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What would the numbers look like without mitigations? There are certainly some flu seasons that are 2x worse than average. I imagine that the cutoff between no

What would the numbers look like without mitigations? There are certainly some flu seasons that are 2x worse than average. I imagine that the cutoff between no action and hard mitigation would be a 10x flu event. It seems plausible to me that this would have been 10x the flu with business as usual. That still doesn’t do accounting for the negative effects of mitigation. The truth is that this is an open-ended ethical question and it’s not fun to participate in.

username90 6y ago
> What would the numbers look like without mitigations? Look at Sweden, you'll find that their very light measures are not worse than the very late but much stronger measures of harder hit areas.
- samvher 6y ago
  If you compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries (which is the most suitable comparison considering population distribution and habits) the light measures actually seem to have resulted in a much higher prevalence. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-coronavirus-response-less-economic-damage-more-disease https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-co...
  - username90 6y ago
    Yes, but not catastrophic prevalence. The question was whether not locking down things like schools would result in much higher deaths than we currently see in for example England or New York. The answer is no, not necessarily.
    - exdsq 6y ago
      In Sweden a lot of people were self-isolating and being cautious without the need of a formal lockdown. They still have the most deaths per capita in Europe.
      - username90 6y ago
        Schools were open. A million kids went to crowded classrooms every day for the past two months and death rate is still not even close to England, Belgium, Italy or New York.
        exdsq 6y ago
        The number of deaths per capita is higher than England, Belgium, and Italy however the total number is lower (they have a smaller population). They also have a low population density, a lot of single households, and as a population have less issues with diabetes, obesity, and chronic heart conditions compared to other countries. It is not black and white :)
    - orwin 6y ago
      Targeted lockdown was a good idea in the context (not that much different clusters). Sweden was since the beginning at the place where France will be next week, but Sweden did not have the Mulhouse cluster that crippled multiple hospitals in eastern France. Many thanks to Switzerland and Germany for helping us saving a dozen patients by the way.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    If you compare Sweden to other countries with full and absolute total lockdowns like Belgium the UK and Spain and Italy....they actually have lower incidences of infections fatalities and higher incidences of recoveries. Sweden is the control group in all of this for how effective lockdowns are and it's showing that they're potentially not as effective as we think they are.
    - orwin 6y ago
      You can't compare Sweden to those countries. Not the same density, not the same hubs, not hit at the same time, not the same social comportments. Even compared to France they have advantages and they have pretty close numbers (+30% excess death vs + 33%).
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        Sweden has a higher density of day to day human interactions than any country with full quarantine lock down. How do the other data points apply to a country that's been on quarantine for months and another that has never been on quarantine? The exponential explosion of coronavirus cases hasn't happened in Sweden and it's not happening so far when people reopen their economies. there's not even a second wave in economies that have been reopened since early May like Florida. The model was flawed. Time to face facts quarantine was ineffective response.
        entee 6y ago
        The major flaw in your argument is focusing on an official quarantine order. In practice it seems many of the places you mention have an informal quarantine in place. In Florida Miami-Dade county did have a lockdown though the broader state didn’t. It’s also the densest, so most at risk. Nursing homes also took steps way beyond the government order and well before the order. There’s also tons of evidence that people did not adopt initially and are not returning to normal behavior. For example even in Sweden restaurant attendance was down massively even in the absence of an official ban. You may be right that a more localized or targeted response has almost the same effect as a full lockdown. (Though things are still decidedly not great in Sweden concerning the death rate). But people are taking massive measures even in non-locked down areas, it’s improper to compare that to the status quo ante.

username90 6y ago

> What would the numbers look like without mitigations? Look at Sweden, you'll find that their very light measures are not worse than the very late but much stronger measures of harder hit areas.

samvher 6y ago
If you compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries (which is the most suitable comparison considering population distribution and habits) the light measures actually seem to have resulted in a much higher prevalence. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-coronavirus-response-less-economic-damage-more-disease https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-co...
- username90 6y ago
  Yes, but not catastrophic prevalence. The question was whether not locking down things like schools would result in much higher deaths than we currently see in for example England or New York. The answer is no, not necessarily.
  - exdsq 6y ago
    In Sweden a lot of people were self-isolating and being cautious without the need of a formal lockdown. They still have the most deaths per capita in Europe.
    - username90 6y ago
      Schools were open. A million kids went to crowded classrooms every day for the past two months and death rate is still not even close to England, Belgium, Italy or New York.
      - exdsq 6y ago
        The number of deaths per capita is higher than England, Belgium, and Italy however the total number is lower (they have a smaller population). They also have a low population density, a lot of single households, and as a population have less issues with diabetes, obesity, and chronic heart conditions compared to other countries. It is not black and white :)
  - orwin 6y ago
    Targeted lockdown was a good idea in the context (not that much different clusters). Sweden was since the beginning at the place where France will be next week, but Sweden did not have the Mulhouse cluster that crippled multiple hospitals in eastern France. Many thanks to Switzerland and Germany for helping us saving a dozen patients by the way.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  If you compare Sweden to other countries with full and absolute total lockdowns like Belgium the UK and Spain and Italy....they actually have lower incidences of infections fatalities and higher incidences of recoveries. Sweden is the control group in all of this for how effective lockdowns are and it's showing that they're potentially not as effective as we think they are.
  - orwin 6y ago
    You can't compare Sweden to those countries. Not the same density, not the same hubs, not hit at the same time, not the same social comportments. Even compared to France they have advantages and they have pretty close numbers (+30% excess death vs + 33%).
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Sweden has a higher density of day to day human interactions than any country with full quarantine lock down. How do the other data points apply to a country that's been on quarantine for months and another that has never been on quarantine? The exponential explosion of coronavirus cases hasn't happened in Sweden and it's not happening so far when people reopen their economies. there's not even a second wave in economies that have been reopened since early May like Florida. The model was flawed. Time to face facts quarantine was ineffective response.
      - entee 6y ago
        The major flaw in your argument is focusing on an official quarantine order. In practice it seems many of the places you mention have an informal quarantine in place. In Florida Miami-Dade county did have a lockdown though the broader state didn’t. It’s also the densest, so most at risk. Nursing homes also took steps way beyond the government order and well before the order. There’s also tons of evidence that people did not adopt initially and are not returning to normal behavior. For example even in Sweden restaurant attendance was down massively even in the absence of an official ban. You may be right that a more localized or targeted response has almost the same effect as a full lockdown. (Though things are still decidedly not great in Sweden concerning the death rate). But people are taking massive measures even in non-locked down areas, it’s improper to compare that to the status quo ante.