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While this is certainly a classic example of appeal to authority, I don't think the data backs it up. As of May 29, there have been 44k deaths in Sweden from al

While this is certainly a classic example of appeal to authority, I don't think the data backs it up. As of May 29, there have been 44k deaths in Sweden from all causes. If you extrapolate that out for the year, you get 105k. That's about 15% more than a typical year in that country [1]. Obviously bad, but all countries are experiencing increased mortality. It's not clear how much lockdown would have reduced that. Additionally, there may be some death harvesting going on, where future deaths are pulled forward due to Covid. We are seeing this in the US [2], so possibly their incremental deaths will be lower than 15%. Finally, if we are doing appeals to authority, the Prime Minister of neighboring Norway says she closed schools "out of fear" and seems to regret that action [3]. I'm a parent, and the last point is personal for me. There is enormous cost to lockdowns that close schools, especially for working parents, especially if both parents work, especially if your home is cramped or small, and so on. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-... [2] https://i.imgur.com/2HsNN54.png https://i.imgur.com/2HsNN54.png from https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/gvfep9/el_gato_malo_on_twitter_take_the_scandinavia_test/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/gvfep9/..., see also https://imgur.com/RQiEIku https://imgur.com/RQiEIku from the same thread [3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8373857/Norways-PM-admits-closed-schools-nurseries-fear.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8373857/Norways-PM-...

INTPenis 6y ago
I'm glad you brought that up because if you look at cases /1M pops on worldometers Sweden is actually below at least two european countries (Italy, Spain) who enforced a strict quarantine and travel ban. Yet Sweden are seeing a pretty high mortality compared to those countries. So my conclusion is that quarantine has done no difference to spread but the state of health care is affecting mortality. And not only Norway is making mistakes in this new experience. The fact that Denmark closes down tourist areas, and the border, but allow their citizens to cross the bridge to Sweden and enjoy all the tourist areas there, and then come back to Denmark, that's just silly.
- Lewton 6y ago
  > The fact that Denmark closes down tourist areas, and the border, but allow their citizens to cross the bridge to Sweden and enjoy all the tourist areas there, and then come back to Denmark, that's just silly. This is politically impossible to stop. Sweden has not closed its borders, so there's no one to stop danes from entering. And Denmark can't close it's borders to danish nationals, so they can't be stopped from returning home. The Danish Government has made clear statements saying that they strongly urge people to not go to Sweden
  - panpanna 6y ago
    Denmark is the king of this kind of stupidity. People call it symbolic-politics. Remember, this is the same country that during the Syria crisis stripped incoming refugee of their belonging then dropped them off by the Swedish border. Edit: since people are downvoting this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliament-approves-plan-to-seize-assets-from-refugees https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliam... https://www.thelocal.se/20150910/danish-police-allow-refugees-to-continue-on-to-sweden https://www.thelocal.se/20150910/danish-police-allow-refugee... https://www.rt.com/news/445552-denmark-refugees-island-unwanted/ https://www.rt.com/news/445552-denmark-refugees-island-unwan...
  - mytherin 6y ago
    They can't close their border to Danish nationals, but they can quarantine people for 14 days upon return. If they were completely serious about stopping this they would have done that. Nobody is going to go on a short tourism trip knowing they will be quarantined upon return home.
    - Lewton 6y ago
      I don’t find it particularly odd or hypocritical that the danish government would prefer to avoid a situation where they have to forcefully quarantine people
- CaptainZapp 6y ago
  Sweden had ample warning and time to prepare. Italy, and to a lesser extent Spain, did not.
Lewton 6y ago
> Obviously bad, but all countries are experiencing increased mortality. Not even remotely true. https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps There's at least half a dozen of European countries that imposed measures early that are seeing no increase in mortality, (seemingly seeing slight decreases, even)
- marcell 6y ago
  It seems like a bit of a crapshoot. Some countries had huge spikes in deaths (Spain, Italy obviously, France, Belgium, Netherlands), and some did not (Norway, Hungary, Greece). Sweden's spike is a bit longer and bit flatter than other countries. I'm not denying that Covid is a real disease that is causing excess death. I'm mainly challenging the narrative that lockdown is the only way to address the problem, that it's to correct approach, or that Sweden's approach is causing some sort of doomsday scenario of mass deaths.
deleted 6y ago
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philjohn 6y ago
Problem is you can't just extrapolate Sweden to other countries ... UK for example has higher levels of obesity and Type II diabetes, which are both known prognostic indicators for a worse outcome. They also have a better-funded health system than the UK and lower population density.
- collyw 6y ago
  Overall they have lower population density but how does that translate to reality when 1/3 of their population lives in cities?
  - dijit 6y ago
    Swedish cities are far less dense than British ones. Stockholm has an equivalent density to Bristol in the UK, which doesn't even break top 10 in terms of City size. (4,200~/km2 each). London is 35%~ more dense in the urban area (5,666~/km2) and there's a large portion of the UK that is in between those cities regarding density.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > but how does that translate to reality when 1/3 of their population lives in cities? Population density correlates with exposure, specially if we consider mass transit systems. To put things in perspective: * Stockholm: population 910k, density 4200/km2, * Madrid: population 6617k, density 5400/km2, * Milan: population 3140k, density 7550/km2.

INTPenis 6y ago

I'm glad you brought that up because if you look at cases /1M pops on worldometers Sweden is actually below at least two european countries (Italy, Spain) who enforced a strict quarantine and travel ban. Yet Sweden are seeing a pretty high mortality compared to those countries. So my conclusion is that quarantine has done no difference to spread but the state of health care is affecting mortality. And not only Norway is making mistakes in this new experience. The fact that Denmark closes down tourist areas, and the border, but allow their citizens to cross the bridge to Sweden and enjoy all the tourist areas there, and then come back to Denmark, that's just silly.

Lewton 6y ago
> The fact that Denmark closes down tourist areas, and the border, but allow their citizens to cross the bridge to Sweden and enjoy all the tourist areas there, and then come back to Denmark, that's just silly. This is politically impossible to stop. Sweden has not closed its borders, so there's no one to stop danes from entering. And Denmark can't close it's borders to danish nationals, so they can't be stopped from returning home. The Danish Government has made clear statements saying that they strongly urge people to not go to Sweden
- panpanna 6y ago
  Denmark is the king of this kind of stupidity. People call it symbolic-politics. Remember, this is the same country that during the Syria crisis stripped incoming refugee of their belonging then dropped them off by the Swedish border. Edit: since people are downvoting this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliament-approves-plan-to-seize-assets-from-refugees https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliam... https://www.thelocal.se/20150910/danish-police-allow-refugees-to-continue-on-to-sweden https://www.thelocal.se/20150910/danish-police-allow-refugee... https://www.rt.com/news/445552-denmark-refugees-island-unwanted/ https://www.rt.com/news/445552-denmark-refugees-island-unwan...
- mytherin 6y ago
  They can't close their border to Danish nationals, but they can quarantine people for 14 days upon return. If they were completely serious about stopping this they would have done that. Nobody is going to go on a short tourism trip knowing they will be quarantined upon return home.
  - Lewton 6y ago
    I don’t find it particularly odd or hypocritical that the danish government would prefer to avoid a situation where they have to forcefully quarantine people
CaptainZapp 6y ago
Sweden had ample warning and time to prepare. Italy, and to a lesser extent Spain, did not.

Lewton 6y ago

> Obviously bad, but all countries are experiencing increased mortality. Not even remotely true. https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps There's at least half a dozen of European countries that imposed measures early that are seeing no increase in mortality, (seemingly seeing slight decreases, even)

marcell 6y ago
It seems like a bit of a crapshoot. Some countries had huge spikes in deaths (Spain, Italy obviously, France, Belgium, Netherlands), and some did not (Norway, Hungary, Greece). Sweden's spike is a bit longer and bit flatter than other countries. I'm not denying that Covid is a real disease that is causing excess death. I'm mainly challenging the narrative that lockdown is the only way to address the problem, that it's to correct approach, or that Sweden's approach is causing some sort of doomsday scenario of mass deaths.

deleted 6y ago

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philjohn 6y ago

Problem is you can't just extrapolate Sweden to other countries ... UK for example has higher levels of obesity and Type II diabetes, which are both known prognostic indicators for a worse outcome. They also have a better-funded health system than the UK and lower population density.

collyw 6y ago
Overall they have lower population density but how does that translate to reality when 1/3 of their population lives in cities?
- dijit 6y ago
  Swedish cities are far less dense than British ones. Stockholm has an equivalent density to Bristol in the UK, which doesn't even break top 10 in terms of City size. (4,200~/km2 each). London is 35%~ more dense in the urban area (5,666~/km2) and there's a large portion of the UK that is in between those cities regarding density.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > but how does that translate to reality when 1/3 of their population lives in cities? Population density correlates with exposure, specially if we consider mass transit systems. To put things in perspective: * Stockholm: population 910k, density 4200/km2, * Madrid: population 6617k, density 5400/km2, * Milan: population 3140k, density 7550/km2.