[johnbaker92]

Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden which:

- Did not force lockdown / masks onto anybody

- Has one of the least vaccinated population in Europe (around 40% afaik)

- Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks.

- Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates.

Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world (on top of having stringent mandates) and are basically experiencing their largest spike in cases since the beginning of this pandemic?

At the end of the day, it's also good to realise so called experts do not seem to have all the answers even though it's "backed by science". Going back to common sense and taking a step back is what will get us all out of this.

[pacerwpg]

Have you been actually following how things have gone? Sweden has 1708% more deaths to covid vs Norway, but only 84% higher population. That doesn't sound that great to me.

[MatteoFrigo]

This comparison between two datapoints is not too useful. The graphs at https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ provide a more nuanced picture, with the caveat that those are graphs of excess mortality and not necessarily covid-specific.

[BugsJustFindMe]

Useful or not, I think it's more representative within that region than you let on and matches basically the activity causing this moment in the timeline from your link: https://imgur.com/a/G3D7AZ2

[BugsJustFindMe]

> Have we perhaps forgotten about Sweden: - Has not had it worse than countries with stricter mandates.

Please explain this graph comparing Covid deaths in Sweden to its immediate neighbors that shows the opposite of what you're saying:

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

> - Has had 0 covid deaths in the last couple weeks.

Deaths per week are a function of previous deaths and population distribution. If more people die at the beginning, then fewer are left to die later. That's how dying works. Sweden's weekly per capita deaths peaked much higher than in the US or EU overall, and they've lost more people per capita than their neighbors.

A person who cares about numbers should be looking cumulatively, not just within some specific narrow window.

> Are we also forgetting about Iceland / Israel which are among the most vaccinated countries in the world

Israel isn't even in the top 30 and their vaccinations flatlined back in February, they prematurely declared victory, and people went back to licking doorknobs. But let's ignore all of that for now.

Congratulations, people faffed around fighting against restrictions and vaccination for so long that now we have successfully developed a mutation that achieves viral escape. Go team! Yay! Mission accomplished!

Vaccines and lockdowns and mask mandates still appear to prevent deaths and hospital overflow. How do we know? Because deaths and ICU bed percentages go down during lockdowns and go up when lockdowns end and because a tiny fraction of the people dying are vaccinated.

Keep in mind also that Iceland still has one of the lowest total per capita COVID death rates of any place in the world. It's also a weird little volcanic island with everyone living in only a few places with a major international transit hub between Europe and North America. The few places in the world doing better than Iceland are places which also lock down quickly.

> Going back to common sense

Except that your "common sense" tells you that Sweden has done great and that Israel and Iceland are doing poorly when compared to other countries the opposite is true. How then should we assess the accuracy of your common sense?

My common sense says that people who refuse the vaccine should just be refused access to hospital resources if they get sick. It would neatly address a lot of issues.