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>95% of the deaths in Sweden are from people over 60 years old. Our mistake was to let the virus into our elderly homes. I don't really see the evidence that we

by olodus 6y ago

>95% of the deaths in Sweden are from people over 60 years old. Our mistake was to let the virus into our elderly homes. I don't really see the evidence that we should have had lockdowns. As OP says the are a lot of precautions set in place already and even more earlier in the pandemic. Most worked from home and followed safety precautions given. That said I am open to changing my mind and think it is good that the authorities are stressing more precautions again. People have been getting a bit careless again and infection rate is increasing. It hasn't resulted in rise in death yet but we have to be vigilant.

jacques_chester 6y ago
Elderly homes, and high death rates in elderly homes, are not unique to Sweden. Folks who don't like lockdowns keep looking for reasons why Sweden's original policy is great, but also excuses for why its substantial deaths can be hand-waved away. It's just time to give up on the idea that Sweden's worse performance is a fluke rather than the direct consequence of a predictably dangerous policy setting.
matthewdgreen 6y ago
The evidence in favor of the lockdowns is that Sweden (and many other countries) were unable to wall off their elderly, despite knowing that they needed to. This failure to quickly segregate the vulnerable isn’t really surprising: successfully isolating the elderly from a pandemic is very challenging, especially under crisis conditions where you have no warning and very little time to prepare. Other countries decided the only way they could handle the problem in the time allotted was to reduce the incidence of COVID in the entire population via lockdowns, on the theory that this would protect the vulnerable populations by preventing COVID from reaching them. Sweden rejected some of these restrictions and, tragically, had a much worse outcome among these vulnerable populations. ETA: It is concerning that even several months into the epidemic, with time to prepare better to protect vulnerable populations, Sweden now feels that stronger general restrictions are the right approach. It’s hard to see how that isn’t also an admission that those restrictions shouldn’t have been used in the early phases as well.

by olodus 6y ago

jacques_chester 6y ago

Elderly homes, and high death rates in elderly homes, are not unique to Sweden. Folks who don't like lockdowns keep looking for reasons why Sweden's original policy is great, but also excuses for why its substantial deaths can be hand-waved away. It's just time to give up on the idea that Sweden's worse performance is a fluke rather than the direct consequence of a predictably dangerous policy setting.

matthewdgreen 6y ago

The evidence in favor of the lockdowns is that Sweden (and many other countries) were unable to wall off their elderly, despite knowing that they needed to. This failure to quickly segregate the vulnerable isn’t really surprising: successfully isolating the elderly from a pandemic is very challenging, especially under crisis conditions where you have no warning and very little time to prepare. Other countries decided the only way they could handle the problem in the time allotted was to reduce the incidence of COVID in the entire population via lockdowns, on the theory that this would protect the vulnerable populations by preventing COVID from reaching them. Sweden rejected some of these restrictions and, tragically, had a much worse outcome among these vulnerable populations. ETA: It is concerning that even several months into the epidemic, with time to prepare better to protect vulnerable populations, Sweden now feels that stronger general restrictions are the right approach. It’s hard to see how that isn’t also an admission that those restrictions shouldn’t have been used in the early phases as well.