4 ms·

Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden which: - Did not force lockdown / masks onto anybody - Has one of the least vaccinated population in Europe (around 40%

Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden which: - Did not force lockdown / masks onto anybody - Has one of the least vaccinated population in Europe (around 40% afaik) - Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks. - Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates. Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world (on top of having stringent mandates) and are basically experiencing their largest spike in cases since the beginning of this pandemic? At the end of the day, it's also good to realise so called experts do not seem to have all the answers even though it's "backed by science". Going back to common sense and taking a step back is what will get us all out of this.

Florin_Andrei 5y ago
> so called experts do not seem to have all the answers You are drinking misinformation from the firehose. That quote is a clear symptom of it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pacerwpg 5y ago
Have you been actually following how things have gone? Sweden has 1708% more deaths to covid vs Norway, but only 84% higher population. That doesn't sound that great to me.
- MatteoFrigo 5y ago
  This comparison between two datapoints is not too useful. The graphs at https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ provide a more nuanced picture, with the caveat that those are graphs of excess mortality and not necessarily covid-specific.
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    Useful or not, I think it's more representative within that region than you let on and matches basically the activity causing this moment in the timeline from your link: https://imgur.com/a/G3D7AZ2 https://imgur.com/a/G3D7AZ2
- ostrichlamb 5y ago
  Per Google stats, Sweden has had 14,664 COVID deaths to this day on a population of 10.23M people which is 0.1%, the vast majority being close to average age of death (82 y/o) in this country. (It's also worth noting that ~24K people die of vascular disease in this country every year to put things in perspective.) Although death is always unfortunate, it seems to be a very foolish goal to try and prevent everyone from dying in this situation. Well, we might be able to do just that, but how much of your previous way of life / liberties are we willing to sacrifice forever?
BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
> Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden: - Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates. Please explain this graph comparing Covid deaths in Sweden to its immediate neighbors that shows the opposite of what you're saying: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=true&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~ISL~NOR~DNK~FIN https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... > - Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks. Deaths per week are a function of previous deaths and population distribution. If more people die at the beginning, then fewer are left to die later. That's how dying works. Sweden's weekly per capita deaths peaked much higher than in the US or EU overall, and they've lost more people per capita than their neighbors. A person who cares about numbers should be looking cumulatively, not just within some specific narrow window. > Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world Israel isn't even in the top 30 and their vaccinations flatlined back in February, they prematurely declared victory, and people went back to licking doorknobs. But let's ignore all of that for now. Congratulations, people faffed around fighting against restrictions and vaccination for so long that now we have successfully developed a mutation that achieves viral escape. Go team! Yay! Mission accomplished! Vaccines and lockdowns and mask mandates still appear to prevent deaths and hospital overflow. How do we know? Because deaths and ICU bed percentages go down during lockdowns and go up when lockdowns end and because a tiny fraction of the people dying are vaccinated. Keep in mind also that Iceland still has one of the lowest total per capita COVID death rates of any place in the world. It's also a weird little volcanic island with everyone living in only a few places with a major international transit hub between Europe and North America. The few places in the world doing better than Iceland are places which also lock down quickly. > Going back to common sense Except that your "common sense" tells you that Sweden has done great and that Israel and Iceland are doing poorly when compared to other countries the opposite is true. How then should we assess the accuracy of your common sense? My common sense says that people who refuse the vaccine should just be refused access to hospital resources if they get sick. It would neatly address a lot of issues.
- ostrichlamb 5y ago
  > Deaths per week are a function of previous deaths and population distribution. If more people die at the beginning, then fewer are left to die later. That's how dying works. Sweden's weekly per capita deaths peaked much higher than in the US or EU overall, and they've lost more people per capita than their neighbors. Is this necessarily an issue though? They've managed to keep a reasonable way of life through those times while building a natural immunity to this disease. They're also not implementing any inhumane / dystopian measures like "health passports" and the like. At some point we have to look beyond the number of cases / deaths as the only "success measure" for dealing with this thing. The level of humanity (although hard to assess with numbers but easy to see for the humans among us) needs to be factored in here. > My common sense says that people who refuse the vaccine should just be refused access to hospital resources if they get sick. It would neatly address a lot of issues. Should we carry on with this logic and ban the [obese / overweight / inactive / drinkers / smokers / stressed / etc.] from the hospitals because they could have done something about their health that would ultimately have prevented them from getting sick? This is a slippery slope, but I'm sure you'll quickly understand why. That being said, if I also no longer have to pay taxes that fund these establishments (and get refund on previous contributions), I might take your deal .. That's another discussion though.

Florin_Andrei 5y ago

> so called experts do not seem to have all the answers You are drinking misinformation from the firehose. That quote is a clear symptom of it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

pacerwpg 5y ago

Have you been actually following how things have gone? Sweden has 1708% more deaths to covid vs Norway, but only 84% higher population. That doesn't sound that great to me.

MatteoFrigo 5y ago
This comparison between two datapoints is not too useful. The graphs at https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ provide a more nuanced picture, with the caveat that those are graphs of excess mortality and not necessarily covid-specific.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  Useful or not, I think it's more representative within that region than you let on and matches basically the activity causing this moment in the timeline from your link: https://imgur.com/a/G3D7AZ2 https://imgur.com/a/G3D7AZ2
ostrichlamb 5y ago
Per Google stats, Sweden has had 14,664 COVID deaths to this day on a population of 10.23M people which is 0.1%, the vast majority being close to average age of death (82 y/o) in this country. (It's also worth noting that ~24K people die of vascular disease in this country every year to put things in perspective.) Although death is always unfortunate, it seems to be a very foolish goal to try and prevent everyone from dying in this situation. Well, we might be able to do just that, but how much of your previous way of life / liberties are we willing to sacrifice forever?

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago

> Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden: - Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates. Please explain this graph comparing Covid deaths in Sweden to its immediate neighbors that shows the opposite of what you're saying: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=true&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=SWE~ISL~NOR~DNK~FIN https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... > - Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks. Deaths per week are a function of previous deaths and population distribution. If more people die at the beginning, then fewer are left to die later. That's how dying works. Sweden's weekly per capita deaths peaked much higher than in the US or EU overall, and they've lost more people per capita than their neighbors. A person who cares about numbers should be looking cumulatively, not just within some specific narrow window. > Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world Israel isn't even in the top 30 and their vaccinations flatlined back in February, they prematurely declared victory, and people went back to licking doorknobs. But let's ignore all of that for now. Congratulations, people faffed around fighting against restrictions and vaccination for so long that now we have successfully developed a mutation that achieves viral escape. Go team! Yay! Mission accomplished! Vaccines and lockdowns and mask mandates still appear to prevent deaths and hospital overflow. How do we know? Because deaths and ICU bed percentages go down during lockdowns and go up when lockdowns end and because a tiny fraction of the people dying are vaccinated. Keep in mind also that Iceland still has one of the lowest total per capita COVID death rates of any place in the world. It's also a weird little volcanic island with everyone living in only a few places with a major international transit hub between Europe and North America. The few places in the world doing better than Iceland are places which also lock down quickly. > Going back to common sense Except that your "common sense" tells you that Sweden has done great and that Israel and Iceland are doing poorly when compared to other countries the opposite is true. How then should we assess the accuracy of your common sense? My common sense says that people who refuse the vaccine should just be refused access to hospital resources if they get sick. It would neatly address a lot of issues.

ostrichlamb 5y ago
> Deaths per week are a function of previous deaths and population distribution. If more people die at the beginning, then fewer are left to die later. That's how dying works. Sweden's weekly per capita deaths peaked much higher than in the US or EU overall, and they've lost more people per capita than their neighbors. Is this necessarily an issue though? They've managed to keep a reasonable way of life through those times while building a natural immunity to this disease. They're also not implementing any inhumane / dystopian measures like "health passports" and the like. At some point we have to look beyond the number of cases / deaths as the only "success measure" for dealing with this thing. The level of humanity (although hard to assess with numbers but easy to see for the humans among us) needs to be factored in here. > My common sense says that people who refuse the vaccine should just be refused access to hospital resources if they get sick. It would neatly address a lot of issues. Should we carry on with this logic and ban the [obese / overweight / inactive / drinkers / smokers / stressed / etc.] from the hospitals because they could have done something about their health that would ultimately have prevented them from getting sick? This is a slippery slope, but I'm sure you'll quickly understand why. That being said, if I also no longer have to pay taxes that fund these establishments (and get refund on previous contributions), I might take your deal .. That's another discussion though.