From my perspective here in the UK, where the health secretary is making threats to ban all outdoor exercise [1] because some people aren't following the social distancing rules, the Swedish approach sounds far better. At least in Sweden the citizens are being treated as adults, given the data and allowed to use some personal judgement.
Note that I haven't seen any claim from the UK government that the existing rules aren't sufficient as long as they're being followed - a claim which I might find hard to believe but at least would be consistent with threatening a broader ban on outdoor activity. The quote from Matt Hancock is: "If you don't want us to have to take the step to ban exercise of all forms outside of your own home, then you've got to follow the rules." As though we're all school children being told that we'll all get detention if the trouble makers in the class keep acting up.
It feels like the purpose of the lockdown - to reduce transmission rate of the virus - is being forgotten and there is increasing focus on having a list of Allowed Activities and Forbidden Activities, rather than trying to make a consistent trade-off between cost (risk of transmission) vs benefit (health - including, very importantly, mental health effects of retaining or losing freedom, not to mention the more ideological desire to keep some semblance of civil liberties).
I don't think that works. It only takes 10% of defectors to create a similar catastrophic result as with 50% defectors.
Human society has enacted laws for about four millenia and enforces them with threats and violence. That works to keep those who would otherwise only act in their own interests in check. There was no group of humans at the size of Sweden's population in existence where toothless rules like "be excellent to each other" and "use your best personal judgement" were enough to be workable.
I think it's pretty great that the Swedes are willing to sacrifice themselves for the rest of us for a science experiment. They're going to function as a "control group" for thousands of scientific papers to come.
You are assuming that there really is a low-risk group. As we have seen the risk of death MIGHT be lower for some people but the difference is not complete and younger, healthier people are dying, too. These are people’s lives you are using to gain that herd immunity.
If we had wide-spread testing, we might be able to let some people know that they have recovered from exposure and are likely safe to return to a more normal life.
There's no such thing as "herd immunity" in the sense we've popularized until you have a vaccine. Until then, it's throwing uncooked pasta against the wall and not understanding why it doesn't stick.
It seems to me to be the obviously correct thing to do (at least insofar as having immediate testing of the hypothesis at large scale with volunteers) but it treads on multiple cultural taboos and will therefore never be part of the gated institutional narrative.
It's a dangerous experiment with human life, and while one can only say "time will tell", let's hope this doesn't turn into a plague-like catastrophe. But the pay-off - in case it works - would perhaps be Sweden's greatest contribution to humanity since the Nobel Prize.
No, it's not, it would be if the cities were still crowded and no one would be working from home, but that's not the case.
Most of us skepticals aren't arguing that we shouldn't do anything, but that we should gracefully allow citizens to adapt, and if necessary, then allow the government to adjust. This is what Sweden is doing, whereas most of the other countries were so convinced that what they were doing was right, they just outright declared it the law, not giving their citizens any chance to handle it by themselves.
And I believe this "nannying" is something that a whole fucking bunch of us, especially in the Western hemisphere, are pissed about, and we're looking and hoping for Sweden to get through this just how we believe would be correct course of action.
38000 tests in a country of 10 million. [1] Yeah, they have a handle on it alright. Seems pretty dumb to claim this at this point or to write this article and leave out that crucial figure. They have no fucking idea what's happening in their own country but are judging the rest of the world who is, at least, trying to learn from China and other places, if imperfectly and super late.
Too early to say for certain, but the trajectory for Sweden so far doesn't look good, compared to neighboring countries that are more under lockdown [0]:
Current deaths per 1 million in covid-19
Sweden: 37
Denmark: 28
Norway: 11
All countries have a similar 'start' date with the Denmark lagging a few days. None of the countries are recommending homemade masks, which is disturbing.
Well, yes. More, but shorter. That's why people are calling it a "gamble".
According to the article, ICU capacity is currently at a quarter. They could probably "afford" a higher rate, and be done with it faster.
Insisting on minimizing that number at all costs is insane. First, only if you could contain it or a vaccine becomes available, would you be actually mitigating it, else you're just shifting around a set amount of deaths over a larger timespan. Second, if you apply that logic consistently across every aspect of life, you'd have to ban cars too, they're far too dangerous and deadly. And smoking. And drinking. And the list just goes on. There are some who'd say yes to all three, but... oh boy, you must be fun at parties.
Look at the numbers in the US. No matter how it develops or has developed (we don't know the true infection ratio of the population, which is undoubtedly higher), there's no more containing it on a global scale. Our globalized and, at least for the privileged, largely open world with open borders would cease to exist, for there would be countries that insist on containing it, thus quarantining anyone entering, and therefore killing off all non-essential travel, like e.g. tourism. So, to keep that, you need to be immune... or a vaccine has to exist. But, it's also a gamble to be counting on a vaccine.
I feel Japan will be another interesting place to study. We've had corona spreading since late January and as recent as last weekend, a majority of people were out living life like normal.
[+] [-] jpab|6 years ago|reply
Note that I haven't seen any claim from the UK government that the existing rules aren't sufficient as long as they're being followed - a claim which I might find hard to believe but at least would be consistent with threatening a broader ban on outdoor activity. The quote from Matt Hancock is: "If you don't want us to have to take the step to ban exercise of all forms outside of your own home, then you've got to follow the rules." As though we're all school children being told that we'll all get detention if the trouble makers in the class keep acting up.
It feels like the purpose of the lockdown - to reduce transmission rate of the virus - is being forgotten and there is increasing focus on having a list of Allowed Activities and Forbidden Activities, rather than trying to make a consistent trade-off between cost (risk of transmission) vs benefit (health - including, very importantly, mental health effects of retaining or losing freedom, not to mention the more ideological desire to keep some semblance of civil liberties).
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52172035
[+] [-] bmn__|6 years ago|reply
I don't think that works. It only takes 10% of defectors to create a similar catastrophic result as with 50% defectors.
Human society has enacted laws for about four millenia and enforces them with threats and violence. That works to keep those who would otherwise only act in their own interests in check. There was no group of humans at the size of Sweden's population in existence where toothless rules like "be excellent to each other" and "use your best personal judgement" were enough to be workable.
[+] [-] drcode|6 years ago|reply
...and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that.
[+] [-] threatofrain|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majkinetor|6 years ago|reply
The only normal country, entire planet is experiment.
[+] [-] samizdis|6 years ago|reply
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/sweden-prepare...
[+] [-] Grue3|6 years ago|reply
1. Gather application from low-risk people to be voluntarily infected. Needs to be a significant proportion of population.
2. Schedule them to be infected and isolate until they are virus-free and immune.
3. Immune people are released with no restrictions.
4. Eventually herd immunity is achieved.
[+] [-] Tagbert|6 years ago|reply
If we had wide-spread testing, we might be able to let some people know that they have recovered from exposure and are likely safe to return to a more normal life.
[+] [-] slowmovintarget|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drcode|6 years ago|reply
It seems to me to be the obviously correct thing to do (at least insofar as having immediate testing of the hypothesis at large scale with volunteers) but it treads on multiple cultural taboos and will therefore never be part of the gated institutional narrative.
[+] [-] samizdis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobosha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klingonopera|6 years ago|reply
Most of us skepticals aren't arguing that we shouldn't do anything, but that we should gracefully allow citizens to adapt, and if necessary, then allow the government to adjust. This is what Sweden is doing, whereas most of the other countries were so convinced that what they were doing was right, they just outright declared it the law, not giving their citizens any chance to handle it by themselves.
And I believe this "nannying" is something that a whole fucking bunch of us, especially in the Western hemisphere, are pissed about, and we're looking and hoping for Sweden to get through this just how we believe would be correct course of action.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mnm1|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/smittskydd-beredskap/utb...
[+] [-] stareatgoats|6 years ago|reply
Current deaths per 1 million in covid-19
All countries have a similar 'start' date with the Denmark lagging a few days. None of the countries are recommending homemade masks, which is disturbing.[0] https://mackuba.eu/corona/#compare_countries (deaths per 1 mln checked)
[+] [-] klingonopera|6 years ago|reply
According to the article, ICU capacity is currently at a quarter. They could probably "afford" a higher rate, and be done with it faster.
Insisting on minimizing that number at all costs is insane. First, only if you could contain it or a vaccine becomes available, would you be actually mitigating it, else you're just shifting around a set amount of deaths over a larger timespan. Second, if you apply that logic consistently across every aspect of life, you'd have to ban cars too, they're far too dangerous and deadly. And smoking. And drinking. And the list just goes on. There are some who'd say yes to all three, but... oh boy, you must be fun at parties.
Look at the numbers in the US. No matter how it develops or has developed (we don't know the true infection ratio of the population, which is undoubtedly higher), there's no more containing it on a global scale. Our globalized and, at least for the privileged, largely open world with open borders would cease to exist, for there would be countries that insist on containing it, thus quarantining anyone entering, and therefore killing off all non-essential travel, like e.g. tourism. So, to keep that, you need to be immune... or a vaccine has to exist. But, it's also a gamble to be counting on a vaccine.
[+] [-] reustle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JeanMarcS|6 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786409
[+] [-] dt3ft|6 years ago|reply
The numbers shown represent those admitted in ICU.
[+] [-] s9w|6 years ago|reply