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I think Sweden should be commended for a relatively level-headed response. Whereas most other national responses seem panicked, inept, trigger-happy and all too

I think Sweden should be commended for a relatively level-headed response. Whereas most other national responses seem panicked, inept, trigger-happy and all too ready to violate fundamental rights of their citizenry even when they don't really understand the problem they're faced with.

throwawaymanbot 6y ago
I think its you that may not understand the problem that's being faced...
natpalmer1776 6y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Too many nations are too concerned with being seen as 'doing their part' and too few are actually paying any heed to the long term ramifications of the precedents they are setting now.
- thebruce87m 6y ago
  I wonder if you were in the at-risk demographic whether you would be saying the same thing. Don’t you have parents, grandparents etc that you’re worried about? Edit: lots of downvotes with no discussion. Disappointing.
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    Yea: at-risk populations should be protected. Even with a complete lockdown, nursing homes are being decimated. Politicians have no interest in admitting their failure. It's clear that Cuomo is being hailed as a hero, despite thousands of old people being lost due to ineffective measures and ineptness. None of these politicians have an interest in bringing attention to the complete tragedy that happened under their watch re: the most vulnerable.
  - cerberusss 6y ago
    The Swedish approach places the onus on the at-risk demographics to isolate themselves. If you are worried about your parents (and I would be), then I'd help them in their self-quarantine.
    - thebruce87m 6y ago
      My parents are both 75+. They both still work in the service industry. They would not listen to me when I told them to self isolate before our lockdown. Their reasoning was that other people their age were still visiting their business. Edit: are you downvoting my parents decisions? Or my anecdote?
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
It's probably cost them a lot of lives and I'm not sure they are going to be any better off economically when everything shakes out.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  > It's probably cost them a lot of lives Who's measuring the cost of lock-down? I think it's going to show to be very costly (perhaps net-negative) as time goes on. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, deaths of despair, economic disruption, etc.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    I honestly have no idea how you are able to reason an idea that a full blown epidemic does not disturb a national health service. Moreover, it seems you're entirely oblivious to the fact that covid19 infections are known to trigger cardiac and renal and even neurological problems. Thus if you were honestly concerned about heart attacks and strokes and other conditions then you most certainly wouldn't be putting up lame strawmen like those. And God forbid that a nation needs to spend the citizen's resources caring for the best interests of said citizens.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      I don't really follow your response here. The idea that lockdowns have serious costs is not a "strawman" and doesn't imply other options have no costs.
- username90 6y ago
  Death rate in Sweden is still way too low to have warranted a lockdown. Lockdown hurts quality of life a lot for everyone and not just the economy. It isn't worth it to lock down thousands of people for months to save a single life from a quality of life stand point. Like, you wouldn't spend a 100 years in lockdown to extend your life by a month.
  - 6y ago
rumanator 6y ago
I don't understand what the hell are you talking about. The nations who were hit the hardest by the epidemic were also the ones which took the longest to react after the first infection. For example, compare Spain's experience with Portugal's. More importantly, even the nations that were hit the hardest were only able to recover from the initial impact after imposing adequate quarantine measures. Another good example is Spain, which managed to drive down their 1k/day death count down to next do double digits after decisively acting on declaring state of emergency. If you feel that ramping up a death wave with a collapsing healthcare system is a good approach then you should reconsider your priorities in life.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  The nations who fared the best were those that tested heavily from the out-set.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    Testing does nothing to address infection rates. Either you have the infrastructure in place to isolate spreaders or you have no alternative to nip the epidemic in the bud by quaranting everyone. The first option is not on the table with covid19 because asymptomatic and presymptomaric carriers can walk freely among us weeks at a time without anyone having a clue.
    - ferzul 6y ago
      many countries have succeeded by testing and quarantining contacts of known infections. why do you say an empirically effective response is off the table due to some supposition?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Everyone agrees that a collapsing healthcare system would be very bad, but Sweden's healthcare system is not collapsing.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
fzeroracer 6y ago
The article straight up mentioned arguments against what you're saying. Sweden has more deaths per million than their neighbors and it's only getting worse as the confirmed number of cases grow. Your idea of a level-headed response is letting people die straight up to the coronavirus.
pmiller2 6y ago
Your rights ended where the rights of 60,000+ now dead in the US began. Too bad nobody had enough respect for their rights to stop travel from China 2 or 3 weeks before they actually did, when the disease was shown to have pandemic potential. Too bad nobody thought to implement containment measures when we had the first recorded cases of community spread. Too bad our president was too busy politicizing criticism of his "response" to do anything at all.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  > Your rights ended where the rights of 60,000+ now dead in the US began. This is a super simplistic view of reality. I get that my rights are limited and contingent on circumstance to some extent. But violating the right to assembly should be treated much more seriously than you are leading on.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    On the contrary, it's you who has a simplistic view. You have no right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, just as you had no right to promote the spread of a disease that's going to kill hundreds of thousands of people. This is why public health officials have the legal authority to impose these lockdowns. I wish everyone who believed as you do would "assemble" at the graves of those who died because of them.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      This is an extremely tired and inaccurate characterization. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is actually protected by the 1st Amendment, per the Brandenburg v Ohio ruling. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        Fine, but you still have no right to promote the spread of a disease that will kill hundreds of thousands of people. If you're going to downvote on a point, downvote on a substantive one. Here is what was actually written by Holmes: > The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. I maintain that my argument remains unchanged based on the full quotation. Your rights do not trump (hah!) public safety.
CoconutPilot 6y ago
> don't really understand the problem You can err on the side of caution, or err on the side of risk. Sweden has err'd on the side of risk and it is looking like that was a bad choice. Every week that goes by Sweden imposes more restrictions. Soon they will have as many restrictions as the rest of Europe.
- mediascreen 6y ago
  > Every week that goes by Sweden imposes more restrictions. Soon they will have as many restrictions as the rest of Europe. That's not true. Can you name any new restrictions imposed the last few weeks?

throwawaymanbot 6y ago

I think its you that may not understand the problem that's being faced...

natpalmer1776 6y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Too many nations are too concerned with being seen as 'doing their part' and too few are actually paying any heed to the long term ramifications of the precedents they are setting now.

thebruce87m 6y ago
I wonder if you were in the at-risk demographic whether you would be saying the same thing. Don’t you have parents, grandparents etc that you’re worried about? Edit: lots of downvotes with no discussion. Disappointing.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  Yea: at-risk populations should be protected. Even with a complete lockdown, nursing homes are being decimated. Politicians have no interest in admitting their failure. It's clear that Cuomo is being hailed as a hero, despite thousands of old people being lost due to ineffective measures and ineptness. None of these politicians have an interest in bringing attention to the complete tragedy that happened under their watch re: the most vulnerable.
- cerberusss 6y ago
  The Swedish approach places the onus on the at-risk demographics to isolate themselves. If you are worried about your parents (and I would be), then I'd help them in their self-quarantine.
  - thebruce87m 6y ago
    My parents are both 75+. They both still work in the service industry. They would not listen to me when I told them to self isolate before our lockdown. Their reasoning was that other people their age were still visiting their business. Edit: are you downvoting my parents decisions? Or my anecdote?

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

It's probably cost them a lot of lives and I'm not sure they are going to be any better off economically when everything shakes out.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
> It's probably cost them a lot of lives Who's measuring the cost of lock-down? I think it's going to show to be very costly (perhaps net-negative) as time goes on. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, deaths of despair, economic disruption, etc.
- rumanator 6y ago
  I honestly have no idea how you are able to reason an idea that a full blown epidemic does not disturb a national health service. Moreover, it seems you're entirely oblivious to the fact that covid19 infections are known to trigger cardiac and renal and even neurological problems. Thus if you were honestly concerned about heart attacks and strokes and other conditions then you most certainly wouldn't be putting up lame strawmen like those. And God forbid that a nation needs to spend the citizen's resources caring for the best interests of said citizens.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I don't really follow your response here. The idea that lockdowns have serious costs is not a "strawman" and doesn't imply other options have no costs.
username90 6y ago
Death rate in Sweden is still way too low to have warranted a lockdown. Lockdown hurts quality of life a lot for everyone and not just the economy. It isn't worth it to lock down thousands of people for months to save a single life from a quality of life stand point. Like, you wouldn't spend a 100 years in lockdown to extend your life by a month.
- 6y ago

rumanator 6y ago

I don't understand what the hell are you talking about. The nations who were hit the hardest by the epidemic were also the ones which took the longest to react after the first infection. For example, compare Spain's experience with Portugal's. More importantly, even the nations that were hit the hardest were only able to recover from the initial impact after imposing adequate quarantine measures. Another good example is Spain, which managed to drive down their 1k/day death count down to next do double digits after decisively acting on declaring state of emergency. If you feel that ramping up a death wave with a collapsing healthcare system is a good approach then you should reconsider your priorities in life.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
The nations who fared the best were those that tested heavily from the out-set.
- rumanator 6y ago
  Testing does nothing to address infection rates. Either you have the infrastructure in place to isolate spreaders or you have no alternative to nip the epidemic in the bud by quaranting everyone. The first option is not on the table with covid19 because asymptomatic and presymptomaric carriers can walk freely among us weeks at a time without anyone having a clue.
  - ferzul 6y ago
    many countries have succeeded by testing and quarantining contacts of known infections. why do you say an empirically effective response is off the table due to some supposition?
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Everyone agrees that a collapsing healthcare system would be very bad, but Sweden's healthcare system is not collapsing.
klmadfejno 6y ago

fzeroracer 6y ago

The article straight up mentioned arguments against what you're saying. Sweden has more deaths per million than their neighbors and it's only getting worse as the confirmed number of cases grow. Your idea of a level-headed response is letting people die straight up to the coronavirus.

pmiller2 6y ago

Your rights ended where the rights of 60,000+ now dead in the US began. Too bad nobody had enough respect for their rights to stop travel from China 2 or 3 weeks before they actually did, when the disease was shown to have pandemic potential. Too bad nobody thought to implement containment measures when we had the first recorded cases of community spread. Too bad our president was too busy politicizing criticism of his "response" to do anything at all.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
> Your rights ended where the rights of 60,000+ now dead in the US began. This is a super simplistic view of reality. I get that my rights are limited and contingent on circumstance to some extent. But violating the right to assembly should be treated much more seriously than you are leading on.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  On the contrary, it's you who has a simplistic view. You have no right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, just as you had no right to promote the spread of a disease that's going to kill hundreds of thousands of people. This is why public health officials have the legal authority to impose these lockdowns. I wish everyone who believed as you do would "assemble" at the graves of those who died because of them.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    This is an extremely tired and inaccurate characterization. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is actually protected by the 1st Amendment, per the Brandenburg v Ohio ruling. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      Fine, but you still have no right to promote the spread of a disease that will kill hundreds of thousands of people. If you're going to downvote on a point, downvote on a substantive one. Here is what was actually written by Holmes: > The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. I maintain that my argument remains unchanged based on the full quotation. Your rights do not trump (hah!) public safety.

CoconutPilot 6y ago

> don't really understand the problem You can err on the side of caution, or err on the side of risk. Sweden has err'd on the side of risk and it is looking like that was a bad choice. Every week that goes by Sweden imposes more restrictions. Soon they will have as many restrictions as the rest of Europe.

mediascreen 6y ago
> Every week that goes by Sweden imposes more restrictions. Soon they will have as many restrictions as the rest of Europe. That's not true. Can you name any new restrictions imposed the last few weeks?