4 ms·

Sweden is effectively as locked down as anywhere else. The prevalence of the virus is diminishing there because people are not going out and getting sick, rende

by ouid 6y ago

Sweden is effectively as locked down as anywhere else. The prevalence of the virus is diminishing there because people are not going out and getting sick, rendering R_t<1. I don't participate in social distancing because my government says to, and I certainly don't stop because my government says to either.

refurb 6y ago
Sweden is effectively as locked down as anywhere else. Is that true? Are all the schools closed? Are most people working from home? Are most businesses shutdown? That's not what I've read (outside this article).
- chki 6y ago
  But this is also not the case for all the other countries in Europe which (according to the author) have taken the wrong approach to COVID. The more I think about it the more this article confuses and worries me. It's a thinkpiece that is not grounded in the scientific reality.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    > It's a thinkpiece that is not grounded in the scientific reality. What does that mean? As a scientist myself, 'science' can basically never say anything definitive about reality. Not for something extremely well measured and controlled like GR, and especially not something where the evidence on the ground and influencing factors (policy, social opinion, culture) shift with a frequency on the same order of scale that our measurements can be tallied.
    - chki 6y ago
      There are a lot of claims in the article that the current scientific consensus does not support. The T-cells claim is one of them. Of course there are no absolute truths and I agree that my choice of words was maybe unfortunate.
    - schemy 6y ago
      It means that people who have no idea what science is like to pretend they have a deeper reason for their biases other than their innate preferences. They do not like that pointed out to them and will violently react to anyone who does. You can't have a scientific response to the virus when you don't know what the asymptomatic transmission rate is, or what the true death rate is. As can be seen here it does not go well when they are made to even consider that they don't have all the information needed for a scientific response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077233
  - refurb 6y ago
    Ok, but he starts with... "I want to preface this article by stating that it is entirely anecdotal and based on my experience working as a doctor in the emergency room of one of the big hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden, and of living as a citizen in Sweden."
  - mellow2020 6y ago
    I don't know what "scientific reality" is supposed to be, but even searching for it on a rather new search engine without mentioning Covid (!) brings up plenty relevant articles: https://infinitysearch.co/results?q=the+difference+in+swedens+approach https://infinitysearch.co/results?q=the+difference+in+sweden...
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    I mean, he mentions right at the start and several times throughout the post that it's his observations and opinion. Expecting it to be scientific reality seems a bit unfair.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    What is "scientific reality" in this case? Look at this paragraph. It jumped right out at me, why is nobody else commenting on this? The next day all those patients were gone and the only thing coming in to the hospital was covid. Practically everyone who was tested had covid, regardless of what the presenting symtom was. People came in with a nose bleed and they had covid. They came in with stomach pain and they had covid. What sort of disease has no specific symptoms at all? I thought COVID patients were presenting with an unusual form of dry pneumonia? If you look at the history of epidemiology and virology, it is unfortunately filled with stories of misinterpreted data leading to incorrect belief that a virus was the underlying cause. For a long time diseases caused by vitamin deficiencies were blamed on viruses although none actually existed. When you read that some doctors experience of COVID was "people turned up as normal but suddenly they were all testing positive", you do have to wonder what is going on. I thought COVID patients in hospitals were clearly COVID patients by symptoms, but the list of associated symptoms seems to keep widening. That's confusing and worrying indeed.
- 0-1 6y ago
  Google's COVID-19 Community Mobility Report is currently showing a 50% drop in visits to workplaces, compared to a pre-COVID baseline. https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-08-04_SE_Mobility_Report_en.pdf https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-08-04_SE_Mobil...
- aliswe 6y ago
  Yes that statement is very strange to me.
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
> I don't participate in social distancing because my government says to, and I certainly don't stop because my government says to either. In an ideal world, the government would listen to the experts, they would reach some reality-based and science-based consensus, and then the people would follow those conclusions because it's the right thing to do. But that's an ideal world.
- refurb 6y ago
  As a trained scientist, I'm skeptical of these calls for "scientific consensus". Sure, there are many areas of science where there is clear consensus. But if you're talking about a new area of science, where we don't have much data, it's not unusual for experts to not agree on things. And sure, one of them is likely right and one wrong, but we won't know which one until we get more data.
  - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
    These statements are true in general, of course. Now, as for the current pandemic, data is plenty already.

by ouid 6y ago

refurb 6y ago

Sweden is effectively as locked down as anywhere else. Is that true? Are all the schools closed? Are most people working from home? Are most businesses shutdown? That's not what I've read (outside this article).

chki 6y ago
But this is also not the case for all the other countries in Europe which (according to the author) have taken the wrong approach to COVID. The more I think about it the more this article confuses and worries me. It's a thinkpiece that is not grounded in the scientific reality.
- dnautics 6y ago
  > It's a thinkpiece that is not grounded in the scientific reality. What does that mean? As a scientist myself, 'science' can basically never say anything definitive about reality. Not for something extremely well measured and controlled like GR, and especially not something where the evidence on the ground and influencing factors (policy, social opinion, culture) shift with a frequency on the same order of scale that our measurements can be tallied.
  - chki 6y ago
    There are a lot of claims in the article that the current scientific consensus does not support. The T-cells claim is one of them. Of course there are no absolute truths and I agree that my choice of words was maybe unfortunate.
  - schemy 6y ago
    It means that people who have no idea what science is like to pretend they have a deeper reason for their biases other than their innate preferences. They do not like that pointed out to them and will violently react to anyone who does. You can't have a scientific response to the virus when you don't know what the asymptomatic transmission rate is, or what the true death rate is. As can be seen here it does not go well when they are made to even consider that they don't have all the information needed for a scientific response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077233
- refurb 6y ago
  Ok, but he starts with... "I want to preface this article by stating that it is entirely anecdotal and based on my experience working as a doctor in the emergency room of one of the big hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden, and of living as a citizen in Sweden."
- mellow2020 6y ago
  I don't know what "scientific reality" is supposed to be, but even searching for it on a rather new search engine without mentioning Covid (!) brings up plenty relevant articles: https://infinitysearch.co/results?q=the+difference+in+swedens+approach https://infinitysearch.co/results?q=the+difference+in+sweden...
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  I mean, he mentions right at the start and several times throughout the post that it's his observations and opinion. Expecting it to be scientific reality seems a bit unfair.
- thu2111 6y ago
  What is "scientific reality" in this case? Look at this paragraph. It jumped right out at me, why is nobody else commenting on this? The next day all those patients were gone and the only thing coming in to the hospital was covid. Practically everyone who was tested had covid, regardless of what the presenting symtom was. People came in with a nose bleed and they had covid. They came in with stomach pain and they had covid. What sort of disease has no specific symptoms at all? I thought COVID patients were presenting with an unusual form of dry pneumonia? If you look at the history of epidemiology and virology, it is unfortunately filled with stories of misinterpreted data leading to incorrect belief that a virus was the underlying cause. For a long time diseases caused by vitamin deficiencies were blamed on viruses although none actually existed. When you read that some doctors experience of COVID was "people turned up as normal but suddenly they were all testing positive", you do have to wonder what is going on. I thought COVID patients in hospitals were clearly COVID patients by symptoms, but the list of associated symptoms seems to keep widening. That's confusing and worrying indeed.
0-1 6y ago
Google's COVID-19 Community Mobility Report is currently showing a 50% drop in visits to workplaces, compared to a pre-COVID baseline. https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-08-04_SE_Mobility_Report_en.pdf https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-08-04_SE_Mobil...
aliswe 6y ago
Yes that statement is very strange to me.

Florin_Andrei 6y ago

> I don't participate in social distancing because my government says to, and I certainly don't stop because my government says to either. In an ideal world, the government would listen to the experts, they would reach some reality-based and science-based consensus, and then the people would follow those conclusions because it's the right thing to do. But that's an ideal world.

refurb 6y ago
As a trained scientist, I'm skeptical of these calls for "scientific consensus". Sure, there are many areas of science where there is clear consensus. But if you're talking about a new area of science, where we don't have much data, it's not unusual for experts to not agree on things. And sure, one of them is likely right and one wrong, but we won't know which one until we get more data.
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  These statements are true in general, of course. Now, as for the current pandemic, data is plenty already.