Today in is social distancing worth it, lets check in on Sweden.
I think its important to have an educated discussion about social distancing and its value, I tried to do that yesterday and think it was somewhat successful and I'm going to keep trying. I should note, if you watched plandemic and think it made some good points just don't bother posting, you are stupid and your views are worthless. Now that we've gotten that out of the way lets check in the natural experiment Sweden has provided to see if the partial re-openings many states are moving towards right now have a strong evidence of support.
For comparison purposes throughout I will compare Sweden to Norway, Denmark, and Finland since those countries most closely resemble Sweden in terms of culture, density, average health of citizens, and economy which provides a good baseline of comparison. Trying to make Sweden look bad by comparing it to South Korea doesn't make much sense from a natural experiment, neither does trying to make it look good by comparing it to Italy.
First lets check on the economic impact. Obviously one of the arguments about re-opening is it is necessary to save the economy. Recognizing that we live in a global economy every economy was going to shrink, including Sweden's regardless of what they did. However, with more domestic activity the hope would be that Sweden's economy shrank by less and showed lower unemployment than its neighbors. That is could things being open with social distancing provide enough economic value to those places to really matter. Lets check the numbers.
Sweden: GDP expected to shrink by 7%
Norway: GDP expected to shrink by 5%
Finland:GDP expected to shrink by 6%
Denmark: GDP expected to shrink by 6.5%
So not a great start but I haven't done all the research and maybe Sweden had a uniquely export based economy even relative to its neighbors. However, at the very least Sweden's economy is not doing significantly better than its neighbors as the result of staying partially open.
So lets move on to the public health impact. Since total positives is really a testing driven number, the most accurate way to track the virus's impact is through deaths and deaths per million.
Sweden: 3,175 deaths and 314 deaths per million
Norway: 217 deaths and 40 deaths per million
Finland: 260 deaths and 47 deaths per million
Denmark: 522 deaths and 90 deaths per million
So these are pretty ugly numbers. Sweden has 3x the number of deaths as Norway, Finland, and Denmark combined. It is pretty clear from these numbers that aggressive social distancing has an impact on the total number of deaths in a country. Whether that trade-off in deaths is worth it for what society is giving up can be debated, whether or not it saves lives can't really be.
There is going to be a lot of retrospective looks at things once this is all over and much of the story has yet to be written including the potential of a second wave, but for now the natural experiment that Sweden and its nordic neighbors provide has given us these numbers. In my opinion its pretty clear that in a globalized economy, staying partially open isn't enough to have a meaningful impact on the economy and it does cost lives. In contrast to Sweden, Norway announced today a plan to essentially re-open the entire economy by June 15th, meanwhile Sweden had more deaths yesterday than Germany.
Cutting payroll tax doesn’t help people who aren’t working.
I thought it was obvious. People need to go back to work. Today. The article I posted is that 75,000-150,000 people will die from suicides or alcohol or drug abuse directly from this crisis. (Remember, trust the model!) Anyone under 65 and reasonable healthy has almost no chance of dying, for reasons only allah knows, the entire country in lockdown. It's suicide for our society. I was just curious how the NPCs going along with these lockdowns have a justification after seeing how many people will die because of what we are doing to the economy.
This whole "crisis" is nothing more than pre police state conditioning. These "lockdowns" have nothing to do with public health or safety. They want us scared, confined to our homes, out of work, and poor so that we will blindly accept the systematic destruction of our rights and freedoms; all for "the greater good"
I've been a deficit hawk since the Clinton era. Reagan's deficit spending was somewhat justified -- it won the Cold War -- but there should have been more cuts in other programs. (In his defense, he tried, but he had 8 years of a Democratic House and 6 years of a Democratic Senate). Bush's "No New Taxes..." oops, new taxes... oops, one-termer... is a lesson that has, sadly, been learned by every politician since then.
We went from tax & spend to borrow & spend, and both parties found that they could agree on that. They only differ on what to spend more on.
We're lucky that we've been able to borrow in our own currency, but... for how long, and from whom are we borrowing? Most US public debt is held by Americans, in our retirement accounts. So, when the crash comes, we're spending money now that will be repaid in worthless scrip.
250 million people over age 18, times 2,000, times 12, is six trillion, so no, we couldn't.
Interestingly, the article itself provides 5 factors:
- The potential for a serious, even deadly infection from a previously unknown microbe.
- An unprecedented economic shutdown.
- Skyrocketing unemployment.
- Months-long social isolation (mandated in many states), sometimes with no set end.
- Uncertainty about treatment and prevention strategies.
The first and last have nothing to do with the shutdowns. And despite your unwillingness to admit it, not all of the job losses are from the shutdowns. Airlines, restaurants and many other industries would be seriously hurting with or without the required shutdowns.
I wish someone could prescribe me Hibernol so I could sleep through this entire goddamn pandemic.
For those of you who don't know what Hibernol is, I give you this beauty. I love me some Chris Farley and Phil Hartman.
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/hibernol/n10335
Too many people reduce this to a binary "open or close" debate and further, seem to think that a country must follow the same approach indefinitely.
Sweden has practiced social distancing; not to the degree of other countries, but probably more than anyone in the West expected would be necessary back in January. Gatherings of over 50 people are banned. Secondary schools and universities are closed. Restaurants don't allow people to stand at the bar. People are encouraged to work from home and respect safe-distance procedures when in public.
Sweden has paid a significant price in terms of deaths, but there is evidence that their curve has flattened, and going forward it doesn't seem like they are courting future disaster.
For our country, I don't think this would have been sufficient two months ago. I think the lockdowns were necessary to slow transmission of the virus. It had already gotten really bad in New York, Detroit and New Orleans and the Swedish measures would not have been enough. New York still ended up in awful shape but Michigan and Louisiana made major progress and are looking quite good now, and while some other places like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are having some problems now, it's not to the degree of New York.
But a lockdown has to be a short-term measure. It's not sustainable economically for very long and just goes against human nature. Wanting to leave your home on a nice day does not make you a terrible person, it makes you a person. You lock down to give your society some temporary breathing space to regroup and prepare to battle the virus again with better resources.
We're realistically going to have to adopt the Swedish approach. Some things will not reopen, mask wearing will be de rigueur, and large gatherings aren't going to happen, but more people will be allowed to work than now. Now that we've gone through the shock therapy of locking down, have a better supply of face coverings than we did two months ago, and have more favorable weather (allowing us to not have to huddle inside all the time), I think we can make it more or less work, at least for the next few months.
Just showing 2 random numbers and comparing those to other countries without any controls or context. Guess I learned stats a different way.
Great opening post. Informative.
But the Sweden truthers are not going to be swayed. They bought into narrative and now they can't admit that it was wrong.
Ghost - WTH are you talking about? I don't recall ANYONE saying Sweden has absolutely done the right thing. Only time will tell. For me, there is nothing informative about the OP. It's just telling everyone what we all knew already - Sweden might or might not have made the best decision for the long term.
As for "truthers" having already bought into a narrative, that works both ways. IF Sweden proves to have chosen the right strategy, there will be naysayers that point to several factors which make Sweden different than their neighbors.
Read the this thread, and the other threads over the last week plus.
Many posters have argued that the Sweden approach (open it up!) is superior.
Also, OP shows that Sweden has 10-15 times the deaths of Norway and Finland, and also has a similarly contracting economy. Seems like useful information.
As this thread points out, Sweden is different than Denmark. Just like New York City is different from Montana (and from upstate NY for that matter. Sweden ultimately being pretty successful will only tell us so much about how it would have worked in different states in the US.
The problem with this analysis is that you don't know where each country is on the curve. If Sweden has simply accelerated it's deaths, of course they look bad now but if the other countries have merely flattened their curves more, it's reasonable to think they'll catch up in death.
I could be wrong, but wasn't the point of not going into a lock down to basically get all of the deaths out of the way in the beginning so they can reach herd immunity faster?
We will be dealing with this virus for years. Staying at home isn't about saving lives. It's about buying enough time so as not to overwhelm the hospitals. This will surely save some lives, but it was never the main intent of the stay at home order. Eventually, we will have to reopen the economy and then there will be another spike in cases. The virus isn't going away.
So it seems like it will be years before we can gauge whether or not Sweden made the right choice. What will the death numbers look like 6 months from now in comparison to their neighboring countries? If Sweden can reach herd immunity then they could see their death toll plummet where other countries will be seeing a somewhat steady death count for a while.
Disclaimer: I'm no scientist and I'm not saying I support Sweden's method of dealing with this virus. It's an interesting debate though.
Per your explanation, we should fully open up the state of Michigan. Not only are the hospitals not overwhelmed, they are underwhelmed. Most have laid off significant staff. The TCF 1,000 bed field hospital that opened April 1, closed yesterday after treating a grand total of 20 patients. Let’s get back to work.
I had an argument ready for why theyd be successful over the rest of the world but I don't even have to use it because they weren't successful.
Through my job, have been fortunate enough to listen to >50 conference calls with some of the world's leading epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease researchers, ER physicians and hospital administrators. The last call I was on today was with Paul Franks, adjunct professor at Harvard and Depty at Lund University in Sweden. He is currently leading a major project on the national covid data collection initiative in Sweden. A few of my notes from the call (the Qs are posed by the call's host, not me):
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Has Sweden's strategy been successful or not?
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30 deaths per 100K citizens ranks 9th in the world, multiples higher than other Nordic countries
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If you can't maintain lock down until treatment/vaccine, then entire country ends up being infected anyway and the deaths per 100K of other countries will likely catch up to Sweden's
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Swedish infection fatality rate of 3.6% similar to Iceland, Boston, Germany
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Lack of adequate protection of most at risk populations in Sweden has contributed to death rate
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Can keep mortality rates lower with better protection of at risk cohorts
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Hospitals, nursing homes, immigrant groups
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If you were to visit Sweden you wouldn't notice any difference this year vs. last year
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Not a lot of social distancing going on
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However, telecom mobility data over Easter showed a large reduction in movement (90%, suggesting self isolating)
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Outside of Stockholm/metro regions, population density is low
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Even in the metro regions, many live alone, very few multi-generational homes (city density vs. home density, unlike Queens/Bronx/London)
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Herd immunity is widely believed to be ~60%
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Stockholm could be approaching herd immunity
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Do you think there's a scenario by which we don't need a vaccine (given herd immunity)?
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Vaccine will probably only be used for the most vulnerable, at least initially, but given likelihood of antibody length, would expect a vaccine to be necessary
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Of the calls I've listened to there is a constant: It is virtually impossible to cross compare infected populations due to the myriad of variables that influence mortality/outcomes (age, race, gender, air quality, medical facilities, treatment protocol, ventilator usage, co-morbidities, testing/detection, population density and many others).
Asking if any country made the right choice really hinges on whether the answer relates to preserving the medical system, minimizing current mortality, blunting the impact on an economy (or some other variable) and what you believe to be the final outcome (vaccine/treatment vs. herd immunity vs. XYZ occurring) of the pandemic.
I don't think there are any simple answers. For instance, as it relates to Sweden, if the other Nordic countries end up being on par with Swedish mortality, then they've all ended up in the same place despite taking different routes to get there.
If they all end up in the same place in mortality rates, then the deciding factor will be how the economic outcomes compare.
The only counterpoint I have to your actual data on deaths is that this is not over. Sweden may be further along in the virus progression / herd immunity and while they have the early lead in deaths, all the other aggressive distancing countries might still catch up or equal out in the end. It just may take them longer to get there. No data to support, just a thought.
It's probably inappropriate to include economic measures in these analyses because the Swedish health authority does not consider economic factors in their decision-making. I think their rationale is based on psychological health and overall well-being, since they can't imagine e.g. children just staying inside for weeks or months on end. They were presumably quite successful with that, although if Denmark is able to reopen fully and Sweden has to go into a lockdown, they'll have fucked up on that measure in the end, too.
it COULD be possible that Sweden is closer to the end of it's 'Death Journey' than those other countries. Said another way, looking back when you actually have enough data from all of the stages the numbers MAY be very similar.
We do not know yet. And you have no evidence to say that you do. All we know is that up to this point, two totally different approaches have yielded two totally different results. At this point, it means very, very little. In 5 months more or so we might be able to draw a conclusion.
Sweden is the model we should all aspire to.
The population is treated like adults.
The population acts like adults.
Individual liberty meet individual responsibility.
In the U.S. it's just more and more of the same. Scare the shit out of the population so they'll beg to be monitored, disarmed, and controlled. Thomas Jefferson be damned.
And let us never forget that the answer for all of this must be more money for big pharma.
How about instead we try eating our fucking carrots and getting enough sleep, exercise, and sunshine/vitamin D? Isolate the old for sure. But for many of the rest the pain is self-inflicted via poor lifestyle choices.
You know Sweden provides free health care to illegal immigrant children, right? Just checking ;)
ICU beds should not be conflated with ED beds. They are mutually exclusive. Emergency departments in the US are massive. Largely because so many neglect regular health maintenance and utilize the ED as their medical provider. Insurance issues play a factor as well.