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There’s probably very small intersection between those who favor copying Sweden’s response to the pandemic with those who favor copying Sweden’s overall social/

There’s probably very small intersection between those who favor copying Sweden’s response to the pandemic with those who favor copying Sweden’s overall social/health care system. I mean Florida and Texas went to extreme ‘do nothing at all’ positions, and the results were not good.

timr 5y ago
> I mean Florida and Texas went to extreme ‘do nothing at all’ positions, and the results were not good. Texas (23rd overall; 211/100k) and Florida (10th overall; 237/100k) are both mid-pack amongst US states for Covid mortality rate, even before adjusting by age (if you adjust by age, Florida, in particular, looks better, because of the number of elderly people who move there to retire): https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... Among those states doing substantially worse: For Florida: New Jersey (306/100k), New York (281/100k), Massachusetts (267/100k) For Texas: all of the above, plus Connecticut (237/100k), Pennsylvania (235/100k), and maybe Illinois (212/100k) All of these are states whose governors imposed stringent restrictions on daily life. Florida and Texas have certainly been intensely covered by the press, but the reality of the situation is not accurately reflected by the intensity of the news coverage. -- EDIT: Others are quick to point out that the distribution of mortality over time is different for these states, which is true. But you also cannot leap to the conclusion that the most recent differences in mortality are due to policy decisions made months ago. Florida saw >60% of its Covid-related deaths prior to March 2021 (the advent of mass vaccination), but it lifted most Covid restrictions starting in October 2020: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://abcnews.go.com/Health/florida-lifts-covid-19-restrictions/story?id=73294496 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/florida-lifts-covid-19-restric... Any claim that New York (for example) did far better during the pre-vaccination period has to contend with the fact that 87% of its mortality happened prior to vaccination, despite substantially greater restrictions on daily life: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ One could argue that NY is a special case, since most of its mortality happened in spring 2020. But that isn't true for, say, Illinois, which had the vast majority of its deaths in the winter of 2020, and still saw 85% of its total mortality prior to March 1: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/illinois/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/illinois/ There is no simple narrative here. Seasonality, climate and chance (i.e. who gets hit first) all play a large role in how states do. People are far too quick to attribute success or failure to a single factor.
- ejstronge 5y ago
  I think part of what is missed is the temporal nature of the pandemic - Florida is doing quite poorly now when we have treatments and knowledge of how to slow COVID whereas NY and MA did poorly early on.
  - timr 5y ago
    Yes, that's a factor. Also, vaccination. However, both states did have substantial mortality before 2021, and any serious analysis has to take the timing into account. Ultimately, however, the top-line facts are opposed to the narrative that TX and FL did substantially worse because of their choices. They did not.
- malshe 5y ago
  Show this graph for just the last 4-5 months, not from the beginning of the pandemic.
  - timr 5y ago
    That's a fair point, and it's a difficult analysis to do for every state simultaneously, but even a cursory look at the data shows that it's not as dramatic as has been claimed. The majority of Florida's Covid deaths happened prior to March 2021: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ By this source, ~32k of Florida's deaths happened prior to March 1, and now they're at ~51k. So 32k/51k = 63% of Florida's deaths happened prior to mass vaccination. For NY the equivalent percentage is 48k / 55k = 87%: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ So yes, Florida has had 19k deaths (vs New York's 7k deaths) since vaccines became available, but they also did substantially better than New York throughout 2020 and early 2021, despite far fewer restrictions for nearly all of that time. It isn't a simple narrative.
    - tzs 5y ago
      New York had a huge number of deaths early. They went from around 10 on Apr 1 2020 to 120 on May 1 2020 (all numbers are cumulative per 100k). They were at 153 by Jun 1 2020. From June 1 2020 to the end of 2020 they had an additional 40. In the first 6 months of 2021 they added 80. Since then they have added 7. Florida was still around 10 by June 1 2020. From June 1 to the end of 2020 they added 90. In the first 6 months of 2021, Florida added 75. Since then they have added 63. Comparing, Florida did substantially better than New York for the first 10% of the time since the pandemic started. For the second half of 2020 New York had less than half the death rate of Florida. In the first half of 2021 they were close. Then, in the era of widespread vaccine availability New York has dropped an order of magnitude from where they were in the first half of 2021 whereas Florida has merely dropped about 20%.

timr 5y ago

> I mean Florida and Texas went to extreme ‘do nothing at all’ positions, and the results were not good. Texas (23rd overall; 211/100k) and Florida (10th overall; 237/100k) are both mid-pack amongst US states for Covid mortality rate, even before adjusting by age (if you adjust by age, Florida, in particular, looks better, because of the number of elderly people who move there to retire): https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... Among those states doing substantially worse: For Florida: New Jersey (306/100k), New York (281/100k), Massachusetts (267/100k) For Texas: all of the above, plus Connecticut (237/100k), Pennsylvania (235/100k), and maybe Illinois (212/100k) All of these are states whose governors imposed stringent restrictions on daily life. Florida and Texas have certainly been intensely covered by the press, but the reality of the situation is not accurately reflected by the intensity of the news coverage. -- EDIT: Others are quick to point out that the distribution of mortality over time is different for these states, which is true. But you also cannot leap to the conclusion that the most recent differences in mortality are due to policy decisions made months ago. Florida saw >60% of its Covid-related deaths prior to March 2021 (the advent of mass vaccination), but it lifted most Covid restrictions starting in October 2020: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://abcnews.go.com/Health/florida-lifts-covid-19-restrictions/story?id=73294496 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/florida-lifts-covid-19-restric... Any claim that New York (for example) did far better during the pre-vaccination period has to contend with the fact that 87% of its mortality happened prior to vaccination, despite substantially greater restrictions on daily life: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ One could argue that NY is a special case, since most of its mortality happened in spring 2020. But that isn't true for, say, Illinois, which had the vast majority of its deaths in the winter of 2020, and still saw 85% of its total mortality prior to March 1: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/illinois/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/illinois/ There is no simple narrative here. Seasonality, climate and chance (i.e. who gets hit first) all play a large role in how states do. People are far too quick to attribute success or failure to a single factor.

ejstronge 5y ago
I think part of what is missed is the temporal nature of the pandemic - Florida is doing quite poorly now when we have treatments and knowledge of how to slow COVID whereas NY and MA did poorly early on.
- timr 5y ago
  Yes, that's a factor. Also, vaccination. However, both states did have substantial mortality before 2021, and any serious analysis has to take the timing into account. Ultimately, however, the top-line facts are opposed to the narrative that TX and FL did substantially worse because of their choices. They did not.
malshe 5y ago
Show this graph for just the last 4-5 months, not from the beginning of the pandemic.
- timr 5y ago
  That's a fair point, and it's a difficult analysis to do for every state simultaneously, but even a cursory look at the data shows that it's not as dramatic as has been claimed. The majority of Florida's Covid deaths happened prior to March 2021: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ By this source, ~32k of Florida's deaths happened prior to March 1, and now they're at ~51k. So 32k/51k = 63% of Florida's deaths happened prior to mass vaccination. For NY the equivalent percentage is 48k / 55k = 87%: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ So yes, Florida has had 19k deaths (vs New York's 7k deaths) since vaccines became available, but they also did substantially better than New York throughout 2020 and early 2021, despite far fewer restrictions for nearly all of that time. It isn't a simple narrative.
  - tzs 5y ago
    New York had a huge number of deaths early. They went from around 10 on Apr 1 2020 to 120 on May 1 2020 (all numbers are cumulative per 100k). They were at 153 by Jun 1 2020. From June 1 2020 to the end of 2020 they had an additional 40. In the first 6 months of 2021 they added 80. Since then they have added 7. Florida was still around 10 by June 1 2020. From June 1 to the end of 2020 they added 90. In the first 6 months of 2021, Florida added 75. Since then they have added 63. Comparing, Florida did substantially better than New York for the first 10% of the time since the pandemic started. For the second half of 2020 New York had less than half the death rate of Florida. In the first half of 2021 they were close. Then, in the era of widespread vaccine availability New York has dropped an order of magnitude from where they were in the first half of 2021 whereas Florida has merely dropped about 20%.