Sweden stayed open. A deadly month shows the risks.

New York Times via San Francisco Chronicle / sfgate.com ^ | 1:13 pm PDT, Saturday, May 16, 2020 | Lauren Leatherby and Allison McCann, New York Times

[thecodont]

By late March, nearly every country in Europe had closed schools and businesses, restricted travel and ordered citizens to stay home. But one country stood out for its decision to stay open: Sweden.

The country’s moderated response to the coronavirus outbreak has drawn praise from some U.S. politicians, who see Sweden as a possible model for the United States as it begins to reopen.

“We need to observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, said at a hearing Tuesday.

But while Sweden has avoided the devastating tolls of outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain, it also has seen an extraordinary increase in deaths, mortality data show.

In Stockholm, where the virus spread through migrant communities, more than twice the usual number of people died last month. That increase far surpasses the rise in deaths in U.S. cities like Boston and Chicago, and approaches the increase seen in Paris.

[...]

Swedish public health officials have defended their strategy, while acknowledging that the country has failed to protect the elderly. The goal is to limit the spread of the infection without having to lock everything down, they said.

“Once you get into a lockdown, it’s difficult to get out of it,” said Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell. “How do you reopen? When?”

Instead of imposing strict lockdowns, public health officials said that Swedes could be relied on to go out less and follow sanitation guidelines. That proved to be true: As a whole, Swedes visited restaurants, retail shops and other recreation spots almost as little as residents of neighboring countries, according to Google mobility figures.

[nhbob1]

The migrant communities in Sweden openly flaunt the law. What are the odds they would have obeyed a lockdown anyway.

[Tallguy]

I hope for the best for both your parents. And you pretty much nailed my experience. Locked out from visits for 8 weeks. Never saw her again.

To me this was always an easy call. You build a defense you start with your ‘back-line’ ie. Nursing homes, Assisted & Independent Living, and home-bound elderly and ‘work-outward’ from there.

Closing schools and industry was flat-out stupid. Special unemployment for those with special health risk might have been an effective measure, but I don’t think it was ever seriously considered.

We’re going to be picking thru the economic wreckage for a long time. The suicides, drug addition and mental health issues are casualties of COVID, too.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Ping.

Your analytical skills and charts are needed here.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

There’s also the matter of living long enough for a cure, a vaccine, or effective therapies to be developed. Unless you have zero faith in human ingenuity, you have to believe that buying time is a good strategy.

For instance:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3845206/posts

[jurroppi1]

Too true, and thank you for the well wishes regarding my parents.

Your thought are spot on!

[DoodleBob]

First, a full and proper examination of the US and SE cumulative Coronavirus fatality (case numers are too susceptible to testing differences; funny business can also arise with fatalities but dead is dead) times series would help. Apologies for any repetition for those who've seen this previously.

Below find that data - I also included data for other select countries and most states: I standardized each Country's cumulative COVID-19 fatality count per GitHub by its population, then multiply the resulting quotient by the US' population of 329MM to put everyone on a common/US scale. I then index each Country's time-series to Day 1, where their size-adjusted fatality count is right before it breaches 1,000 people. This corrects for what I call the "Golf Problem" where broadcasts of the Masters etc have to show not only each golfer's score, but which hole they're at. I also list the Day 1 date and the population for reference, i.e., Sweden has finished the 56th hole while the US is still on the 54th hole, but we can compare their 'scores' as of the 54th hole.

In short, Sweden's cumulative size-adjusted fatality total has consistently exceeded the US' total by 20%+ since around Day 32 (April 24 for the US, April 26th for Sweden). Thus, they haven't exactly been 'successful' in terms of virus fatalities vs the US. However, they're not as bad as Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, the UK.

SE's size- and time-adjusted fatalities are lower than all the States that are higher than the US total. In truth, you need to adjust Stockholm out of SE's total when doing a State comparison to be apples-to-apples; for those following at home, Stockholm's fatality count of 1,845 on May 17 across 972,647 citizens on a size-adjusted basis with the US is 625,149 fatalities which is higher than anyting in this post; non-Stockholm SE size-adjusted fatalities would be 64,568 which is not apples-to-apples comparable to the US but is there for reference.

Furthermore, Sweden has NOT been a conservative dream in terms of OVERALL approach. Yes, we like the open businesses and open schools. But when you read things like

"We are putting decisions in the hands of those who know better"

it's a sober reminder that all that good stuff comes with Greta Thunberg-like environmentalis that just happily shut down its last coal-fired power plant two years ahead of schedule.

Yes, their businesses stayed open but they're not immune to recession: Sweden is forecasting high UMP and declining GDP just like the US. The Forbes article said SE's economic damage could be on par with that of the US (personally I don't think they'll crater as badly as we do in the first half of 2020; latter part of 2020 is a crap shoot as is 2021).

What seems to be missed on people, is Sweden got to this happy place because they TRUST their government to tell them the right thing to do. Their govt made these decisions based on "science." This is the same country in which their "science" that just happily shut its last coal-fired power plant.

And when their "science" promotes contact tracing, or if in the fall it calls for a shutdown, they'll be all-in.

It may be great to take Sweden's approach - and for the record lest I be confused as a 'no freedom till vaccine' nutjob, I wish the US had followed SE's more reasonable, business-friendly and age-based approach to school closures - but SE's positives cannot be disentangled from their faith in authority. I don't like shutdowns and we need to open up businesses NOW in the US. But Sweden's virus approach is siren song emanating from a collectivist, authority bias rocky coastline. Some alleged conservatives want to gloss over that coastline, and in doing so they wind up being as consistent as the ACLU is on the Second Amendment.

I'll stay in America and take my chances; McEnroe turned out to be less of a mess than Borg in the long run.

Country	Sweden	United States
Day 1 Date	3/23/20	3/25/20
Population	10,333,456	329,556,365	Sweden - US	% excess SE vs US
Day 56	117,331	-	-	-
Day 55	117,172	-	-	-
Day 54	116,279	89,562	26,717	29.8%
Day 53	112,547	88,754	23,793	26.8%
Day 52	110,347	87,530	22,817	26.1%
Day 51	105,659	85,898	19,761	23.0%
Day 50	103,841	84,119	19,722	23.4%
Day 49	102,852	82,376	20,476	24.9%
Day 48	102,693	80,682	22,011	27.3%
Day 47	101,258	79,526	21,732	27.3%
Day 46	96,952	78,795	18,157	23.0%
Day 45	93,795	77,180	16,615	21.5%
Day 44	91,020	75,662	15,358	20.3%
Day 43	88,309	73,431	14,878	20.3%
Day 42	85,439	71,064	14,375	20.2%
Day 41	85,120	68,922	16,198	23.5%
Day 40	84,610	67,682	16,928	25.0%
Day 39	82,473	66,369	16,104	24.3%
Day 38	78,519	64,943	13,576	20.9%
Day 37	75,106	62,996	12,110	19.2%
Day 36	72,523	60,967	11,556	19.0%
Day 35	69,971	58,355	11,616	19.9%
Day 34	69,908	56,259	13,649	24.3%
Day 33	68,632	54,881	13,751	25.1%
Day 32	64,454	53,755	10,699	19.9%
Day 31	61,775	51,949	9,826	18.9%
Day 30	56,290	49,954	6,336	12.7%
Day 29	50,390	46,622	3,768	8.1%
Day 28	49,114	44,444	4,670	10.5%
Day 27	48,189	42,094	6,095	14.5%
Day 26	44,649	40,661	3,988	9.8%
Day 25	42,512	38,664	3,848	10.0%
Day 24	38,366	36,773	1,593	4.3%
Day 23	32,945	32,916	29	0.1%
Day 22	29,309	28,325	984	3.5%
Day 21	28,671	25,831	2,840	11.0%
Day 20	28,288	23,528	4,760	20.2%
Day 19	27,746	22,019	5,727	26.0%
Day 18	25,290	20,462	4,828	23.6%
Day 17	21,910	18,586	3,324	17.9%
Day 16	18,848	16,478	2,370	14.4%
Day 15	15,213	14,695	518	3.5%
Day 14	12,789	12,722	67	0.5%
Day 13	11,896	10,783	1,113	10.3%
Day 12	11,417	9,619	1,798	18.7%
Day 11	9,823	8,407	1,416	16.8%
Day 10	7,622	7,087	535	7.6%
Day 9	5,741	5,926	(185)	-3.1%
Day 8	4,656	4,757	(101)	-2.1%
Day 7	3,508	3,873	(365)	-9.4%
Day 6	3,349	2,978	371	12.4%
Day 5	3,349	2,467	882	35.7%
Day 4	2,456	2,026	430	21.2%
Day 3	1,977	1,581	396	25.1%
Day 2	1,148	1,209	(61)	-5.0%
Day 1	797	942	(145)	-15.4%

Note for the US as nation, that Day 1 is March 25, which means Day 54 is May 17 for that row of data. You can do the math for the other municipalities to find out what Day XX means for them in calendar times; as a general rule, the last actual data point is the freshest date, but on a Golf timeline it gives each municipality's score as of the "48th hole."

The sort order is Day 54 for the international table. For the states' data, I sort by Day 47 which generally keeps the relative ranking steady for later days, most notably for the states with higher than national fatality totals.

Country	Date of Day 1=day priot to hitting 1,000+ population-adjusted deaths	Population	Day 47	Day 48	Day 49	Day 50	Day 51	Day 52	Day 53	Day 54	Day 55	Day 56
San Marino	3/3/20	33,574	382,817	382,817	382,817	392,633	392,633	392,633	392,633	392,633	402,449	402,449
Belgium	3/19/20	11,524,454	226,597	229,228	238,464	240,638	243,669	245,385	247,529	248,988	250,532	252,877
Andorra	3/21/20	77,543	195,499	199,749	199,749	203,999	203,999	203,999	203,999	208,249	208,249	208,249
Spain	3/13/20	47,100,396	166,680	169,850	171,725	171,725	175,622	176,769	177,917	179,211	180,919	182,409
United Kingdom	3/20/20	66,435,550	146,341	149,560	152,234	155,344	157,061	158,390	159,437	162,552	165,007	167,136
Italy	3/5/20	60,243,406	131,914	134,835	137,225	139,764	142,061	144,331	145,754	147,575	149,665	151,432
France	3/18/20	67,076,000	122,338	123,832	125,468	126,819	127,694	128,887	129,280	129,624	130,917	132,626
Sweden	3/23/20	10,333,456	101,258	102,693	102,852	103,841	105,659	110,347	112,547	116,279	117,172	117,331
Ireland	3/25/20	4,921,500	97,631	98,234	99,640	100,243	100,846	101,649	102,654	103,323	-	-
Netherlands	3/17/20	17,451,031	94,480	95,783	96,274	97,917	98,597	100,202	101,543	102,751	103,091	103,393
United States	3/25/20	329,556,365	79,526	80,682	82,376	84,119	85,898	87,530	88,754	89,562	-	-
Switzerland	3/16/20	8,586,550	67,319	67,626	67,626	68,471	68,893	69,277	69,469	69,968	70,236	70,352
Luxembourg	3/17/20	613,894	49,388	51,536	51,536	51,536	52,609	53,683	53,683	54,220	54,220	54,220
Macedonia	3/24/20	679,600	44,128	44,128	44,128	44,613	46,068	46,068	47,038	47,523	48,978	-
Portugal	3/23/20	10,276,617	35,724	36,109	36,398	36,686	37,296	37,681	37,969	38,162	38,578	39,060
Germany	3/25/20	83,149,300	29,999	30,364	30,669	31,157	31,248	31,299	31,462	31,557	-	-
Denmark	3/22/20	5,822,763	29,091	29,544	29,771	29,940	30,167	29,827	30,167	30,393	30,393	30,733
Iran	3/9/20	83,331,064	22,044	22,345	22,582	22,961	23,242	23,559	23,839	24,089	24,346	24,532
Austria	3/23/20	8,902,600	22,729	22,766	22,877	22,951	23,062	23,099	23,173	23,247	23,284	23,284
Iceland	3/23/20	364,260	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047	9,047
Canada	4/1/20	37,979,093	51,222	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Israel	4/1/20	9,180,000	9,765	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Municipality	Date of Day 1 = day prior to breaching size-adj 1,000 COVID19 fatalities	Population	Day 47	Day 48	Day 49	Day 50	Day 51	Day 52	Day 53	Day 54	Day 55	Day 56
New York	43,909	19,795,791	412,666	416,661	432,110	436,272	438,803	442,565	446,128	449,541	454,185	456,949
New Jersey	43,913	8,958,013	329,335	335,369	340,482	342,506	349,790	356,927	365,903	372,967	377,050	380,987
Connecticut	43,913	3,590,886	263,764	269,087	272,299	276,062	279,090	286,799	295,426	301,483	306,439	312,772
Massachusetts	43,915	6,794,422	241,501	247,758	249,359	257,799	265,899	271,234	276,715	281,177	-	-
District of Columbia	43,914	672,228	152,466	158,349	160,800	164,722	171,586	175,508	180,410	183,842	187,764	-
Michigan	43,914	9,922,576	150,321	151,151	152,247	155,237	156,565	158,990	160,252	162,078	162,444	-
Rhode Island	43,919	1,056,298	146,012	149,444	152,564	155,684	-	-	-	-	-	-
Louisiana	43,910	4,670,724	144,079	147,748	150,641	151,982	154,804	156,145	158,191	160,943	163,341	165,882
Maryland	43,921	6,006,401	107,376	109,296	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Pennsylvania	43,918	12,802,503	105,643	110,637	114,087	115,580	115,940	-	-	-	-	-
Illinois	43,917	12,859,995	92,691	97,765	101,096	104,428	106,324	107,580	-	-	-	-
Delaware	43,917	945,934	82,569	86,053	90,582	94,414	99,640	101,034	-	-	-	-
United States	43,915	329,556,365	79,526	80,682	82,376	84,119	85,898	87,530	88,754	89,562	-	-
Indiana	43,916	6,619,680	76,668	78,560	80,601	81,945	84,185	86,675	87,172	-	-	-
Colorado	43,914	5,456,574	58,282	58,524	59,551	60,940	64,141	65,892	69,456	71,992	73,381	-
Mississippi	43,917	2,992,333	50,331	51,212	52,864	54,296	56,168	57,380	-	-	-	-
Georgia	43,913	10,214,860	44,458	44,522	44,619	45,813	47,426	48,200	49,071	50,426	50,749	51,104
Ohio	43,919	11,614,373	43,527	44,861	45,684	46,109	-	-	-	-	-	-
New Hampshire	43,922	1,330,608	42,600	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Minnesota	43,921	5,489,594	42,563	43,884	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
New Mexico	43,922	2,085,109	41,884	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Virginia	43,919	8,382,993	37,543	38,408	39,391	39,666	-	-	-	-	-	-
Iowa	43,922	3,123,899	37,029	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Nevada	43,914	2,890,845	34,884	34,884	35,568	36,594	37,734	38,646	39,330	39,786	39,900	-
Washington	43,898	7,170,351	32,954	33,597	34,149	34,792	35,436	36,401	36,999	37,780	38,102	38,285
Alabama	43,921	4,858,979	32,895	33,098	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Missouri	43,922	6,083,672	32,665	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Arizona	43,920	6,828,065	31,420	32,772	32,820	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Florida	43,919	20,271,272	30,466	31,149	31,913	32,059	-	-	-	-	-	-
Vermont	43,908	626,042	27,373	27,373	27,373	27,373	27,900	27,900	27,900	27,900	27,900	27,900
Kentucky	43,920	4,425,092	25,545	25,768	25,768	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Wisconsin	43,919	5,771,337	24,782	25,411	25,867	25,867	-	-	-	-	-	-
California	43,917	39,144,818	24,432	25,375	25,585	26,873	27,395	27,698	-	-	-	-
South Carolina	43,917	4,896,146	23,895	24,366	24,972	25,578	25,578	25,914	-	-	-	-
Oklahoma	43,917	3,911,338	23,423	23,423	23,929	24,013	24,266	24,266	-	-	-	-
Nebraska	43,922	1896190	22,420	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Kansas	43,919	2,911,641	20,487	21,166	21,392	21,392	-	-	-	-	-	-
North Dakota	43,919	756,927	17,415	18,286	18,286	18,722	-	-	-	-	-	-
Maine	43,920	1,329,328	17,106	17,354	17,354	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tennessee	43,921	6,600,299	14,580	14,630	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Idaho	43,918	1,654,930	13,740	14,338	14,537	14,537	14,537	-	-	-	-	-
Puerto Rico	43,922	3,680,058	11,015	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Arkansas	43,921	2,978,204	10,844	10,844	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Oregon	43,917	4,028,977	10,634	10,961	11,206	11,206	11,206	11,206	-	-	-	-
Montana	43,919	1,032,949	5,105	5,105	5,105	5,105	-	-	-	-	-	-

[dynoman]

Take me off your ping list, thanks.

[DoughtyOne]

I don’t have a problem with Sweden at all.

It’s neighbors do have lower numbers, but when you expand
outward, Sweden remains very competitive.

They are not destroying their economy, and the way things
are going, their economy may be bigger than our by the time
our leaders wake the hell up. (yes, exaggerating, but still...)

We can only hide so long before there is nothing left to
open up to.

[silverleaf]

Cant read all the chart data

[gogeo]

In Stockholm, where the virus spread through migrant communities, more than twice the usual number of people died last month.

[Cronos]

"However it hasn’t been a free-for-all. The Swedish government did implement some restrictions, such as a ban on gatherings of over 50 people and social-distancing rules in gyms, restaurants and bars, which like nurseries and schools for children under 16, have remained open. The majority of the Swedish population, who were asked to practice social distancing on a mostly voluntary basis, approve of the approach, with polls indicating that two-thirds believe the government has done a good job. "

fr post