[throwaway202020]

Sweden chart is going downhill at the same rate as other countries with strict lockdown. There is a significant gap in mortality but I think the point is that people initially thought they would explode with COVID cases like early days in Wuhan (i.e. graph will go up, not down). Now it looks like they either have already hit zero new cases or going to hit them very soon. I think this is important fact worthy of studying deeply.

[usrusr]

Sweden's infection stats going down is completely consistent with the ten weeks nationwide summer vacation where they'd disperse into the vast forests anyways, pandemic or not. The curve flattened the moment schools closed (and all workplaces drop to the absolute minimal staffing because parents tend to sync vacation days with school vacations) and then collapsed once intra-family infection chains played out. Schools will reopen less than two weeks from now, another two weeks later we will have a clear answer.

[kybernetikos]

Check the charts I shared. They did explode initially, with far higher rates than similar countries, and they have taken much longer than similar countries to bring their death rates down. The earlier poster suggesting over 5000 more dead as a direct result of the policy is borne out by all cause mortality comparisons with similar countries.

Now possibly all these countries will be able to keep their low rates, but I'm concerned about the future: number of cases is on the rise again in Europe as a whole and increases in deaths will probably follow within the next month. I think we're still a way from being able to make a final reckoning.

The do-not-lock down case is mainly that we won't be able to control it until there's a vaccine, so lock down or no, total deaths will be similar. This isn't bourne out by the figures. Countries that allowed a larger spike initially have had much higher mortality rates (e.g. Compare the UK and Germany with now similar infection rates but very different mortality rates). Flattening the curve genuinely does seem to save lives.

The UK was keen to play the herd immunity game until they realised just how many people that would kill.

[usrusr]

Every "minor second wave" rise I have seen seems to be followed by a much smaller (if any!) rise in deaths than the waves in the first half of the year, at least in countries were the health system isn't completely overrun. It might be improved testing capacity and strategies leaving a smaller fraction of infections undiscovered but I doubt that: we are less and to predict test outcome now that the virus is everywhere a little instead of concentrated in few, intensive clusters and capacity hasn't improved that much. Another explanation that I often hear is that somehow spread has now shifted to younger people but why would that be? Older people tend to be less mobile, aren't socializing as widely, in short: they are more likely to be dead-ends for the virus than the young. Is expect the elderly to be just as much receivers infection chains spread by the young in March as in July.

That leaves us with improved treatment. We clearly don't have a miracle drug, but my impressive is that doctors know much better now than a few months ago what actually causes Covid-deaths and that they are now far beyond just supplying oxygen according to treatment recipes for completely different illnesses and hoping for the best. I expect the implications of this to become the center of heated debates any day now.