3 ms·

Doesn't seem right to me. Euromomo does show a bump for Sweden, though it is still smaller than some other countries that did lockdowns: https://www.euromomo.e

Doesn't seem right to me. Euromomo does show a bump for Sweden, though it is still smaller than some other countries that did lockdowns: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps Also, several countries show no excess mortality.

evgen 6y ago
Compare Sweden to its immediate neighbors like Norway, Finland, and Denmark and the cost of Sweden's failed response becomes pretty obvious.
- rimliu 6y ago
  Compare the last few years then. Sweden did not have a bad flu seasons unlike the neighbours, who did.
- narrator 6y ago
  They didn't have to shut down the country though and since August there's 6 or less deaths a day. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
  - ginko 6y ago
    Norway has a death every 3 days or so right now.
- UrsaMedius 6y ago
  This is an oversimplification. What specifics do you claim puts Sweden closer to the other Nordics than other European contries? For example, Sweden had school breaks around the time of the large outbreaks in northern Italy and Austria, leading to many ski vacations to those areas. Did the other Nordics? To be clear, I don't proclaim this little example to be an explanation for why Sweden had more cases, only to shine some light on how complicated things can be. It is not clear that Sweden's response "failed" and it certainly isn't "pretty obvious".
  - jsnell 6y ago
    > For example, Sweden had school breaks around the time of the large outbreaks in northern Italy and Austria, leading to many ski vacations to those areas. Did the other Nordics? Yes, Norway and Denmark had ski vacations at the same time with a lot of travel to the Alps. All three countries had very similar initial conditions and trajectories for the epidemic until early April. The differences in outcomes were clearly related to policy decisions made in March and April.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  You are cherry-picking countries based on geographic proximity, but that's not really a meaningful factor. Germany is right next to France, France had the stricter lockdown, yet Germany has no excess mortality. Meanwhile, Norway has almost twice the per-capita GDP of the other nordic countries. Finland has no large metropolitan area. Sweden has more people in elderly care. Lots of factors to consider, but geographic proximity isn't really one.
  - MagnumOpus 6y ago
    > France had the stricter lockdown You are begging the question. France might have stricter rules, but didn't enforce them. German police enforced (and enforces) the rules that they have in terms of contact tracing, quarantine/isolation, indoors mask rules, regional/local lockdowns etc far more rapidly and stringently than France, Spain, UK or US. (Not as well as East Asian countries, but in European comparison the stereotype of following orders kind of works. Also Sweden does not only have geographic proximity to Norway and Denmark, but similar holiday travel behaviour, similar wealth level and business travel pattern, similar cultural mores of proximity. A far far more even comparison than with France, say. (And yes Finland has cities, ever heard of Helsinki with 1.4m people in the metro area?)
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      So we both agree that geographic proximity alone is not a good factor to compare by? Good. It then makes sense to compare Sweden against all other European countries instead of just those few neighboring countries.

evgen 6y ago

Compare Sweden to its immediate neighbors like Norway, Finland, and Denmark and the cost of Sweden's failed response becomes pretty obvious.

rimliu 6y ago
Compare the last few years then. Sweden did not have a bad flu seasons unlike the neighbours, who did.
narrator 6y ago
They didn't have to shut down the country though and since August there's 6 or less deaths a day. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
- ginko 6y ago
  Norway has a death every 3 days or so right now.
UrsaMedius 6y ago
This is an oversimplification. What specifics do you claim puts Sweden closer to the other Nordics than other European contries? For example, Sweden had school breaks around the time of the large outbreaks in northern Italy and Austria, leading to many ski vacations to those areas. Did the other Nordics? To be clear, I don't proclaim this little example to be an explanation for why Sweden had more cases, only to shine some light on how complicated things can be. It is not clear that Sweden's response "failed" and it certainly isn't "pretty obvious".
- jsnell 6y ago
  > For example, Sweden had school breaks around the time of the large outbreaks in northern Italy and Austria, leading to many ski vacations to those areas. Did the other Nordics? Yes, Norway and Denmark had ski vacations at the same time with a lot of travel to the Alps. All three countries had very similar initial conditions and trajectories for the epidemic until early April. The differences in outcomes were clearly related to policy decisions made in March and April.
gridlockd 6y ago
You are cherry-picking countries based on geographic proximity, but that's not really a meaningful factor. Germany is right next to France, France had the stricter lockdown, yet Germany has no excess mortality. Meanwhile, Norway has almost twice the per-capita GDP of the other nordic countries. Finland has no large metropolitan area. Sweden has more people in elderly care. Lots of factors to consider, but geographic proximity isn't really one.
- MagnumOpus 6y ago
  > France had the stricter lockdown You are begging the question. France might have stricter rules, but didn't enforce them. German police enforced (and enforces) the rules that they have in terms of contact tracing, quarantine/isolation, indoors mask rules, regional/local lockdowns etc far more rapidly and stringently than France, Spain, UK or US. (Not as well as East Asian countries, but in European comparison the stereotype of following orders kind of works. Also Sweden does not only have geographic proximity to Norway and Denmark, but similar holiday travel behaviour, similar wealth level and business travel pattern, similar cultural mores of proximity. A far far more even comparison than with France, say. (And yes Finland has cities, ever heard of Helsinki with 1.4m people in the metro area?)
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    So we both agree that geographic proximity alone is not a good factor to compare by? Good. It then makes sense to compare Sweden against all other European countries instead of just those few neighboring countries.