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by simonsaidit 2254 days ago
You think it pushes the world towards a global recession. I think a hard lockdown and a co trolled opening is what gets it out of one faster. At least that is what we can see studying history in 1918. Eg Denver vs Philadelphia. Scared people are bad consumers. In reality we don’t really know which strategy is the best.
2 comments

"Scared people are bad consumers"

People in Sweden are not scared compared to what they are in the UK for example. It's the rest of the world that is scared for the Swedes.

Depends on who you ask. I’ve yet to see a study on this. I work as a consultant in a Swedish company and several of my colleagues stopped traveling to clients and insisted on working from home even before most countries shut down. This is now the policy for the entire company. Even if you don’t have an official lockdown many take their own precautions. Personally I’m not worried myself right now because of the precautions people take, but with more people relaxing and risk of more spread i do worry about the future and will probably have to do less of what I do now to reduce risk to people around me.
I understand that perspective but I'm not sure the experience from over a century ago has much relevance to today. Would the Spanish Flu have killed so many today, with such advanced hospitals and healthcare, and no massive troop movements? We see flu pretty regularly and no lockdown is even proposed, as it's obvious the costs would be stagggeringly out of proportion.