6 ms·

The interesting thing about Sweden is that they are going through a second wave even though they basically didn't do anything to stop the virus. I'm curious wha

The interesting thing about Sweden is that they are going through a second wave even though they basically didn't do anything to stop the virus. I'm curious what caused the drop in infections and then the subsequent second wave. The other thing is that deaths are basically at lows. So high infections and low death rate is basically what they want, isn't it?

_Microft 6y ago
Why would high numbers of infections would be preferrable? Reaching herd immunity by natural spread while not overloading the health system is an illusion as it would take several years. So we are waiting for a vaccine either way. The fewer infections, the better.
- jennyyang 6y ago
  If 85%+ of the people are getting infected with mild or no symptoms, and those most susceptible to death are quarantined (those over 60 years old), then you have a best case scenario where the death rate is around 0.5%. What we need right now is a test to determine who that sub-10% are below the age of 60 that will get severe symptoms or worse, and isolate them as well. We have no idea how successful a vaccine will be. If it's 50% successful, that means that people will be getting Covid-19 regardless, so it seems we might as well front load the infections now. In addition, recently they found a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 with a mutation in the spike protein. If the spike protein mutates enough such that the vaccine no longer works, then we really have no choice but to reach herd immunity.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    0.5% is not a low death rate at all. For Sweden (total population ~10M, assuming just 60% of all people infected are enough for herd immunity) that would mean thirty thousand fatalities in the group of people who are least affected by it. That's not even taking the harm of long term complications into account. I really do not understand how people can possibly justify such a course of action but obviously they do. I just hope it is because they haven't properly thought it through - and not because of a disregard for human life.
    - jjgreen 6y ago
      A 1/200 chance of dying in a free and open society, meeting like-minded friends in the pub, the restaurant. Or two years (if you're lucky) masked, being barked at by Covid wardens, locked down at home for a month in three. If I had the choice I know which I'd take. That's rather the point, the lockdown advocates will not give me that choice.
      - CarelessExpert 6y ago
        > That's rather the point, the lockdown advocates will not give me that choice. That's because it's not a choice you can make just for yourself in isolation without affecting others. Unlike, say, not wearing a seatbelt in a single passenger vehicle, where its only your own life at stake, if you choose to take risks with an infectious disease, you're also making a choice to endanger others--the emergency services and healthcare workers who have to care for you, the people you come into contact with while you're asymptomatic, etc. So, by your making that choice, you are also choosing to increase the risks of those around you. There's a famous quote: Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Alas, it seems like some people care more about their personal freedom to swing their fists than they do about the welfare of their fellow citizens...
        jjgreen 6y ago
        It seems to me that it is the maskers who interfere with the noses of others, and quote Mill while they do it.
        CarelessExpert 6y ago
        This is true! The question is: what's the consequence of those two violations of individual liberty? In one case, it's the inconvenience of your having to put a cloth covering over your face in some circumstances, or being curtailed from having a beer in a public place. In the other, it's the possibility of my death or disability resulting from your actions. This bears a resemblance to many many other trade-offs we make between individual freedoms. For example, while curtailing your individual liberty, you are punished for driving drunk, firing a gun into the air, or defecating in public places, due to those actions endangering the health and safety of others. Yet, for some reason, masks and lockdown orders are the hill folks are choosing to die on (in some cases quite literally). But, I have to admit that in a world that appears hopelessly infected by American-style hyper-individualism, at a time when it seems we're more distant and disconnected from one another than ever before, and yet paradoxically pushed apart by greater and greater extremes of partisanship and tribalism, while sad and disappointed, I'm not terribly surprised that some prioritize their own convenience over the safety of strangers. Well, until they're on a ventilator facing their own mortality. That does seem to turn folks around on the whole thing...
0-_-0 6y ago
I'm curious what caused the drop in infections and then the subsequent second wave. Summer, I'm guessing.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> The interesting thing about Sweden is that they are going through a second wave even though they basically didn't do anything to stop the virus. That's a misrepresentation of what happened in Sweden. While there was no formal lockdown, people absolutely voluntarily engaged in some level of social distancing. You only need to look at the economic data, which shows a major domestic slowdown, to see that people clearly changed their behaviour. It just wasn't mandated by the state. In fact, the same pattern is visible in other nations. That is, individual behaviour changed in advance of lockdowns pretty consistently across a variety of countries.

_Microft 6y ago

Why would high numbers of infections would be preferrable? Reaching herd immunity by natural spread while not overloading the health system is an illusion as it would take several years. So we are waiting for a vaccine either way. The fewer infections, the better.

jennyyang 6y ago
If 85%+ of the people are getting infected with mild or no symptoms, and those most susceptible to death are quarantined (those over 60 years old), then you have a best case scenario where the death rate is around 0.5%. What we need right now is a test to determine who that sub-10% are below the age of 60 that will get severe symptoms or worse, and isolate them as well. We have no idea how successful a vaccine will be. If it's 50% successful, that means that people will be getting Covid-19 regardless, so it seems we might as well front load the infections now. In addition, recently they found a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 with a mutation in the spike protein. If the spike protein mutates enough such that the vaccine no longer works, then we really have no choice but to reach herd immunity.
- _Microft 6y ago
  0.5% is not a low death rate at all. For Sweden (total population ~10M, assuming just 60% of all people infected are enough for herd immunity) that would mean thirty thousand fatalities in the group of people who are least affected by it. That's not even taking the harm of long term complications into account. I really do not understand how people can possibly justify such a course of action but obviously they do. I just hope it is because they haven't properly thought it through - and not because of a disregard for human life.
  - jjgreen 6y ago
    A 1/200 chance of dying in a free and open society, meeting like-minded friends in the pub, the restaurant. Or two years (if you're lucky) masked, being barked at by Covid wardens, locked down at home for a month in three. If I had the choice I know which I'd take. That's rather the point, the lockdown advocates will not give me that choice.
    - CarelessExpert 6y ago
      > That's rather the point, the lockdown advocates will not give me that choice. That's because it's not a choice you can make just for yourself in isolation without affecting others. Unlike, say, not wearing a seatbelt in a single passenger vehicle, where its only your own life at stake, if you choose to take risks with an infectious disease, you're also making a choice to endanger others--the emergency services and healthcare workers who have to care for you, the people you come into contact with while you're asymptomatic, etc. So, by your making that choice, you are also choosing to increase the risks of those around you. There's a famous quote: Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Alas, it seems like some people care more about their personal freedom to swing their fists than they do about the welfare of their fellow citizens...
      - jjgreen 6y ago
        It seems to me that it is the maskers who interfere with the noses of others, and quote Mill while they do it.
        CarelessExpert 6y ago
        This is true! The question is: what's the consequence of those two violations of individual liberty? In one case, it's the inconvenience of your having to put a cloth covering over your face in some circumstances, or being curtailed from having a beer in a public place. In the other, it's the possibility of my death or disability resulting from your actions. This bears a resemblance to many many other trade-offs we make between individual freedoms. For example, while curtailing your individual liberty, you are punished for driving drunk, firing a gun into the air, or defecating in public places, due to those actions endangering the health and safety of others. Yet, for some reason, masks and lockdown orders are the hill folks are choosing to die on (in some cases quite literally). But, I have to admit that in a world that appears hopelessly infected by American-style hyper-individualism, at a time when it seems we're more distant and disconnected from one another than ever before, and yet paradoxically pushed apart by greater and greater extremes of partisanship and tribalism, while sad and disappointed, I'm not terribly surprised that some prioritize their own convenience over the safety of strangers. Well, until they're on a ventilator facing their own mortality. That does seem to turn folks around on the whole thing...

0-_-0 6y ago

I'm curious what caused the drop in infections and then the subsequent second wave. Summer, I'm guessing.

CarelessExpert 6y ago

> The interesting thing about Sweden is that they are going through a second wave even though they basically didn't do anything to stop the virus. That's a misrepresentation of what happened in Sweden. While there was no formal lockdown, people absolutely voluntarily engaged in some level of social distancing. You only need to look at the economic data, which shows a major domestic slowdown, to see that people clearly changed their behaviour. It just wasn't mandated by the state. In fact, the same pattern is visible in other nations. That is, individual behaviour changed in advance of lockdowns pretty consistently across a variety of countries.