It all depends on how you like old Swedes.
One thing that has spiked their death rate is something I read last week (if true), which is that they are actually not treating the very elderly who are in homes, bedridden, on feeding tubes, etc. but are just providing them with morphine until they die. Euthanasia, in other words, which I think is legal there.
We treat even older people, and some of them do recover, but probably very few. Even so, if you don’t treat any of them, obviously the death rate will go up.
Too late, doesn’t matter now. Look forward not back.
It’s not a fair comparison until a year from now, when everyone has seen an extended wave. Sweden’s strategy was to take the hit right away since they believed their health care system would not be overloaded.
I’d say Sweden wins. For comparison Sweden and Michigan both have a population of 10 million.
Sweden voluntary social distancing, Michigan draconian measures.
Michigan: 43,754 cases, 4,049 deaths, 4,394 cases per M, 407 deaths per M
Sweden: 22,721 cases, 2,769 deaths, 2,250 cases per M, 274 deaths per M
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Has Sweden’s gambit overwhelmed their healthcare delivery system? If Sweden manages to achieve “herd immunity” without their hospitals collapsing under the strain then they win their bet.
The entire reason for “flattening the curve” was to preserve hospital beds, ventilators and healthcare service providers for COVID-19. It seems that the United States is doing that, but the cost is stretching out the infection risk over a much longer period which in-turn temps many governors to maintain the economic lock-down for at least that long (however long that is isn’t clear).
“Sweden ranks seventh on the list of countries with most COVID-19 fatalities per capita.”
the infection mortality rate is the only meaningful metric, particularly in Sweden’s case, where 79%-80% of the population may have developed antibodies without even knowing they were infected, and thus the infection mortality rate might be quit low ... we already know from sentinal testing in the U.S. that the infection mortality rate is probably .1%-.3%, which is the same as influenza ...
Like others here have said, if Sweden’s hospitals are not overwhelmed, and they’re not, then their policy is a success. Any other measure is goal-post moving.
Besides: A shorter somewhat steeper curve with intact economy vs a longer flatter curve with a destroyed economy and all the human misery that entails. Easy choice. And the USA chose wrong. Hopefully we phase out of lock-down madness soon and start our economic recovery.
We will have to wait and compare the numbers a year from now. The question is whether or not Sweden is protecting it’s population more (than we are) for the period of November 2020 through April 2021, by obtaining greater herd immunity this season, and us getting a bigger 2nd wave than Sweden winds up getting. Time will tell.
Is abrogating the bill of rights the right solution.
Give me liberty or give me quarantine?
This author was an idiot, because he ignored where Sweden was on the “total infection” curve.
If sweden is halfway to herd immunity, and the other countries are only 25% of the way, you have to double the death rates for the other countries to do the comparison.
He also ignores the population density; Norway for example is only 2/3rd of Sweden, which means they naturally have more distancing, by quite a bit. At some point, a low enough population density makes it impossible to spread the virus much.
It’s the ONLY option. We are going to be doing the same thing. We are just doing it slower.
Unless you plan on living the rest of your life in a bubble, “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated”.
At least their nightmare was short and is over.