The Swedish experiment looks like it’s paying off

[mala]

At only 4x the death rate of its neighbours.

Yes indeed! Paying off in spades

hey can you imagine all that prime real estate that is suddenly going to be on the market! win win win.

 

[rambot]

hey can you imagine all that prime real estate that is suddenly going to be on the market! win win win.

Maybe but it'll just be a lot of space in nursing homes.

What they REALLY need to focus on is when a more serious virus or contagion that impacts important and worthy people.

 

[hedrick]

This would sound more reasonable to make blanket statements like "it's hard to prove that they're wrong." and "there's certainly no way to prove it." if we didn't have the math understanding and the data, and see for this virus over and over consistently in nation after nation follows the virus math of spread follows in a clear, straightforward way depending on social distancing, that's actually very well understood by epidemiologists, who have explained it over and over to us.

But math only works if you have data for it operate on. We're only guessing about the major parameters of the disease. IHME uses math. Looking at their projections for Sweden, I could imagine someone saying that it's OK, even though it has a lot more deaths than other Scandinavian countries. At least if the most likely result happens. (The worst case is scarier.) I've been watching IHME projections for NJ. They have consistently missed on the shape of the curve, assuming that it would come down faster than it has. But this is still a possible outcome of using math.

Personally, I think Sweden will adopt stricter policies as numbers go up, as the UK did. And given delays, it's nearly too late for changes to affect the peak.

There's also a question of how people react to policies. Take a look at cell phone data for NJ. (Covid-19 Social Distancing Scoreboard — Unacast) Distancing was pretty much already at its maximum by March 23, which is when the real "stay at home" order was issued. A less restrictive order was done March 16. The pattern is similar in New York, but there was more decrease after the final stay at home order. (I thought at the time that Cuomo was wrong not to let NYC issue an order sooner than Cuomo did.) Sweden could well believe that they can get sufficient social distancing without a strict stay at home order.

 

[Petros2015]

"The Swedish experiment looks like it’s paying off"

What was the experiment exactly? Euthanasia?
I guess if the younger generation made sure the older ones structured their inheritance, wills and life insurance policies correctly...

 

[Halbhh]

But math only works if you have data for it operate on. We're only guessing about the major parameters of the disease. IHME uses math. Looking at their projections for Sweden, I could imagine someone saying that it's OK, even though it has a lot more deaths than other Scandinavian countries. At least if the most likely result happens. (The worst case is scarier.) I've been watching IHME projections for NJ. They have consistently missed on the shape of the curve, assuming that it would come down faster than it has. But this is still a possible outcome of using math.

Personally, I think Sweden will adopt stricter policies as numbers go up, as the UK did. And given delays, it's nearly too late for changes to affect the peak.

There's also a question of how people react to policies. Take a look at cell phone data for NJ. (Covid-19 Social Distancing Scoreboard — Unacast) Distancing was pretty much already at its maximum by March 23, which is when the real "stay at home" order was issued. A less restrictive order was done March 16. The pattern is similar in New York, but there was more decrease after the final stay at home order. (I thought at the time that Cuomo was wrong not to let NYC issue an order sooner than Cuomo did.) Sweden could well believe that they can get sufficient social distancing without a strict stay at home order.

Well the IMHE projection is really frightening for Sweden -- projecting right now they would need (middle, most likely updated estimate!) 2273 ICU beds but only have an initial ICU beds to begin with of 218. Look at that ratio.

Ten times.

But it was an accomplishment that New York state managed to double their ICU beds.

See the trouble?

New York state has just today announced a to-date preliminary rough death rate of 0.5% based on finding the actual infection rate in the state as a whole is going to be close to about 14% from their testing of 3,000 people around the state to determine overall state infections to date. (Note that this preliminary death rate of 0.5% will go up some, because for instance some of the counting of corona deaths, such as at home deaths, hasn't yet been done).

So, as some of us (well I know I did) had already said a month or more ago here on CF -- 'if you can treat all of the people instead of having your hospitals overwhelmed, you can get a death rate down to something between 0.4%-0.7%' (rough paraphrase of the kind of post I made a few times back then).

But New York managed to treat everyone without having a real overwhelm of hospitals like Italy.

If the hospitals get overwhelmed by too many cases at once then the death rate goes up sharply as it did in Wuhan and in northern Italy.

New York stay at home slowed the rate, and the hospitals haven't been overwhelmed to have patients dying in the hallways or at home to the extent of Italy (not nearly so much).

But, will Sweden manage to be able to treat so many cases at once they are lining up to have?

Well, they need an all-out push, at this point, but that would take better awareness.

 

[hedrick]

But, will Sweden manage to be able to treat so many cases at once they are lining up to have?

Well, they need an all-out push, at this point, but that would take better awareness.

I agree. I would be more aggressive than they have been, but I don't know what assumptions they're making. I can tell you that in NJ the IHME numbers of deaths have stayed synced to reality (although it's required adjustment and will again), but we haven't run out of beds or ICU capacity as their numbers say we should have. That's because our leadership has moved mountains to increase capacity, both beds and ICU capacity. If IMHE's numbers for beds in Sweden is right, they had better be doing a *lot* of work on expanding capacity.

I'm just not convinced we know specifics about Sweden's own modeling and what they're doing. I will note that if they're going to change their mind, they don't have much time to do it. Delays between changing policy and having effect on deaths are very long.

 

[hedrick]

But the real concern isn't Sweden. It's Africa and other third world countries. Turning off our economy for a few months is very painful, and will have serious effects on many people, but it's not likely that people will starve. In some countries they may be forced with an impossible choice. If people stay at home there's going to be starvation. I'd don't know what I'd do.

 

[Tinker Grey]

But the real concern isn't Sweden. It's Africa and other third world countries. Turning off our economy for a few months is very painful, and will have serious effects on many people, but it's not likely that people will starve. In some countries they may be forced with an impossible choice. If people stay at home there's going to be starvation. I'd don't know what I'd do.

I'm expecting India to be a problem as well. I wonder if we'll ever know what the real totals are from there and Africa.

 

[tall73]

But the real concern isn't Sweden. It's Africa and other third world countries. Turning off our economy for a few months is very painful, and will have serious effects on many people, but it's not likely that people will starve. In some countries they may be forced with an impossible choice. If people stay at home there's going to be starvation. I'd don't know what I'd do.

Another factor is that some countries with manufacturing that makes products for America or other nations might have their economy shut down either way because Americans in lockdown are not buying as many non-essential items.

 

[Halbhh]

But the real concern isn't Sweden. It's Africa and other third world countries. Turning off our economy for a few months is very painful, and will have serious effects on many people, but it's not likely that people will starve. In some countries they may be forced with an impossible choice. If people stay at home there's going to be starvation. I'd don't know what I'd do.

PBS Newshour has been doing a very great job of showing poorer areas of the world working to try to isolate and the challenges of people with little means. Several good reports, and a lot of information.

 

[hedrick]

PBS Newshour has been doing a very great job of showing poorer areas of the world working to try to isolate and the challenges of people with little means. Several good reports, and a lot of information.

I read an interesting article about approaches. It sounds like it will look. Dry different from here.

 

[KCfromNC]

Sweden has had 10x the number of deaths as each of their neighbors (Norway, Finland). How is this a success story exactly?

Some folks selling reopen t-shirts to people who uncritically buy into the "Let's be like Sweden" propaganda are raking in the bucks

 

[KCfromNC]

In another thread, OP was also lauding the lack of social distancing during the Black Death. Quite frankly, I think they have a bit of a death fetish.

I think it is more the kind of response one would expect when the result is predetermined and the steps to get there run face-first into uncomfortable reality.