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Sweden has open schools, movie theaters, restaurants (limited people; tables further apart) and bars (can't buy beer). People are working from home when they ca

Sweden has open schools, movie theaters, restaurants (limited people; tables further apart) and bars (can't buy beer). People are working from home when they can. High risk people and older people are told to self isolate. Their hospitals are not overwhelmed. Their people do no wear masks. They hope the infection can spread slowly and they can deal with it. Sweden is criticized heavily, but if their strategy works, they could have very little SARS-CoV-2 in the next few months while the rest of the world constantly re-surges because the lockdown didn't really stop anything, just delayed it. We have no idea which one will be true. Predicting the future with math has never worked for the stock market. Why did we think it would work here?

maxerickson 7y ago
Even assuming a high undetected multiplier, a small fraction of their population has been exposed. There's not much reason to expect it to slow down any time soon, their overall immunity isn't going to be much different than anywhere else at this point.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  The numbers are a pretty good reason to see it slow down right now. They hit the peak in casualties in the beginning of April.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Stockholm is at 20-30% so I find it very hard to believe only a small fraction of Sweden has been exposed.
kyawzazaw 7y ago
We should add the fact that a lot of people in Sweden live alone.
- FpUser 7y ago
  "people in Sweden live alone" you stating this as the cause of why Sweden is doing Ok-ish while not introducing drastic measures. All without any shred of proof.
  - feydaykyn 7y ago
    You just have to search : • Sweden: number of households by type 2019 | Statista https://www.statista.com/statistics/526013/sweden-number-of-households-by-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/526013/sweden-number-of-...
    - FpUser 7y ago
      It is a household stats, has zero info on how it correlates to the actual covid stats.
Rapzid 7y ago
Because it largely works for the weather, why NOT here?
lazyasciiart 7y ago
To be clear, they have closed high schools and universities, and kept open junior schools under the theory that many children would need childcare anyway (over 80% of families have two working parents). Enough parents are keeping their kids home anyway that they are sending out warnings. 50% of the workforce is now working from home, under government orders for employers to support it where possible. People who have higher than normal vulnerability can stay home even if they can't work from home and they will receive unemployment benefits. Employers can furlough employees for three months at half pay, and the government will cover the other 50%. 70% of Swedes say they have reduced social activities, cell phone data shows 90% reduction in Easter holiday congregation. I haven't seen it measured but it's plausible that the amount of in-person contact between Swedish people is lower than the UK or US. If that's the case, then the question is not "did we really need to reduce activity that much" but "could other countries have achieved the same low social contact rates without enforcing it?"
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  Sweden started out well but recent numbers indicate some concern. 1,580 deaths [1] as of Apr 20. Here are some comparisons and projections. I'm just using other people's estimates (I'm no expert but IHME ([3]) is). Sweden's expected total deaths of 5,890 by IHME, looks to be about 4,000 more deaths (preventable?) than comparable countries per capita (comparing Sweden to Switzerland which has 1429 current deaths). All data as of April 20, 2020 evening time PST us, or Apr 21 6am utc. Current deaths per million population: Sweden 156 deaths/mil, Norway 63 d/m, Finland 33d/m, Switzerland 165 d/mil; overall populations Sweden 10 mil, Finland 5.5 mil, Norway 5.x mil, Switz. 8.5 mil. Sweden not doing well compared to Norway & Finland but it's doing better than Spain, Italy, France (446 deaths/mil, 399 d/m, 310 d/m). If you look at Sweden's daily numbers it varies a lot in a kind of repeatable way. That's apparently attributable to private labs are closed on the weekends and there's a delay in reporting (similar things in other countries); some countries report 1 day late to add up everything too. Doubling per day time [2], [4], [5]. This is more complicated but Sweden is growing faster than comparisons. I don't have exact current numbers. Predictions of total deaths [3]: Sweden 5,890 and Switzerland 1,584 (recall pop is 10 mil vs 8.5 mil). Notice Sweden has many more deaths per capita. Norway 280 expected deaths (5+ mil pop). Sweden will have disproportionately more deaths than Switzerland (pop adjusted Switzerland 1584-> expected 1863 per capita (1585*10/8.5). But expected deaths is 5,890, 4000 more! 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden (etc) 2. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-deaths-since-5th-death https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-deaths-si... 3. https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden 4. http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ 5. https://www.economist.com/news/2020/03/11/the-economists-coverage-of-the-coronavirus https://www.economist.com/news/2020/03/11/the-economists-cov... I hope this was useful, hopefully not too many typos!
DavidVoid 7y ago
> movie theatres Only two of Filmstaden's cinemas are open and they are by far the biggest cinema chain in the country. So to say that movie theatres are open is pretty disingenuous. There was never a law that forced them to close though, they took that initiative themselves after the government started recommending that large crowds should be avoided. The same goes for all the ski resorts which are now closed. Sweden's approach is also heavily based on the idea that people who have any symptoms are able to stay home from work. In countries where the workers' rights aren't as strong, that is much more difficult to achieve without stricter regulations.
IAmEveryone 7y ago
Sweden has 5x the number of deaths as it's close neighbour, Norway. These are very similar countries with completely different strategies.

maxerickson 7y ago

Even assuming a high undetected multiplier, a small fraction of their population has been exposed. There's not much reason to expect it to slow down any time soon, their overall immunity isn't going to be much different than anywhere else at this point.

tinus_hn 7y ago
The numbers are a pretty good reason to see it slow down right now. They hit the peak in casualties in the beginning of April.
austhrow743 7y ago
Stockholm is at 20-30% so I find it very hard to believe only a small fraction of Sweden has been exposed.

kyawzazaw 7y ago

We should add the fact that a lot of people in Sweden live alone.

FpUser 7y ago
"people in Sweden live alone" you stating this as the cause of why Sweden is doing Ok-ish while not introducing drastic measures. All without any shred of proof.
- feydaykyn 7y ago
  You just have to search : • Sweden: number of households by type 2019 | Statista https://www.statista.com/statistics/526013/sweden-number-of-households-by-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/526013/sweden-number-of-...
  - FpUser 7y ago
    It is a household stats, has zero info on how it correlates to the actual covid stats.

Rapzid 7y ago

Because it largely works for the weather, why NOT here?

lazyasciiart 7y ago

To be clear, they have closed high schools and universities, and kept open junior schools under the theory that many children would need childcare anyway (over 80% of families have two working parents). Enough parents are keeping their kids home anyway that they are sending out warnings. 50% of the workforce is now working from home, under government orders for employers to support it where possible. People who have higher than normal vulnerability can stay home even if they can't work from home and they will receive unemployment benefits. Employers can furlough employees for three months at half pay, and the government will cover the other 50%. 70% of Swedes say they have reduced social activities, cell phone data shows 90% reduction in Easter holiday congregation. I haven't seen it measured but it's plausible that the amount of in-person contact between Swedish people is lower than the UK or US. If that's the case, then the question is not "did we really need to reduce activity that much" but "could other countries have achieved the same low social contact rates without enforcing it?"

NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Sweden started out well but recent numbers indicate some concern. 1,580 deaths [1] as of Apr 20. Here are some comparisons and projections. I'm just using other people's estimates (I'm no expert but IHME ([3]) is). Sweden's expected total deaths of 5,890 by IHME, looks to be about 4,000 more deaths (preventable?) than comparable countries per capita (comparing Sweden to Switzerland which has 1429 current deaths). All data as of April 20, 2020 evening time PST us, or Apr 21 6am utc. Current deaths per million population: Sweden 156 deaths/mil, Norway 63 d/m, Finland 33d/m, Switzerland 165 d/mil; overall populations Sweden 10 mil, Finland 5.5 mil, Norway 5.x mil, Switz. 8.5 mil. Sweden not doing well compared to Norway & Finland but it's doing better than Spain, Italy, France (446 deaths/mil, 399 d/m, 310 d/m). If you look at Sweden's daily numbers it varies a lot in a kind of repeatable way. That's apparently attributable to private labs are closed on the weekends and there's a delay in reporting (similar things in other countries); some countries report 1 day late to add up everything too. Doubling per day time [2], [4], [5]. This is more complicated but Sweden is growing faster than comparisons. I don't have exact current numbers. Predictions of total deaths [3]: Sweden 5,890 and Switzerland 1,584 (recall pop is 10 mil vs 8.5 mil). Notice Sweden has many more deaths per capita. Norway 280 expected deaths (5+ mil pop). Sweden will have disproportionately more deaths than Switzerland (pop adjusted Switzerland 1584-> expected 1863 per capita (1585*10/8.5). But expected deaths is 5,890, 4000 more! 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden (etc) 2. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-deaths-since-5th-death https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-deaths-si... 3. https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden 4. http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ 5. https://www.economist.com/news/2020/03/11/the-economists-coverage-of-the-coronavirus https://www.economist.com/news/2020/03/11/the-economists-cov... I hope this was useful, hopefully not too many typos!

DavidVoid 7y ago

> movie theatres Only two of Filmstaden's cinemas are open and they are by far the biggest cinema chain in the country. So to say that movie theatres are open is pretty disingenuous. There was never a law that forced them to close though, they took that initiative themselves after the government started recommending that large crowds should be avoided. The same goes for all the ski resorts which are now closed. Sweden's approach is also heavily based on the idea that people who have any symptoms are able to stay home from work. In countries where the workers' rights aren't as strong, that is much more difficult to achieve without stricter regulations.

IAmEveryone 7y ago

Sweden has 5x the number of deaths as it's close neighbour, Norway. These are very similar countries with completely different strategies.