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That's not correct that Sweden has done much worse than its neighbors. It's actually below the median for Europe. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/

That's not correct that Sweden has done much worse than its neighbors. It's actually below the median for Europe. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-deat...

jacquesm 5y ago
I said neighbors, not all of Europe. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland all did considerably better, and have demographics and local conditions that are closer together than comparing Sweden with the rest of Europe. It's a thinly populated Nordic country, so the comparison material should be countries that match those criteria, not the average of the EU, which runs the gamut of high density extremely interconnected countries with major airline hubs all the way to vast emptiness with the occasional city. It's an easy mistake to make though.
- notahacker 5y ago
  In addition to that, it's worth pointing out that even the architect of the Swedish policy defending his strategy acknowledges it would have been dramatically worse if Swedes hadn't mostly worked from home and observed social distancing anyway (i.e. the exact opposite of what most anti-lockdown campaigners want). Also, they imposed strict external travel restrictions to ensure they never imported as many cases as the worse-performing European countries did, and deployed all sorts of restrictions short of lockdosn like banning gatherings of 8 people or more. It's really not the poster child for muh freedom
dekhn 5y ago
In 10 years, when most of the dust has settled, we'll be able to explain what we saw in Sweden and the surrounding countries as a combination of population density, interactions, medical policy, and randomness. It's hardly fair to consider only a small number of variables in cases like these.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That mirrors my expectation. Which by the way is a pet peeve of mine: the reliance on the 'R0' factor for reporting in the press, R0 is something you can at best establish when an epidemic has run its course, but it is being treated as this magic wheel that we can turn to ensure a desirable level of infections, which is complete madness, it's an output, and a delayed one at that, not an input.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I think many people have learned the limits of science, public health, and mainstream scientific reporting over the past few years. It has repeatedly exposed that the way people think about causality is not consistent with scientific thought. R0 is just one of many examples.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      That particular bug has now infested the top levels of Dutch policy making entities with fairly disastrous consequences. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherland...
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Yeah, but here's my prediction for what we'll find: In one way it was pretty random that it was precisely Sweden that adopted such stupid medical policies versus covid; in another, given what we know of these countries' larger political environment and post-WW2 history, it was perhaps to be expected.

jacquesm 5y ago

I said neighbors, not all of Europe. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland all did considerably better, and have demographics and local conditions that are closer together than comparing Sweden with the rest of Europe. It's a thinly populated Nordic country, so the comparison material should be countries that match those criteria, not the average of the EU, which runs the gamut of high density extremely interconnected countries with major airline hubs all the way to vast emptiness with the occasional city. It's an easy mistake to make though.

notahacker 5y ago
In addition to that, it's worth pointing out that even the architect of the Swedish policy defending his strategy acknowledges it would have been dramatically worse if Swedes hadn't mostly worked from home and observed social distancing anyway (i.e. the exact opposite of what most anti-lockdown campaigners want). Also, they imposed strict external travel restrictions to ensure they never imported as many cases as the worse-performing European countries did, and deployed all sorts of restrictions short of lockdosn like banning gatherings of 8 people or more. It's really not the poster child for muh freedom

dekhn 5y ago

In 10 years, when most of the dust has settled, we'll be able to explain what we saw in Sweden and the surrounding countries as a combination of population density, interactions, medical policy, and randomness. It's hardly fair to consider only a small number of variables in cases like these.

jacquesm 5y ago
That mirrors my expectation. Which by the way is a pet peeve of mine: the reliance on the 'R0' factor for reporting in the press, R0 is something you can at best establish when an epidemic has run its course, but it is being treated as this magic wheel that we can turn to ensure a desirable level of infections, which is complete madness, it's an output, and a delayed one at that, not an input.
- dekhn 5y ago
  I think many people have learned the limits of science, public health, and mainstream scientific reporting over the past few years. It has repeatedly exposed that the way people think about causality is not consistent with scientific thought. R0 is just one of many examples.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That particular bug has now infested the top levels of Dutch policy making entities with fairly disastrous consequences. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherland...
CRConrad 5y ago
Yeah, but here's my prediction for what we'll find: In one way it was pretty random that it was precisely Sweden that adopted such stupid medical policies versus covid; in another, given what we know of these countries' larger political environment and post-WW2 history, it was perhaps to be expected.