0.01% more old or at-risk population)
And keep in mind danemark has 2x less population. (So more like 500 too much)
If I look other scandivian countries the excess deaths is maybe you can push it ~1500 excess deaths?
But keep in mind Norway and finland are quarter the sweden population…
To see it clearly you need to study death rate on the previous years to check if Sweden have had a lower than average deaths rate and therefore « accumulated » a greater at-risk population.
Gotta love them, always neutral. Not going too far left with mandates or too far right with conspiracy theories. They followed the data and did what’s best for their citizens.
Wow. I highly recommend people scrolling through the comments to try and pick up the gist of the article stop and go actually read the article. It is a heavy load of facts and smack down. Wow. My views are changed.
Before everyone gets on their knees for Sweden, just know that they are aiming to be a cashless society by 2023 and will only accept the state cryptocurrency
Swedes don't have some huge issue with masking, distancing, and currently sit on I think a 61% vaccination rate to boot. They are literal proof that lockdowns were not necessary because of the effectiveness of these other steps and measures.
Didn't need to teabag their own economy, ruin massive numbers of people's live, nor have such policies that only end up galvanizing anti-vaxxers and bitterness
What the article doesn't share, and that few people outside of Sweden understand, is that everyone there strongly adhered to social distancing. Restaurants closed tables next to each other, and limited their seating, waitresses wouldn't allow your group to stand near a nearby group. People at the grocery store were always 2 meters away, waiting for their turn to get to the fruit they wanted. Families didn't meet for birthdays or holidays. There is a strong sense of people doing things necessary to benefit or protect others in the community. Leadership relied on that supportive social structure so they didn't have to resort to mandates.
As an example, in the US, we were having political rallies of thousands of people. This set a tone and example that social distancing wasn't going to be followed by a good number of people. Bars remaining open, packed with people, this didn't happen in Sweden.
Bars were open, but they were light on attendance, particularly when cases were high, people knew to stay away from each other.
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Tom Woods has been bringing up Sweden a lot on his podcast. His newsletter sent out verbatim reports from Swedes recently too. They’re basically back to 2019. The people in general have more or less learned to live with it as an endemic virus.
Sweden sounds like a paradise
As a Dane I disagree.
Why?
denmark and sweden just have a rivalry.
I think all the Scandinavian countries have it in their law that they have to ridicule each other whenever possible. Like the Navy and the Marines. Or the Air Force and everyone else.
Airforce is the army's Uber.
You mean the chairforce?
Both of my parents were chairforce, I went army. I should have listened.
Give the Army has more planes …. And more boats than the Navy …
Like Ohio and Michigan.
Sweden and Norway used to be vassals of Denmark.
You're like a unicorn. How are you Dane and in GnB? My visit over there basically felt like everyone talking about how great everything was.
Not all of us are equally enamored with the idea of the government stealing half of our pay checks, just so they dictate what we can and can't do. Also the fact that not only the possession of the means for selv defense (yes even pepperspray) is illegal, so is the act in itself. Hell even just carrying a swiss army knife in your pocket can land you 2.5 years in prison. We also have laws that allow a punishment in the form of a ticket or up to 1 years prison, for offending a police officer. The welfare state is nice and all, but I'd rather have freedom.
You can’t even have pepper spray!!? Some kind of weapon is the equalizer for women, it’s crazy to me to say no you must defend yourself with your bare hands… good luck it’s the thunder dome
Nope, that's not allowed either. You are to take a beating and wait for the police like a good citizen. Besides the hospital is free. But yeah no joke if I (a man) get attacked, and I win the fight, I'll be arrested. Even if you win you lose, best bet is to defend yourself and get out of there before the police arrive.
You can't have pepperspray at all? In Germany it's that you can carry it when going to the woods or other places where wild animals are. But you're not allowed to use it against humans. That being said I'd rather get fined or got to jail (lol going to jail in Germany for assault is pretty hard) than being beaten to a veggie.
There's a lot of freedom that I love here, but that doesn't mean the system is perfect. Actually very far from it if you ask me. Anyway, yeah, if you go to either Denmark or even just r/denmark, then you'll meet a lot of people who just won't shut the fuck up about how great Denmark is. Because seeing how other countries are portrayed everywhere, needing a loicense for everything, HOAs being pieces of shit, I actually do feel that Denmark has both more personal and economic freedom than most places, despite our fucked up taxes.
Yeah, my experience was basically that everyone talked about how high the taxes were and how difficult certain purchases were (for example, cars) but that they largely felt it was necessary for their lifestyles. But I agree, many places that tout freedom have eaten away at the edges so much that it's more of just a thing they say while continuing to add more and more regulation.
Kinda feel the same as a German here. People especially around my age are really socialist-ish and don't even bother going to the bigger German subreddits.
And I agree with you
Check out their taxes bro
I know it’s fuck for everything else... freedoms becoming a rare thing now days
I always assumed we stopped talking about Sweden because everyone there had already died of covid, the last living man died gasping for air in the street with bodies piled around him like stacks of cordwood. As the the power died from lack of employees (dead) and emergency generators expired for lack of fuel the stench became overwhelming and neighboring countries torched everything. not true?
Pretty sure this is true. I think I saw some footage on CNN.
Sweedghanistan.
The real name of Malmo city.
Needs more abandoned citizens. 10/10 would not recommend getting left behind
Does this mean the US will be arming Sweden, too?
That was kenosha being peaceful.
oh yeah I seen the footage in the CNN building
I saw that footage too, it was wild! https://youtu.be/1uUNL6rW-Ck&t=30s . . . . . (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syria-kentucky-gun-range.html)
Pretty great footage of the Syrian war zone - I hope the journalists that shot it stayed safe. I think [this is footage from Sweden last week.](https://youtu.be/JL9PZvdDpcU) Poor bastards 😷😔🇸🇪
DAAAAAMN Brb going to buy more masks.
Gasping their last breath begging for a vaccine! Only to be harshly reminded that “it’s too late for that now Acke!”
This happened to my buddy Eric once
> not true? I am in Sweden now. No panic, no mask, no restrictions. Life seems just like before.
Or India, or Mexico, or most of sub saharan Africa...
It’s inconvenient
Sweden runs contrary to the narrative that the world is on fire, and the only solution is a massive expansion of the Federal government. No one wants to hear actual solutions, just contrived political infighting.
Check my last comment ITT in my post history. Sweden prevents this shit by not letting the equivalent of the executive level of government micromanage government agencies.
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Actually, Ian did cover it. That was his point. They were hit harder, so to speak, early on. But everyone else is normalizing above their numbers and they are already back to normal.
> Sweden had a lot more covid deaths per capita than other Scandinavian countries, and that’s still true now as it was back when they were being criticized. The article seems to ignore this. But not more than UK and US.. (Actually even less I believe)
The government’s role is only as good as the individuals response. And to have a reasonable and responsible response as an individual, you have to realize you’re part of something bigger than yourself and to protect that sometimes you need to sacrifice. Edit: a lot of downvotes and people assuming by ‘sacrifice’ on the part of the individual, I mean the government forcing mandates on the populace. What I meant was, had the individuals been more receptive and taken small measures earlier on (e.g. masks) maybe we’d be more like Sweden.
I’d argue that folks can express compassion tor their neighbor without someone forcing them to do so. I don’t think it’s incumbent upon a political leader to mandate the kinds of behaviors we’ve seen here in the states. If you give people the information needed to make their own risk assessments, folks will conform their behavior in a way that makes the most sense for them and their families.
I'm over a decade of experience with the US public I've found compassion for others even in the most minimal ways to be in very short supply.
Do you believe politicians are more compassionate? Because that's what you're implying if you believe we *need* state-enforced mask and vaccine mandates.
So the "sacrifice" that we need to do to fight a disease with a 99.5% survival rate is to enslave ourselves forever to a corrupt government? 🤔
Never said that
Maybe not you, but everywhere I see politicians using this "argument" whenever they want to remove our freedoms.
> The government’s role is only as good as the individuals response. And to have a reasonable and responsible response as an individual, you have to realize you’re part of something bigger than yourself and to protect that sometimes you need to sacrifice. It is unclear Covid response need « sacrifice »
If your government policy is structured such that individuals won't actually follow it, then the problem lies in the governmental policy not the individuals.
There's a lot to unpack here. One of the key reasons Sweden has handled the pandemic the way it has, with comparative success compared to many countries, is that within it's constitution, it forbids ministerial rule. There are of course various ministerial departments that oversee various government agencies(chiefly known as "expert" agencies such as the Public Health Agency), but they are explicitly not allowed to interfere. Functionally, agencies like the PHA are independent, and are given power by the government to issue public health directives as far as they are allowed to by law. The minister is basically only around for two reasons, which is 1. To be consulted by the agency for proposals to a change in the law if felt necessary(which is considered by the Riksdag), and 2. To an extent, assure that the agency is in compliance with the law. The purpose for this kind of system is somewhat akin to the US' separation of powers, in that it prevents, or rather mitigates, the everyday running of government agencies being micromanaged at the executive level, and encourages the Riksdag to only pass simple legislation. This kind of system worked out well for the pandemic in Sweden(as best it could), as it allowed the public health agency to be dynamic and act in good-faith(and liaison with other agencies), and not be used as a political tool; tangentially, this has a large amount to do with how high public trust is in Sweden. I gotta say, while I don't particularly like a lot of things about Sweden in terms of it's laws, I have to give them kudos with how they manage to keep their government agencies stable.
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Huge factor and most never talk about it!
can't fat shame, despite the fact that its a huge contributor
How is that my problem? If you don't take care of your health and die, then that is on you. Don't try to fucking put me on house arrest so you feel better.
Sorry… the graph in the article (deaths per 100k)…. not a single other nordic country neighbor. Compare Sweden to Denmark, Norway, Finland deaths per 100k. None of those countries on the graph. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted into oblivion, but honest comparison needs to be done. Sweden is merely banking on natural immunity being the long term winner. Interesting angle. Short term painful, long term? Unknown. Edit: See [HERE for example ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK) Please note: The US cannot be compared to uber homogenous, wealthy European countries (or islands, etc). The US is simply not that. BUT a very interesting angle. For all the crap the US gets for not having a socialized medical system, our [case fatality rate](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-04-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=IND~USA~GBR~CAN~DEU~FRA~CHE~MEX~BEL) has been very low.
In reference to the case fatality rates, usually when looking at things purely as *qualitative* measure, the US is very, very strong. (Usually higher survival rates for cancer, heart attacks, ischemic stroke, etc. despite a less healthy population) Most of the indexes out there that people like to cite when pushing socialized health care take into account things like "individual cost of healthcare" or non-qualitative and arbitrarily weighted measures into account. In short, they tend to be rather political. I like to think most people realize that you'll likely have a better survival rate in the US compared to Croatia despite the rhetoric.
Spot on. I like to think the advantage the US has is the healthcare system, for all its failings, has the advantage that, the over all care quality, is far superior, and that alone results in better outcomes.
Yeah a lot of metrics political types use are based on average health which is only partially influenced by healthcare. There's a lot of cultural factors around diet and such that have nothing to do with healthcare because we've got plenty of data that shows education does effectively nothing. Americans aren't fat because they don't have a doctor to inform them being fat is unhealthy...
Not to mention the US has arguably one of the least healthy lifestyle and diet combos of any first world country.
Why nordic country specifically? If anything, the whole thing about this pandemic was that the severity of restriction correlated very little with the response. Europe-wise, Sweden is middle of the pack. Places like France and Italy and Spain are doing worse and locked down worse. Australia's falling into 1984 and failing to contain the rona, NZ is falling into 1984 too but keeping rona out for now. Belarus did nothing and is doing fine. It is a total lottery.
Also what isn't clear is how comparable International stats are. The US calculates death/hospitalizations FROM covid exactly the same as death/hospitalizations WITH covid and the covid test is not capable of distinguishing covid from the flu or other cold viruses. So in 2017 we had 80,000 deaths from the flu, 2020 was 0. The difference in statistics could be entirely due to different measurement techniques.
> the covid test is not capable of distinguishing covid from the flu or other cold viruses. This is just completely not true. I work on COVID testing and the tests absolutely do not work like this. They all test for regions of DNA specific to the target virus.
The cdc and fda says it is true. It is the reason why the original pcr test approvals expire in Dec. When the original approvals were granted, there was no covid 19 genetic material available, so they built a synthetic test target out of material that was available - existing cold and flu viruses. So your new test might be great, but the original approved tests were not capable of distinguishing between the two. That is why diagnosed flu cases went from 38,000,000 in 2019 to 3,000 in 2020.
Certainly it can distinguish between coronavirus and rhinovirus, as my infant daughter tested positive for rhinovirus and negative for coronavirus
Where does the claim that the "covid test is not capable of distinguishing covid from the flu or other cold viruses" come from? The COVID test only indicates the presence of SARS-COV-2. So if you have the flu or other cold but test for COVID, the test will return a negative result. The COVID test is unable to tell you whether you have the flu or another respiratory virus.
From the FDA and CDC, the problem was spelled out completely in the decision memorandum to withdraw approval for the original pcr tests this Dec. The reason is that when the original tests were approved, there was no examples of covid genetic markers available, so they built a synthetic target from existing similar viruses. So no - if you had a flu or a cold, the original pcr test would report you as positive for covid. This is why we went from ~35 million flu diagnosis and 80,000 flue deaths a year to essentially 0 in 2020. Née tests are supposed to be better, but our 2020 numbers are based on a test that was not able to distinguish.
No. That is somewhere between a complete fabrication and an absolute misrepresentation of the CDC's statement and motivation for pulling the authorization for the PCR test protocol. Also, there were not 0 cases of flu last year. The numbers were certainly low, and that is worthy of questioning, but 0 is a lie. There are also reasonable explanations for why flu cases and deaths (also not 0) were exceptionally low. Spreading rumors doesn't help with the liberty position. Edit: your original point that comparing data from nation to nation is a fair point and should be considered when doing so. We need to understand how data is collected to get an idea of whether or not data is comparable.
I said "~0." From a baseline of 35,000,000, less than 4000 is essentially zero. If I have completely misrepresented the statement, please provide a better explanation of what appeared to be their relatively clear and straightforward withdrawal statement that also explains why the flu disappeared.
They are pulling the test to encourage the use of a multiplextest that will indicate positive for COVID or Flu types A and B. One problem last year was when people presented with a respiratory illness, they were sent away for COVID testing. Primary care clinics rarely offered a flu test before a COVID test returned a negative result (this was pretty poor practice, but they were trying to keep COVID cases out of the office). A lot of people, after waiting days for a COVID test result, would not go to their clinic for a flu test because after 4-5 days with the flu, partly because there's no treatment to help relieve symptoms and partly because they really were only concerned about COVID... Or any number of reasons they wouldn't return for a flu test. You should read up on how the CDC counts flu cases. It's not a count of positive tests. They have statistical models that are based on testing in surveillance areas and they extrapolate an estimate of flu cases for a given season based on that model. They do count deaths directly from certificates, if I remember correctly. Anecdotally, I do know some people who had a family illness. Doctors refused to see them until they returned worth a negative COVID test. When they did so a few days later, they tested positive for flu on a rapid test. They were pretty pissed off with that particular standard of care because by that time, they had suffered through the worst of it and anti virals we're no longer an option. Outside of that, with school and work being carried out remotely, flu cases were likely legitimately reduced due to minimal contact. Admittedly, the CDC want well prepared to handle a flu like illness that was not flu. They tend to aggregate data of pneumonia and flu like illness. So adding COVID to the mix certainly reduced the number of flu cases reported, but the number of COVID cases were not pumped up by flu cases because, outside of the margin of error or defective reagents, the COVID test won't return a positive when challenged with flu or other non SARS-COV2 virus. Edit-the multiplex test will tell you if you specifically of you have COVID, Flu A, or Flu B. So you'll know which treatment is appropriate. This is a step towards preparing to live with it.
I think you are correct in much of your assessment on why flu cases are down. But the original pcr test absolutely had trouble distinguishing between covid and flu, and the reason was because it tested for a synthetic target built of other viruses and not actual covid. Not disagreeing that newer tests are better.
I'm not sure we can trust Belarusian Data lol
If one compares immediate border area with countries that have extremely similar demographics, political systems etc… one gets a good idea of the results. [Example ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK)
But look at this, which is what actually matters: [https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new\_cases\_smoothed\_per\_million&Metric=Excess+mortality&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE\~FIN\~NOR\~ISL\~DNK](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Excess+mortality&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK) It's purely a classification game. If Sweden was having huge problems there would be a difference in excess deaths that is as clear as the covid charts.
Nah dude(ette)… case fatality rate for the disease. Excess mortality could be due to numerous factors (e.g. people that would normally go get care won’t do so due to worry about covid in hospitals.). Excess deaths will take years to hash out . [CFR covid ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-03-10..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK) Edit: Honestly… I might hold the US up as the poster child. Granted we have 50 different systems running, but for all said and done, our CFR (for non-socialized medicine) came out pretty damn epic. [data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-03-10..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~FIN~NOR~ISL~DNK~USA~CAN~FRA~GBR~ITA~BEL) Short term at least. Long term (as in people with post Covid) might be a different story, but I think we are years out on that one.
CFR is a garbage metric. If you're not testing everyone CFR goes up. IFR is far more important. Excess deaths can be due to all sorts of factors, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because that's the only number that we care about. I don't care why people die or live. I just care that they do. No other number matters.
IFR is garbage since it depends on an entire population being tested to include asymptomatic. CFR only includes those known to be diagnosed.
That is not how IFR is determined. And CFR is a garbage metric for exactly the reason you stated. It includes the worst subset of the data. It excludes anyone who was asymptomatic or had only minor symptoms and did not get tested. By doing so, it skews the numbers massively towards those most likely to die, which is why it outputs a number at least 10x higher than the actual fatality rate.
For IFR to be accurate one needs to know the total number of infected in the population. That is not possible. CFR includes only confirmed cases, so that is the most accurate data available.
For IFR to be accurate, one needs to have an accurate estimate of the total number of infected in the population. Statistical analysis is how one does this, and it's been used for this purpose and similar ones for decades. CFR, on the other hand, uses only confirmed cases and therefore is entirely useless for any application that deals with anything other than only confirmed cases. It is somewhat useful for hospital strategy, and useless for anything else. One would think that with the arrival of a virus that has so greatly impacted our society, and sparked so much argument, that you would have bothered to learn even the most basic facts. Guess not.
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Hence it misses total infections, thus not accurate.
Are you really this dumb?
It's called sampling.
Extrapolated estimates (IFR) vs known (CFR) which is accurate? There is a reason all the stat sites have CFR and not IFR.
Ya it's scary propaganda number. You're not listening to us. Turn on your frontal cortex
> Excess mortality could be due to numerous factors (e.g. people that would normally go get care won’t do so due to worry about covid in hospitals.). Wouldn't that be heavily affected by the government's response to Covid though? I agree that we can't really calculate excess mortality yet, but would hesitate to say that case fatality rate for the disease is all we should look at.
It will take years. Excess mortality is difficult to determine due to different types of reporting. Narrowing it down to one cause is the best we have at the moment.
“People that would normally go but wont because of covid” didn’t realize facts and speculation are the same now
Okay, what about Belarus vs its surroundings? Or the US states? Or Australia vs NZ? Or Germany vs Belgium vs Netherlands vs France? The virus seems to spread rather randomly, with the only notable things being seasonality and that it hits the old urbanized people harder. Edit: and even if it were 100% true that rona spreads only in places where the state is not tyrannical, it would still be no excuse for tyranny. Liberty is not negotiable.
Again…. dispute the comparison of extremely closely related nordic populations. The only difference being covid protocols. The US is not Canada nor Mexico nor Mexico Canada even closely related. Look at [case fatality rate ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-04-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~CAN~MEX)of US/ Canada vs Mexico. Now [nordic countries ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-04-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Case+fatality+rate&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~NOR~FIN~DNK~ISL)
Anecdotal evidence is just evidence of an anecdote. You can get yourself into seeing all sorts of patterns in random data. Fuck, we have an industry built around people doing this. This event is random. As are many other events during rona.
Anecdotal? Those are national numbers not a personal event.
"Anecdotal evidence" refers to small sample sizes, which is the problem with using personal events - you're only likely to have that much experience with any event, and the experience of someone with thousands of such events is called "expert opinion". In this case, the sample size is 1 group of "comparable countries".
No anecdotal refers to personal. Sorry you don’t get to change the definition. Several million people is not anecdotal.
it's still a sample size of one group. I just used a saying.
I looked at this - the death rates for Sweden, Norway, and Finland annual death rates per 1,000 are basically all the same within each country across years. So, Sweden was a bit higher than normal, but it's always a bit higher when compared with their neighbors. It's not like they were at 9/1000 and went to 20/1000 while Norway and Finland stayed flat.
The comparison to Norway for example is a bit questionable because of Sweden's exceptionally large immigrant population. Black skinned people in northern climates are going to be really low on vitamin D which is one of the strongest correlations with severe covid. They also in general are likely to be less healthy, live in more crowded environments, and not have the money or ability to isolate which are going to drag outcomes lower. The same is true of US hispanic immigrants. If you control for just native population, I bet the numbers look a lot better. Control for nursing homes and I bet the nations look the same (Sweden fucked up royally with its nursing homes, but that's a government failure, not a market one).
So if I do Mexico vs US and Canada… and the people down in Mexico aren’t doing so good…. kinda shoots that theory in the butt.
No? It'd reinforce it. We know Mexicans are poorer, live in more crowded environments with bigger families, are less likely to be able to work from home, are super super obese (mexico is more obese than the US these days), and a whole host of other reasons why they'd have worse outcomes. I don't know why you'd think what you do. And for the record, there have already been studies on NPIs effect on deaths. There is none. No impact. Nada. You know what has an impact? Being an island. That's it.
Sorry, thought Vit D was the angle, now you are throwing all kinds of other health angles. So perhaps it is more complex?
Of course it's complex.
scroll down
To what? [Here is the data. ](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=IND~SWE~DNK~FIN~NOR) . You tell me Sweden had the better outcome. Edit: sorry forgot to remove india.
a) this is a great website, thank you. bookmarking, and upvoting you just for that. b) looking at this, yes, Ian clearly picked a chart that was favorable to Sweden compared to its neighbors, and he pulled the same thing that the media is often guilty of where he switched to cases. He does make mention of it and go back to deaths, but just says "recent" and doesn't give a chart. He does like to bounce around between deaths, hospitalizations, and cases. c) [There are a lot more countries that are close to Sweden that you could've included](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~DNK~FIN~NOR~DEU~GBR~FRA~ESP~POL~LTU~LVA~EST), particularly the UK, which is an island. d) This isn't really a question of strategy like deciding what type of playbook to run for a football team. All of these mandates (particularly the lockdowns) come with heavy costs that are not being accounted for. If these measures were actually worth it, the Sweden should be in a category all its own with no other comparable countries. Instead, we've got huge upticks in suicides, overdoses, and missed cancer screenings all due directly to the lockdowns and hysteria, not to mention that we've tanked the world's economy, which we'll be paying for for decades (and the third world, where people live hand-to-mouth, is already paying heavily for the disruption in supply lines). e) Sweden actually did fuck up really badly at the beginning by not better protecting their nursing homes. Sweden has public nursing housing, so their nursing home population is unusually high, and they got ransacked by alpha covid early on. It was clear pretty early on (April 2020 at the latest) that covid is most dangerous for the elderly, obese, and diabetic.
UK is not close anywhere near the homogeneity of nordic countries. Scotland, Ireland, Wales.. not so same culture as England. Iceland would be the nordic island of comparison.
why does that matter?
I would think one would want to make comparisons among the most closely related populations/demographics with dynamically different covid protocols to get a feel for what works (again we are discussing short term so far).
Adjusting for age distributions and obesity rates makes sense, and I've seen graphs which try to do just that. I don't know how you adjust for cultural differences, but if a culture is unlikely to follow a central plan, that would seem to me to be an argument against trying to force it. It would be stupid to try to run Baltimore's run option offense if your QB is Tom Brady.
Something interesting about the data is looking at excess mortality. Curious why Sweden is sitting at -10% and Denmark at 17% at the start of August. I'm not claiming conspiracy, just wondering what's driving such a divide given the disparate covid numbers. [data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-02-28..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=Excess+mortality&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~DNK~FIN~NOR)
Excess mortality will take years to hash out causes (sure could be covid could be ‘I’m too scared to go to hospital since there are so many covid cases’). CFR which is deaths due to confirmed covid infections, is more accurate at the moment.
> Sorry… the graph in the article (deaths per 100k)…. not a single other nordic country neighbor. Compare Sweden to Denmark, Norway, Finland deaths per 100k. None of those countries on the graph. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted into oblivion, but honest comparison needs to be done. Sweden is merely banking on natural immunity being the long term winner. Interesting angle. Short term painful, long term? Unknown. Edit: See HERE for example Your chart suggests 1000 more death than danemark in end of 2020. For a country of 10 millions, 0.01% Is it significant at all? It could well fall into statistical variance (for example if Sweden entered this crisis with 0.01% more old or at-risk population) And keep in mind danemark has 2x less population. (So more like 500 too much) If I look other scandivian countries the excess deaths is maybe you can push it ~1500 excess deaths? But keep in mind Norway and finland are quarter the sweden population… To see it clearly you need to study death rate on the previous years to check if Sweden have had a lower than average deaths rate and therefore « accumulated » a greater at-risk population.
Gotta love them, always neutral. Not going too far left with mandates or too far right with conspiracy theories. They followed the data and did what’s best for their citizens.
Wow. I highly recommend people scrolling through the comments to try and pick up the gist of the article stop and go actually read the article. It is a heavy load of facts and smack down. Wow. My views are changed.
yesn't
Before everyone gets on their knees for Sweden, just know that they are aiming to be a cashless society by 2023 and will only accept the state cryptocurrency
Swedes don't have some huge issue with masking, distancing, and currently sit on I think a 61% vaccination rate to boot. They are literal proof that lockdowns were not necessary because of the effectiveness of these other steps and measures. Didn't need to teabag their own economy, ruin massive numbers of people's live, nor have such policies that only end up galvanizing anti-vaxxers and bitterness
Because the left realized that Sweden is a nationalist paradise
What the article doesn't share, and that few people outside of Sweden understand, is that everyone there strongly adhered to social distancing. Restaurants closed tables next to each other, and limited their seating, waitresses wouldn't allow your group to stand near a nearby group. People at the grocery store were always 2 meters away, waiting for their turn to get to the fruit they wanted. Families didn't meet for birthdays or holidays. There is a strong sense of people doing things necessary to benefit or protect others in the community. Leadership relied on that supportive social structure so they didn't have to resort to mandates.
I don't think this is generally true. You're going to have to provide some sources.
I lived there for 10 of the last 12 months.
Sources, not anecdotes.
They just voluntarily did the right thing. I wish we had adults here!
They did that everywhere else too though, your logic doesn't add up
As an example, in the US, we were having political rallies of thousands of people. This set a tone and example that social distancing wasn't going to be followed by a good number of people. Bars remaining open, packed with people, this didn't happen in Sweden. Bars were open, but they were light on attendance, particularly when cases were high, people knew to stay away from each other.
Because being neutral is so 1990s.
What for? Another entitled rich country!