4 ms·
Ok this is interesting. Any discussion of Sweden on here and certain other sites seemed to get a bit politicised - I think because its become a Dem/Rep battle t
by codeulike 6y ago
Ok this is interesting. Any discussion of Sweden on here and certain other sites seemed to get a bit politicised - I think because its become a Dem/Rep battle topic in the USA.
But up to a few weeks ago, it seemed that Sweden's policy of not introducing any measures that weren't long-term sustainable had worked kindof ok. It certainly hadn't been a complete disaster. People will point out that Sweden did worse than its immediate neighbours who locked down more. But Sweden also did better than places like the UK and USA who locked down more. There are probably many factors to that (e.g. Sweden has a high proportion of people who live on their own etc).
But the Sweden data (until a few weeks ago) did point to the idea that some sort of herd immunity might be achievable, perhaps due to latent T-cell immunity from other coronaviruses. Not conclusively, but it was an interesting data point to discuss if anyone was able to keep an open mind about it.
(Side note : and here's the important point for people involved in the Dem/Rep battle over Sweden - if Sweden was having success with their covid policy, that success could only have been understood in the context of Sweden’s highly developed welfare state and social system: universal healthcare, paid sick leave, paid leave to care for sick kids, subsidized daycare & pre/after-school care. The USA barely has any of those things.)
Anyway if you read the linked article, there's a graph halfway down showing a massive second wave in Sweden, much bigger than the first, and so now they are having to lock down more.
But hopefully its all moot now anyway becasue we have multiple vaccine candidates on the way.
edit: yes of course vaccine distribution is going to take some time
- bobthepanda 6y agothere's still the issue of distribution of said vaccine, which may take a while; aren't most of the vaccines trialed requiring multiple shots as well?
- mrkwse 6y agoPfizer, Moderna, and AstroZenica (not as advanced) are all two shot vaccines.
- landemva 6y agoWhat about the issue of testing for safety? Before today, that took 5+ years.
- pchristensen 6y agoThat makes me nervous as well. I'd like a Covid vaccine, but I'd like to see a few tens of millions of people take it first. Especially since I (small town, WFH, kids in virtual school) have a much less risky situation wrt Covid.
- codeulike 6y agoHere's a twitter thread about that. Basically, most of that 5+ years is usually spent waiting around for funding and/or decisions from management. https://twitter.com/mark_toshner/status/1328837111869566976 https://twitter.com/mark_toshner/status/1328837111869566976
- jcranmer 6y ago> But hopefully its all moot now anyway becasue we have multiple vaccine candidates on the way. Actual delivery of vaccines to the general public is probably still a minimum of 6 months away, even assuming we have enough vaccine doses to cover the general public. We are in the middle of accelerating case counts right now, and we don't have the luxury of waiting that long.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoUnfortunately, the likelihood of having anywhere near enough vaccine doses before March-June next year is very, very low.
- ratsmack 6y ago>showing a massive second wave in Sweden What is the difference in testing for covid at the beginning compared to now? I seems that no one takes into account that the world wide deaths are down as infections spike, and that the two week latency doesn't seem to be a factor.
- bobthepanda 6y agoWW deaths are down because IIRC in many places that had a first wave, hospital operations are now more familiar with what to do during COVID and so it's not spiraled wildly out of control as quickly. It could still happen as this wave continues.