2 ms·

i don't know what is the actual truth and we probably won't know which way was the "correct" decision until well after this pandemic is over (assuming it ends).

by swang 6y ago

i don't know what is the actual truth and we probably won't know which way was the "correct" decision until well after this pandemic is over (assuming it ends). i think the biggest issue with the US response is the bad messaging and iffy attempts at lockdown and reopening. taiwan didn't go into lockdown but the country respects social distancing and masks and is very adamant about quarantining, tracing and cleaning. do you think the average american citizen will adhere to any of that? forced quarantine for 14 days if you are infected or fly-in while a phone app afterward traces your movements to make sure future outbreaks can be traced? will people wear masks? will people maintain the social good over the individual? (answer for the US is apparently not) i don't know culturally how sweden viewed these things but from what i can tell most people at least tried to maintain some form of social distancing. some swede can chime in here and correct me on that. but what they've said about the nordic countries though, is that sweden's economy has shrank the same size as denmark's[0], while denmark which went into lockdown, suffered 8x fewer deaths, 5x fewer by percentage of population. that is the effect no lockdown has had on sweden. also as a discussion to that both sweden and denmark's new cases are slowly creeping up, but denmark's is at about a quarter (~100/day) compared to sweden (~400/day). [0]: 4.5 for sweden, 4.1 for denmark. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...

olodus 6y ago
Yes you are correct during the worst part of corona my experience is not the same as the doctor from the article. Many people strictly kept away from places with large amount of people close together. A lot of employers changed to work from home. My employer says we will continue WFH until end of year. That said people still socialised, though outside and in smaller groups. In the end our high mortality rate can't be overlooked. We need to change our strategy for future similar pandemics. That said, I think the most interesting stats to look at when deciding what we should have done differently is the breakdown of deaths per age-group. Less than 100 deaths are among people younger than 50. So almost all of our ~6000 deaths were among the elderly. That is what needs to change. Next time we need to be quicker at protecting the old. Otherwise our strategy could have worked, the rest seem to be able to build up their defences to the virus.

by swang 6y ago

olodus 6y ago

Yes you are correct during the worst part of corona my experience is not the same as the doctor from the article. Many people strictly kept away from places with large amount of people close together. A lot of employers changed to work from home. My employer says we will continue WFH until end of year. That said people still socialised, though outside and in smaller groups. In the end our high mortality rate can't be overlooked. We need to change our strategy for future similar pandemics. That said, I think the most interesting stats to look at when deciding what we should have done differently is the breakdown of deaths per age-group. Less than 100 deaths are among people younger than 50. So almost all of our ~6000 deaths were among the elderly. That is what needs to change. Next time we need to be quicker at protecting the old. Otherwise our strategy could have worked, the rest seem to be able to build up their defences to the virus.