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It's funny that many arguments against social democratic economic policies from Nordic countries are on the basis of them being smaller countries and therefore

It's funny that many arguments against social democratic economic policies from Nordic countries are on the basis of them being smaller countries and therefore not comparable. But somehow when it's a contagious disease though, we should totally use them as a model example..

m0zg 6y ago
We'll see in another year. Truth of the matter is: C19 is endemic, and everyone will get it sooner or later, much like common cold. Another, more pernicious mistake people make is they assume we're out of the woods with this, whereas we'll never be out of the woods. Is it worth curing a headache by decapitation?
- pedrocr 6y ago
  The 4000+ extra COVID19 deaths they've had are years of life lost even if in the end the same number of people die. And their economic downturn was no better either.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    They may end up with _fewer_ deaths per million when all of this plays out in full over the next couple of years.
    - pedrocr 6y ago
      I've yet to see any argument for why that would be, and your argument was that everyone was going to get it "sooner or later". At this point you're just conjecturing scenarios without an argument. The actual metric to compare is years of life lost, not even total deaths, and thus getting it later is a benefit in itself, and gives you more chances of getting a vaccine before getting the disease, or just getting better treatments from what we've learned of the disease in the meantime.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        But the key issue is, _who gets it first_. If older people get it first, you get what happened in New York and New Jersey. If young people get it first and you effectively isolate the old, then the number of cases doesn't matter - younger people aren't dying from C19. Unfortunately Sweden failed to protect their elderly - hence the body count. But they couldn't really do anything else, since they treat their constitution seriously, and it does not allow the restriction of freedoms. There is no guarantee whatsoever that there _will_ be an effective and safe vaccine. There is no vaccine for any other coronavirus, and it's not for the lack of trying.
        pedrocr 6y ago
        We don't have a guarantee of a vaccine but we've already gotten better at both treating the disease and at defending ourselves from it. People and businesses didn't change their habits overnight. They're much more prepared now than before because of that extra time. And again, dying later rather than sooner is a benefit in itself. Sweden has had 4000 extra people die early in the pandemic directly related to the strategy they chose. Treating that as "you just wait and see if it doesn't pay out in the end" is not an argument for why their strategy is better. And it's not true that there was any constitutional problem with doing lockdowns as they did do them. Just less because that's the strategy they chose.
makomk 6y ago
They're probably a more realistic model than (say) the even smaller New Zealand - which seems to be the current favourite of people opposed to the Swedish model, especially since things started going badly throughout the rest of Europe - because Sweden hasn't taken advantage of their smaller size in the same way that New Zealand did. As far as I know they don't have any restrictions on travel from the rest of the EU, meaning they're still exposed to incoming infections from all those other countries with their much bigger populations, and elimination is just inherently more sensitive to rare, random events than strategies which involve living with the virus because achieving exactly zero active infections is so crucial to its success.

m0zg 6y ago

We'll see in another year. Truth of the matter is: C19 is endemic, and everyone will get it sooner or later, much like common cold. Another, more pernicious mistake people make is they assume we're out of the woods with this, whereas we'll never be out of the woods. Is it worth curing a headache by decapitation?

pedrocr 6y ago
The 4000+ extra COVID19 deaths they've had are years of life lost even if in the end the same number of people die. And their economic downturn was no better either.
- m0zg 6y ago
  They may end up with _fewer_ deaths per million when all of this plays out in full over the next couple of years.
  - pedrocr 6y ago
    I've yet to see any argument for why that would be, and your argument was that everyone was going to get it "sooner or later". At this point you're just conjecturing scenarios without an argument. The actual metric to compare is years of life lost, not even total deaths, and thus getting it later is a benefit in itself, and gives you more chances of getting a vaccine before getting the disease, or just getting better treatments from what we've learned of the disease in the meantime.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      But the key issue is, _who gets it first_. If older people get it first, you get what happened in New York and New Jersey. If young people get it first and you effectively isolate the old, then the number of cases doesn't matter - younger people aren't dying from C19. Unfortunately Sweden failed to protect their elderly - hence the body count. But they couldn't really do anything else, since they treat their constitution seriously, and it does not allow the restriction of freedoms. There is no guarantee whatsoever that there _will_ be an effective and safe vaccine. There is no vaccine for any other coronavirus, and it's not for the lack of trying.
      - pedrocr 6y ago
        We don't have a guarantee of a vaccine but we've already gotten better at both treating the disease and at defending ourselves from it. People and businesses didn't change their habits overnight. They're much more prepared now than before because of that extra time. And again, dying later rather than sooner is a benefit in itself. Sweden has had 4000 extra people die early in the pandemic directly related to the strategy they chose. Treating that as "you just wait and see if it doesn't pay out in the end" is not an argument for why their strategy is better. And it's not true that there was any constitutional problem with doing lockdowns as they did do them. Just less because that's the strategy they chose.

makomk 6y ago

They're probably a more realistic model than (say) the even smaller New Zealand - which seems to be the current favourite of people opposed to the Swedish model, especially since things started going badly throughout the rest of Europe - because Sweden hasn't taken advantage of their smaller size in the same way that New Zealand did. As far as I know they don't have any restrictions on travel from the rest of the EU, meaning they're still exposed to incoming infections from all those other countries with their much bigger populations, and elimination is just inherently more sensitive to rare, random events than strategies which involve living with the virus because achieving exactly zero active infections is so crucial to its success.