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"Nothing any other country has done will prevent covid from spreading through the population and killing the same number of people eventually." Actually a few

by jariel 7y ago

"Nothing any other country has done will prevent covid from spreading through the population and killing the same number of people eventually." Actually a few have done that. Korea and Taiwan have effectively stopped Covid and it looks like they will keep numbers at bay long enough for a vaccine to develop and have therefore saved countless lives. FYI Korea has done it without harsh social distancing. New Zealand with similar advantages to Taiwan looks to be approaching this as well. "I don't follow why you think they have done something wrong." The issue is risk - their current daily-case rate is still growing somewhat and it's been shown that 'social distancing alone' doesn't fully flatten the curve. They have a higher death rate than their neighbours, though it's not super high. Any real data point to support the 30% rate for Stockholm would be a big deal because officially the country only has 18k cases.

FrojoS 7y ago
All of these countries (South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand) lack frequently commuted land borders.
- jariel 7y ago
  Fair point, but Sweden can effectively lock it's borders pretty well. They are surrounded by legit entities with managed borders. If they put up barriers, those barriers would effectively be respected, it's not like they're sitting on the Med with boats sneaking across daily.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
The idea of "official" case counts is largely fabricated. The reported number is a count of people who have tested positive, and like many countries, Sweden doesn't give coronavirus tests to everyone who's likely to have it. It's not intended to be an estimate of how many people are infected.
mikem170 7y ago
>They have a higher death rate than their neighbours, though it's not super high. This was my understanding, also. I gathered the thinking was that they are seeing deaths up front instead of stretching the curve and seeing the deaths spread out over a longer period of time. I assume that as time goes on there will be more accurate counts of covid deaths and infection rates. I just don't see the hard data justifying throwing Sweden's strategy under the bus.
- jariel 7y ago
  "I just don't see the hard data justifying throwing Sweden's strategy under the bus." The 'hard data problem' with their strategy is that they are willing to write of x% of their population without knowing what the real death rate is, which is obviously very risky. They went ahead with this plan it seems some time before we even had good visibility into this number. The Ambassador isn't releasing any data to back her claims, which is not good, but Stockholm has had 1K deaths which mean we can infer the Swedes think the 'true death rate' is 0.3%. But other nations put it higher, in some places above 1%. If it's 1% ... that would mean 3.4M dead Americans. About 100K dead Swedes. That's big. They are hoping for more like 20-30K dead which even then seems like a large number for a place like Sweden. Again - Korea is holding Coronavirus at bay and very few have died. Obviously, no land borders, but neither does Sweden really (or they could/have closed them).
  - mikem170 7y ago
    It was known at the time that the virus did not affect the young and healthy the same as it did the old and vulnerable, and Sweden did recommended that vulnerable people self-isolate. They had a plan, it was to get to herd immunity as quickly as possible. I haven't heard of any current data that supports a 1% death rate, the numbers I see lately seem to be around .2%, which is 1 in 500 people, and have been getting lower as more data comes in. This just doesn't seem to be as bad as was first feared. Unless South Korea can deploy a vaccine in the next couple months it doesn't look like they'll be able to stop the virus eventually going through their population like it will everywhere else. It does not appear that the enough of any population wants to live for a couple years in lockdown waiting for a vaccine to save 1 in 500 people, or less, who didn't have long to live anyways.
    - jariel 7y ago
      Here's an article discussing different epidemiologists, the UK is estimating 0.8-0.9 percent. [1] NY city numbers are 0.8. Risk is the issue, it's irresponsible to risk the lives of an entire nation when that number is still unknown - even at 0.8% that's pretty high to try for herd immunity. [1] https://unherd.com/2020/04/which-epidemiologist-do-you-believe/ https://unherd.com/2020/04/which-epidemiologist-do-you-belie...
ksk 7y ago
>Actually a few have done that. >Korea and Taiwan have effectively stopped Covid and it looks like they will keep numbers at bay long enough for a vaccine to develop and have therefore saved countless lives They haven't actually done it, they're trying to do it. We can only determine if they're successful once its over. Even if you temporarily reduce the spread by forced quarantine/lock-down, you have to also look at the natural reservoirs for the virus, human or otherwise that will ensure that the disease doesn't go away. It originally started will a few people, and now the entire world is affected. That can still happen again in a local setting. This thing spreads like crazy as we all know. The vaccine talk is not realistic IMHO. It will be at-least a year (likely a LOT longer), there is no way Korea (or any country) is going to be in a lock-down for an indeterminate period.

by jariel 7y ago

FrojoS 7y ago

All of these countries (South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand) lack frequently commuted land borders.

jariel 7y ago
Fair point, but Sweden can effectively lock it's borders pretty well. They are surrounded by legit entities with managed borders. If they put up barriers, those barriers would effectively be respected, it's not like they're sitting on the Med with boats sneaking across daily.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

The idea of "official" case counts is largely fabricated. The reported number is a count of people who have tested positive, and like many countries, Sweden doesn't give coronavirus tests to everyone who's likely to have it. It's not intended to be an estimate of how many people are infected.

mikem170 7y ago

>They have a higher death rate than their neighbours, though it's not super high. This was my understanding, also. I gathered the thinking was that they are seeing deaths up front instead of stretching the curve and seeing the deaths spread out over a longer period of time. I assume that as time goes on there will be more accurate counts of covid deaths and infection rates. I just don't see the hard data justifying throwing Sweden's strategy under the bus.

jariel 7y ago
"I just don't see the hard data justifying throwing Sweden's strategy under the bus." The 'hard data problem' with their strategy is that they are willing to write of x% of their population without knowing what the real death rate is, which is obviously very risky. They went ahead with this plan it seems some time before we even had good visibility into this number. The Ambassador isn't releasing any data to back her claims, which is not good, but Stockholm has had 1K deaths which mean we can infer the Swedes think the 'true death rate' is 0.3%. But other nations put it higher, in some places above 1%. If it's 1% ... that would mean 3.4M dead Americans. About 100K dead Swedes. That's big. They are hoping for more like 20-30K dead which even then seems like a large number for a place like Sweden. Again - Korea is holding Coronavirus at bay and very few have died. Obviously, no land borders, but neither does Sweden really (or they could/have closed them).
- mikem170 7y ago
  It was known at the time that the virus did not affect the young and healthy the same as it did the old and vulnerable, and Sweden did recommended that vulnerable people self-isolate. They had a plan, it was to get to herd immunity as quickly as possible. I haven't heard of any current data that supports a 1% death rate, the numbers I see lately seem to be around .2%, which is 1 in 500 people, and have been getting lower as more data comes in. This just doesn't seem to be as bad as was first feared. Unless South Korea can deploy a vaccine in the next couple months it doesn't look like they'll be able to stop the virus eventually going through their population like it will everywhere else. It does not appear that the enough of any population wants to live for a couple years in lockdown waiting for a vaccine to save 1 in 500 people, or less, who didn't have long to live anyways.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Here's an article discussing different epidemiologists, the UK is estimating 0.8-0.9 percent. [1] NY city numbers are 0.8. Risk is the issue, it's irresponsible to risk the lives of an entire nation when that number is still unknown - even at 0.8% that's pretty high to try for herd immunity. [1] https://unherd.com/2020/04/which-epidemiologist-do-you-believe/ https://unherd.com/2020/04/which-epidemiologist-do-you-belie...

ksk 7y ago

>Actually a few have done that. >Korea and Taiwan have effectively stopped Covid and it looks like they will keep numbers at bay long enough for a vaccine to develop and have therefore saved countless lives They haven't actually done it, they're trying to do it. We can only determine if they're successful once its over. Even if you temporarily reduce the spread by forced quarantine/lock-down, you have to also look at the natural reservoirs for the virus, human or otherwise that will ensure that the disease doesn't go away. It originally started will a few people, and now the entire world is affected. That can still happen again in a local setting. This thing spreads like crazy as we all know. The vaccine talk is not realistic IMHO. It will be at-least a year (likely a LOT longer), there is no way Korea (or any country) is going to be in a lock-down for an indeterminate period.