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Sure but what about Sweden, who’ve been doing fine despite having no strict shelter requirements. And how do you explain the fact that recent studies show simil

Sure but what about Sweden, who’ve been doing fine despite having no strict shelter requirements. And how do you explain the fact that recent studies show similar infection rates between Germany and New York State? My take is that the lack of consistent federal messaging caused unnecessary gatherings like Mardi Gras to continue. But we could’ve had better results even without resorting to authoritarian orders.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Sweden isn't doing that well. Sweden is expected to have about 10,000 deaths and they should have about 2,000 deaths if their health system works about as well as Switzerland. See Seattle's ihme projections: https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden. For reference Sweden has about 10 mil pop, Switzerland has 8.5 mil. Sweden is expected to kill about 8,000 people unnecessarily.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  Sweden also has various challenges that Switzerland doesn’t. They have a large population of Somalian refugees that live in multigenerational homes. Sweden also counts nursing home deaths in their public figures and not all locales do this. If you compare Sweden to the surrounding Scandinavian countries, they’re similar in terms of mortality once you adjust for population. These points are mentioned in https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866. CNN also reported that more than half of Sweden’s deaths are from nursing homes for the elderly (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-stockholm-could-see-herd-immunity-in-weeks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-st...) and I don’t think stricter orders would’ve helped there. Sweden is past their peaks like many other areas, all while retaining their liberties and economic vigor, and domestically their approach has been very popular (see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8257353/Swedens-virus-expert-popular-people-getting-FACE-tattoo.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8257353/Swedens-vir...). There’s a value to retaining some degree of normalcy and individual liberties, and it is not reasonable to claim that saving lives is automatically more valuable. As far as trade offs go, I think they’re doing a fine job, although I realize that’s a personal assessment. But leaving Sweden aside, others like Denmark are also taking a nuanced and thoughtful approach, rather than simply banning everything - see https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52226763 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52226763.
hsitz 7y ago
Sweden is a country of only 10 million people, relatively homogeneous, and not a society where people have a distrust of experts and/or science. They are voluntarily limiting social interaction because they understand how important it is; don't need government to force them: https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-isolation-work-better-than-state-enforced-lockdowns-in-the-long-run/ https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-...

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

Sweden isn't doing that well. Sweden is expected to have about 10,000 deaths and they should have about 2,000 deaths if their health system works about as well as Switzerland. See Seattle's ihme projections: https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden. For reference Sweden has about 10 mil pop, Switzerland has 8.5 mil. Sweden is expected to kill about 8,000 people unnecessarily.

throwawaysea 7y ago
Sweden also has various challenges that Switzerland doesn’t. They have a large population of Somalian refugees that live in multigenerational homes. Sweden also counts nursing home deaths in their public figures and not all locales do this. If you compare Sweden to the surrounding Scandinavian countries, they’re similar in terms of mortality once you adjust for population. These points are mentioned in https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866. CNN also reported that more than half of Sweden’s deaths are from nursing homes for the elderly (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-stockholm-could-see-herd-immunity-in-weeks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-st...) and I don’t think stricter orders would’ve helped there. Sweden is past their peaks like many other areas, all while retaining their liberties and economic vigor, and domestically their approach has been very popular (see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8257353/Swedens-virus-expert-popular-people-getting-FACE-tattoo.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8257353/Swedens-vir...). There’s a value to retaining some degree of normalcy and individual liberties, and it is not reasonable to claim that saving lives is automatically more valuable. As far as trade offs go, I think they’re doing a fine job, although I realize that’s a personal assessment. But leaving Sweden aside, others like Denmark are also taking a nuanced and thoughtful approach, rather than simply banning everything - see https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52226763 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52226763.

hsitz 7y ago

Sweden is a country of only 10 million people, relatively homogeneous, and not a society where people have a distrust of experts and/or science. They are voluntarily limiting social interaction because they understand how important it is; don't need government to force them: https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-isolation-work-better-than-state-enforced-lockdowns-in-the-long-run/ https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-...