4 ms·
I think overall size of a population and population density have to be the contributing factors. More people means more people have traveled there from other pl
by dumbfounder 7y ago
I think overall size of a population and population density have to be the contributing factors. More people means more people have traveled there from other places to spread the virus. More density means a higher R value.
The death rate per capita in Sweden is not much higher than the US. At ~33x the population the US has ~25x the deaths. Given the US had only double the total cases on March 6 as Sweden that seems like a positive indicator for Sweden's approach. It's like saying it doesn't really matter what you do so you might as well stay open. The timeline of when you started taking things seriously is also a big factor of course. I think it's way too early to declare anything yet, but I think it's good there are different approaches being taken to learn from.
- im3w1l 7y agoStockholm has a lot of affluent people who went skiing in Italy and brought covid home. So many that contact tracing was very quickly overwhelmed. Government warned about traveling to Italy way too late.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoI’m not sure making a per-capita comparison makes sense in the early stages of an epidemic.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoI don't think we're in the early stages anymore, though. A significant fraction of the population has been infected.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoWe don't know that yet.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoI disagree. It's unreasonable to doubt that at this point.
- notacoward 7y agoDisease spread is too complex for either total-number or per-capita comparisons to capture it well, but total numbers are even more misleading.