[1bc29b36f623ba8]

Sweden failed to protect their own elderly, mainly because national authorities simply assumed that local authorities were ready to fight a pandemic, when they were in fact hopelessly underfunded and staffed by underpaid staff with no PPE and who were expected to do stay at home on their own initiative and without payment if they got sick.

The same happened in a few places here in Finland, and I am quite certain that if we'd let COVID-19 through retirement homes the way our dear neighbors did, we'd have a much higher death-rate.

The actual Swedish stragegy, i.e. a soft lock-down with strong recommendations and only minor restrictions in travelling and gatherings, could actually have worked. Unfortunately, we'll never know as they screwed the retirement home situation up as bad as they did.

[gizmo]

Sweden did screw up the retirement home situation somewhat, but in terms of excess deaths all Nordic countries look identical. Finland, notably, doesn't even count covid deaths outside hospitals according to the THL, so comparing Swedish and Finnish covid stats is a bit silly.

The Swedish catastrophe is always another 2 weeks away, and secondary effects of a lockdown (like delaying non-critical medical procedures and not screening for cancer) are likely to be much more significant than anticipated. Let's not forget that lockdowns were a knee-jerk reaction enacted by scared politicians, not a carefully considered and data-backed policy.

[1bc29b36f623ba8]

> in terms of excess deaths all Nordic countries look identical Finland, notably, doesn't even count covid deaths outside hospitals according to the THL, so comparing Swedish and Finnish covid stats is a bit silly

Where did you get those numbers from? EUROMOMO doesn't include data from Iceland, but for the rest it's obvious that Sweden is an outlier in regards to the overall mortality rate: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country

Denmark, Finland and Norway are below the normal mortality rates for 65+ since the lockdowns began. Sweden is clearly above. I assume there's not another epidemic over there that we've missed?

Again, I'm not saying the Swedish strategy is wrong, I'm just saying that the failure to protect the elderly has invalidated Sweden as a data point.

There has definitely been a bunch of deaths related to COVID-19 in Finnish retirement homes, but in terms of overall mortality rates for people 65+ it's quite obvious that it's not a big problem. Actual COVID-19 diagnoses are still reported by THL, including everyone who gets diagnosed by the public health system in Finland. Finland has unrelated, considerable, issues with care for the elderly, but that's a completely different topic. :)

> Let's not forget that lockdowns were a knee-jerk reaction enacted by scared politicians, not a carefully considered and data-backed policy.

Definitely. Lock-downs are last-resort measures taken when you've already failed to do what you should have done in the first place; extensive testing of travellers and contact tracing/quarantine of people who are sick. The other Nordic countries failed miserably in that regard.

[gizmo]

Chart cumulative all cause deaths per seasonal influenza year (meaning week 40 to week 39) for each of the nordic countries. Correct prior years for population growth. Then take the average all cause mortality of the past 7 (or 10, whatever) years and compare that to this year's all cause mortality and you'll get a completely different result. Or just eyeball the all cause mortality of the previous couple of years: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZlnYQCU0AA0jkv?format=png&name=...

It's so "obvious" that Sweden is an outlier that people don't bother to look at the data more seriously. Sweden didn't lock down ergo it must be a disaster, the data be damned.

> in terms of overall mortality rates for people 65+ it's quite obvious that it's not a big problem

That's correct. The overal mortality of all Nordic countries is completely unexceptional. Politicians panicked because they believed that this disease would be very deadly (it isn't), kills healthy young people (it doesn't), spreads exponentially (it never has), and spreads through asymptomatic hosts (it doesn't).

[claudeganon]

I think Sweden’s strategy is on the bad end of the spectrum and Taiwan and South Korea’s on the great end. I don’t anticipate any more catastrophe for them than their relative peers in the bad response group, but they did do quite bad compared to liberal democracies in SE Asia. Taiwan has had 11 deaths and South Korea about 300. Sweden has about 4700.

[gizmo]

South Korea uses exceptionally privacy invasive types of tracking and tracing, so their approach is better described as "police state" than as "liberal democracy"

This coronavirus hasn't made in a big impact anywhere in SE Asia, even though countries responded in very different ways. This suggests that the virus doesn't take hold for a different reason, e.g. pre-existing immunity.

[claudeganon]

South Korea is not a “police state.” All of the same info is collected by advertising companies and 3-letter agencies in the US.

> This suggests that the virus doesn't take hold for a different reason, e.g. pre-existing immunity.

No, it suggests the variety of their responses were on the effective side of things, while Sweden’s was not. Taiwan’s VP is an epidemiologist who has guided their response from day one and should be credited for that work.

Maybe people are so hostile about Sweden because people keep insisting they be graded on a curve, contrary to the real success stories.

[gizmo]

So it's not bad because the US is doing it too? Or, maybe, the US doesn't respect the privacy of its residents either.

Taiwan started taking action before the first case had even been reported. And yes, they do deserve credit for that.

Sweden's response was also effective, given that the virus had already spread widely across Europe by the time the politicians woke up. There is some variation in the way cases/deaths are tracked between countries, but when you look at All Cause Mortality it's clear that Sweden is right in the middle of the pack, and they accomplished that without the massive externalities (both human and financial) of a lockdown. That's a success, but yes, Europe should have responded aggressively in Dec as Taiwan did.

[claudeganon]

Sweden cooperates with the US on all that surveillance, so you can’t really argue that they’re better relative to the US or South Korea. Arguably worse, because South Korea actually saved lives with it while Sweden got no pandemic-fighting benefit in return.

The South Korean and Swedish responses began at about the same time, so again, this seems like special pleading. South Korea has more direct exchange with China as well.

If your argument is that Europe overall hasn’t done a great job, and Sweden isn’t that far of a deviation from that performance, ok. But again, that’s not an accomplishment relative to the actually successful countries like Taiwan and South Korea. I don’t understand how having many times more deaths be considered “effective” relative to these countries? Again, they didn’t have any of the economic damage caused by lockdowns either.