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Every Week, Every Month, Every Day Sweden Proves World Got It Wrong.

eon said:
My point is the way other societies reacted as a group towards the virus - whether it was social distancing, masks, or an attempt at herd immunity. They worked together for the well-being of all, not just themselves. Here in the U.S. its become a personal rights issue, where people cough into other peoples faces, or pull guns on each other. It's bedlam. Now other places have taken a step towards normalcy, while we remain a festering petrie dish thats been cut off from the rest of the planet.
Click to expand...

The way I'd say it is at least Sweden followed a coherent strategy. We half assed a shutdown, opened the economy back up too early, wasted the months of shutdowns for nothing, and are belatedly, effectively, following the Sweden model, with none of the benefits of them pursuing it from the start.

So we got the worst of all worlds, thanks to our incompetent national leadership from Trump's WH then delegating it to 50 different state strategies.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
So no, he's not arresting cops for showing up to work, he'd be arresting federal agents acting illegally in his jurisdiction. You lied because you have an agenda.
Click to expand...

The Federal Agents ARE cops. They are legally within their rights, carrying out their duties, and jurisdiction.

Now, put those goal posts back where you found them.
 
Shorter OP:

We're not even half way through this pandemic, and Sweden is #5 for highest death rate per capita in the entire world! Thus proving they did the best of any country! That some countries that are completely different than Sweden, far more densely populated, did WORSE means Sweden not having the highest death rate in the world means, obviously, that they had the BEST approach!! And equally obviously, that their next door neighbors with 1/10th or less the number of deaths per capita, and countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland and others also did far better and are showing the same "herd immunity" looking numbers as Sweden, proves absolutely nothing!

And those god damned immigrants!

Also, Nic Lewis!

Q.E.D.
 
maxparrish said:
You have to be open for that to matter...small stores are mostly closed in unopened states (e.g. California).
Click to expand...

In that case no stores would be open in the country of Malta.
 
JasperL said:
The way I'd say it is at least Sweden followed a coherent strategy. We half assed a shutdown, opened the economy back up too early, wasted the months of shutdowns for nothing, and are belatedly, effectively, following the Sweden model, with none of the benefits of them pursuing it from the start.

So we got the worst of all worlds, thanks to our incompetent national leadership from Trump's WH then delegating it to 50 different state strategies.
Click to expand...

The issue was that this is an election year, the luck Trump had was that he was the president during a period of a rising world market, he had boasted that so often in the past few years that he had linked his electoral success to that good fortune by claiming it was all due to his brilliance (which is doubtful but that is a different discussion). When the crisis struck he first thought that ignoring it was the best option which was his first mistake. If he had taken charge like a president can do, directed stringent measures, no flights, trains/bus travel from cities where several covid cases were and if he had supported lock downs, maybe he could have come out as the president who saved the country from covid19 and saved the economic fortune by having a good economic package in a deal with both the democrats and republicans.

But we know that he chose to do the opposite. He ignored it, downplayed it, said it would disappear, was an enemy of masks, did not want cities and states to lock down and pushed for early ends to measures against covid. And the good obedient (mostly) republican Southern and other states obeyed like Trump demanded and opened up to "save the economy even if it killed older people" (Texas LT governor). DeSantis was the arrogance himself and blasted journalists who claimed it was only time before covid struck among the elderly population centers of his state, sadly those journalists and experts were right and now Florida is having a big problem, maybe even bigger than NY. Instead of showing some humility after his terrible earlier mistakes he is not making it worse with blindly following Trump's edict of opening up in person schooling.

Trump could have been the hero of the situation, sadly he chose the exact opposite. Giving dangerous advice time and time and time again. Now after the nutjob doctors for killing covid patients and their facebook video Trump has started pushing his malaria drug with the line "what do you have to loose". His momentary "sane" period only lasted days and now he has started up his pathetic lies and bad advice to his supporters. All for the further glory and success of the chief grifter of the USA.
 
Visbek said:
Good grief. How many times are you going to repeat the same garbage?

Sweden messed up, resulting in more cases and deaths per capita than the EU. They didn't save their economy either. They brought down the number of cases with social distancing, they just didn't need government mandates for the population to cooperate. The only difference is that they got hit a little bit later.

View attachment 67289305

Yes, Sweden ranked above average and still did as nearly as well or better than the big lockdown advocates.

So either cleanup your "logic" or concede.
Click to expand...
 
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maxparrish said:
Still in denial, are you?
Click to expand...
Riiiiiiight


Your ranting over the ' 7th highest death rates' per capita is hardly relevant when, in context, western Europe in general suffered far more than eastern Europe....
Click to expand...
No, dude. Simply pointing out that Sweden has the 7th highest death rate per capita out of 200+ nations is just a fact -- one that happens to be inconvenient for your narrative.

And as you've been told many times, Sweden did much worse than other Nordic nations, which have similar social and governmental structures. Care to tell us why? Why did Sweden do worse than Norway, Finland and Denmark?

91-DIVOC-countries-normalized-Sweden (5).jpg


So you must honestly think Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria are that much more competent than the western nations mentioned?
Click to expand...
lol

Yes, let's look at them, shall we?

91-DIVOC-countries-normalized-Poland.jpg

Bulgaria did well -- until it lightened its restrictions. It has barely started to clamp down again, despite 6 weeks of rising case numbers.

Slovakia locked down early, and the public complied with restrictions. And no, it isn't usually isolated; it has lots of international travel. They did well in spite of a generally inefficient government.

Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Bulgaria all did something different than Sweden: They locked down or voluntarily distanced early on. So, I'd say they were both lucky and made the right moves.


And you do not your indicting all those above average European others and the failure of their lockdown policies in the same breath, right?
Click to expand...
Yeah, don't put words in my mouth.

I never said that Italy did everything perfect. They botched aspects of their initial response -- e.g. news of an impending lockdown in Lombardy resulted in people leaving that region, and thus spreading the virus widely. However, they also had the bad luck of getting hit very early; there is evidence that the virus was in Italy in December 2019.

The point is that Sweden's relatively lax approach ultimately did not work. Being only a few ranks below Italy in deaths per capita is not a sign of a smashing success.

And let's not forget, it's not like they were all that much more relaxed than other nations. Sweden's government, as you've been told before, did tell people to distance. They barred groups over 50; they banned visits to senior living facilities; they regulated restaurant and bar occupancy; they closed restaurants and bars that didn't comply; they instituted internal travel restrictions; tourist industries were regulated; social interactions dropped significantly; many churches voluntarily closed.... Most of the difference is that the social distancing was primarily voluntary rather than mandated, as most people complied -- in ways that we don't see in, for example, parts of the US.


Among those hardest hit most strategies were some form of full lockdown other than Sweden.
Click to expand...
Hello? McFly? They got hit early, and did not lock down fast enough. It was only when they locked down that they got the virus under control.

And again, we see exactly what happens when nations and states lock down: Few cases and few deaths (South Korea, New Zealand, Canada etc) or, if the virus has already hit, cases and deaths drop (Italy, Spain, NY, NJ, etc).

And again, we see exactly what happens you don't lock down and/or voluntary distancing is weak: Case and death rates rise. It's happening in Brazil, in Florida, in Texas, in Arizona, and so on.
 
maxparrish said:
Your knowledge of epidemiology is on par with your knowledge of immunity - which is to say, none at all. I'm not saying "virtually everyone in Sweden" has to have been infected, but you are.

Herd immunity does not require such a simple-minded assumption, even in the most simplistic models. And in fact, herd immunity can be attained somewhere between 6 and 21 percent of the population.

Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought – Nicholas Lewis
The progress of the COVID-19 epidemic in Sweden: an analysis – Nicholas Lewis
Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought – update – Nicholas Lewis

And two independent papers come to the same conclusion:

Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold | medRxiv
Herd immunity thresholds for SARS-CoV-2 estimated from unfolding epidemics | medRxiv



LOL, the US is a failure to "all the other countries" of the first world? Please don't post a lame chart of just Germany because "Germany" is not "all the other countries", it is one of the five major countries of western Europe. You know better than that, don't you?

Now had you not cherry picked from the Big 5 and chosen a much more important metric you would have found a chart that it's not the US that looks like a failure. Four of the five major countries of Europe have had more deaths per capita, as shown in comparison of the purple and green highlighted areas. You do know what an abject failure looks like, don't you?

View attachment 67289309



As you don't specify what country or city "here" is, and presume to characterize the entire US while living outside North America...need one reply to your closing rant?

I think not.
Click to expand...

If you don't like "The Big Five", how are you with "G8+China"?

20-07-29 A1 - G8 + CHINA COVID.jpg

20-07-29 A3 - Deaths by Clearance.jpg
20-07-29 A4 - Deaths by Clearance NO TESTING.JPG
​


As you can see:


  1. the US has more cases/1,000,000 than any of the other countries;
    *
  2. the US has more deaths/1,000,000 than all but two of the other countries;
    *
  3. the US has a lower clearance rate than any of the other countries;
    *
  4. the US has a higher mortality rate (for closed cases) than all but three of the other countries;
    *
    and
    *
  5. in all but two of the other countries a person picked at random has a lower chance of dying from COVID-19 than they do in the US.


I started to do some charting on the numbers when adjusted by GDP per capita (i.e. how well a country could afford to fight COVID-19) but the results were so depressing for the US that I simply abandoned the whole idea.
 
Visbek said:
Riiiiiiight

No, dude. Simply pointing out that Sweden has the 7th highest death rate per capita out of 200+ nations is just a fact...
Click to expand...
I'm not disputing a fact, I am disagreeing over whether that ranking is due to the involuntary circumstances of a particular nation in Western Europe or due to the failure to pursue a lockdown policy used by its neighbors...or both.

I demonstrated that according to your own "logic" (and that is a generous characterization) IF the differences in outcome were merely due to different government policies then you need to explain how 200 plus nations have done better at planning and execution of their policies to prevent COVID to explain why those in Western Europe that are in the top 12 of deaths. Sticking you ostrich head down a rabbit hole muttering about Sweden being 7th among those dozen nations of European failures doesn't argue that Sweden's unique strategy is a standout failure - it argues that something other than individual strategy is why the countries in western Europe rate so high.

And as you've been told many times, Sweden did much worse than other Nordic nations, which have similar social and governmental structures. Care to tell us why? Why did Sweden do worse than Norway, Finland and Denmark?
Click to expand...

Now you are pointing out that the three other countries two of which are Scandinavian, and a third in Northern east Europe (Finland) have done much better. That is true, but we know why at least two of those nations are doing better - Norway's own health ministry says their infection was not only small, but already dieing out before they took action. Norway cannot be counted for comparative policy purposes when a pandemic is dieing out on its own.

Finland, like Norway, also started with a small seeding with a trace contact, and never even "introduced a strict lockdown or a curfew due to the corona virus and has allowed its citizens to keep practicing outdoor sports freely". They kept non essential business open, they partially locked down education, and focused on closing large public facilities (museums, libraries) and restaurants/bars. As their infection was mainly in the capital, that region was SEALED and QUARANTINED, enforced by both the military and police. And they did an excellent job of isolating old people.

But none of this suggests that Sweden, twice as large and with three major sources of infection urban infection hotspots could have quarantined 50 percent of its population from all travel into or outside of their urban borders, and I've already acknowledged that they, like many countries didn't do a good job protecting the old.

Bottom line, no two countries are alike. One cannot take a score of countries, cherry pick a couple, and then claim that those were the only outcomes possible with a set of policies. Sweden might well have had high death rate like Belgium or low death rate Denmark for identical lock down policies, in part because they chose a different strategy unlike Belgium and Denmark's, they obtained an in between result that achieved success in their eyes.

Yes, let's look at them, shall we?

Bulgaria did well -- until it lightened its restrictions...Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Bulgaria all did something different than Sweden: They locked down or voluntarily distanced early on. So, I'd say they were both lucky and made the right moves.
Click to expand...

The question wasn't if those three or four countries did something different than Sweden, the question was IF scoring below the EU average indicates a smarter plan, implemented in a smarter and more efficient way, explain how these eastern European states were ALL so much smarter than the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Andorra and their lock down strategy.

Yes those eastern countries WERE "LUCKY" ... MEANING they had much lower initial exposure and they had forewarning to close their borders early and fully. Something not done or not possible for Western Europe, including Sweden.

Cont.
 
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And let's not forget, it's not like they were all that much more relaxed than other nations. Sweden's government... did tell people to distance. They barred groups over 50; they banned visits to senior living facilities; they regulated restaurant and bar occupancy; they closed restaurants and bars that didn't comply; they instituted internal travel restrictions; ...; social interactions dropped; many churches voluntarily closed.... Most of the difference is that the social distancing was primarily voluntary rather than mandated, as most people complied -- in ways that we don't see in, for example, parts of the US.
Click to expand...


So after you argued that Sweden's approach was unlike that of other western European countries which caused it to fail, you are now telling me Sweden mostly did what everyone else did any way...WTF?

And now you say Sweden's people actually complied with measure in ways parts of the US did not...which explains what, that the US still has a lower death rate? Huh?

Visbek, you need to take a break and figure out what you believe before you comment further. You're no longer making any sense.
 
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maxparrish said:
Still in denial, are you? And still using the same old debunked comparisons that never end up doing anything other than undermining your "case"?

Your ranting over the ' 7th highest death rates' per capita is hardly relevant when, in context, western Europe in general suffered far more than eastern Europe and many in the west ranked as high or higher in deaths than Sweden. But given your "logic" that a higher than average EU death toll per capita is the benchmark of competence, then the lockdowns states of UK, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Andorra were also failures....right?

And, by the way, using your logic I'm surprised you have avoided touting that Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria must manifestly more competent in planning and execution than those western lockdown countries (plus Sweden), right?

Now I understand using your own logic isn't so comfortable for you, is it? (To say nothing of the discomfort of knowing that COVID suffering countries are correlated with larger 2nd and 3rd world populations of foreign born than those in the east...hmmmm?)

See the obvious: western Europe was hit hard due to the major "seeding" into the west from international travel, while insular and border conscious eastern Europe was not. Among those hardest hit were countries relying on full lockdown other than Sweden. Some faired better than Sweden, some worse.

View attachment 67289346

Yes, Sweden ranked above average and still did as nearly as well or better than the big lockdown advocates.

So either cleanup your "logic" or concede.
Click to expand...

But those other Western countries cannot that easily be compared to the Swedish situation, because Sweden is significantly less densely populated and does not border other huge outbreak nations, has no large neighboring countries and is pretty isolated there next to Finland and Norway. The 2 countries most comparable to Sweden as they have the same geographic location, low density and both of these countries locked down and saw considerably less deaths and covid cases than Sweden (per capita).

And for the Netherlands and Belgium, if the outbreak had happened a few weeks later, we might have had a lot lower death rates, but sadly that was not the case. This happened in the time period of Dutch and Belgian people taking skiing vacations in the hot spots of Italy and Austria. After that it was carnaval, and some carnaval parades were cancelled due to bad weather but many were not. And in the bars and pubs of the cities people were packed in together drinking and shouting singing at the top of their lungs.

In the days it looked like this



and in the evenings it mostly looked like this and I do mean in EVERY city center and small town center. Every pub was filled to the brim with partying people.



Throughout the south of the Netherlands people were signing, drinking, dancing, kissing, drinking, drinking for 5 days straight. Friends of mine used to save up the entire year for carnaval. They would save up to 1500 dollars or more to blow on 5 days of drinking. Add to those festivities people who just returned from Italy/Ischgl in Austria. Covid spreaders jumping and having fun before they got sick. It was the perfect storm so to speak. Entire school classes were on skiing trips to Italy before coming back to carnaval festivities. You did not have that in Sweden, one of the reasons it spread so damned quick through parts of Germany and among millions of Belgians and Dutch citizens.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
This is objectively, dramatically untrue and there's no way you could possibly be this ignorant unintentionally. Yes, you absolutely can slow the spread of the virus and every other first world country on other is doing WAAAY better than us in it.

Here's one conparison:
View attachment 67289184

New infections per day is literally a metric for the spread of the virus. Germany isn't full of scientifically illiterate moron Trump supporters so they were able to get the infection rate to near zero.

Why do you lie about things that can easily be proven false?
Click to expand...

Yes, we flattened the curve, and now we and Sweden are pretty much at the same point on the graph. We flattened the curve and crushed the economy and the lives of many. We flattened the curve and plundered the treasury to the benefit of many special interests.

We flattened the curve and have an infection fatality rate of .65 or even less. We flattened the curve and the public was mesmerized and terrorized. We flattened the curve and according to CDC numbers 131000 have died from pneumonia while 121000 have died from Covid.

It is easier to fool a man than it is to explain to him how he has been fooled.

There are 2 ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is false, and the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

:peace
 
Thoreau72 said:
Yes, we flattened the curve, and now we and Sweden are pretty much at the same point on the graph. We flattened the curve and crushed the economy and the lives of many. We flattened the curve and plundered the treasury to the benefit of many special interests.

We flattened the curve and have an infection fatality rate of .65 or even less. We flattened the curve and the public was mesmerized and terrorized. We flattened the curve and according to CDC numbers 131000 have died from pneumonia while 121000 have died from Covid.

It is easier to fool a man than it is to explain to him how he has been fooled.

There are 2 ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is false, and the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

:peace
Click to expand...

Your dishonesty is breath taking. You either have not looked at the US curve or you're intentionally lying.

View attachment 67289184

Find ONE other country that has a ridiculous two hump curve like the US. Hint, it ain't Sweden.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Your dishonesty is breath taking. You either have not looked at the US curve or you're intentionally lying.

View attachment 67289184

Find ONE other country that has a ridiculous two hump curve like the US. Hint, it ain't Sweden.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's breathtaking in the same way that speaking the truth in a time of universal deception is a radical act.

Thank you!
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Show one country with a curve similar to the US. You can't So you won't.
Click to expand...

Garbage in = Garbage out. I'm sure you understand that.

The data, curves, numbers and all that since the beginning of Apocalypse Covid have been extremely unreliable. Those who point that out are censored.

'nuff said.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Garbage in = Garbage out. I'm sure you understand that.

The data, curves, numbers and all that since the beginning of Apocalypse Covid have been extremely unreliable. Those who point that out are censored.

'nuff said.
Click to expand...

Haha hahahaha, so instead of backing up your claim that the US and Swedish curves are basically the same, you're claiming it's a huge conspiracy and that the numbers are being faked. Jesus Christ dude I knew you believed in some nutty conspiracy **** but that's just bad.

Carry on, you can't be reasoned with and you won't even try to back up your claims.
 
maxparrish said:
So after you argued that Sweden's approach was unlike that of other western European countries which caused it to fail, you are now telling me Sweden mostly did what everyone else did any way...WTF?

And now you say Sweden's people actually complied with measure in ways parts of the US did not...which explains what, that the US still has a lower death rate? Huh?

Visbek, you need to take a break and figure out what you believe before you comment further. You're no longer making any sense.
Click to expand...

Exactly which "death rate" are you using as a standard? Is it:

  1. deaths divided by total population;
    *
  2. deaths divided by total population normalized by GDP per capita;
    *
  3. deaths divided by the total of all cases;
    *
  4. deaths divided by the total of all cases normalized by GDP per capita;
    *
  5. deaths divided by the total of closed cases;
    *
  6. deaths divided by the total of closed cases normalized by GDP per capita;
    *
  7. deaths per million;
    *
  8. deaths per million normalized by GDP per capita
    *
    or
    *
  9. some other metric?

To most people, the country that is "the most similar to the United States of America" is Canada. When you compare the numbers for Canada and the United States of America the difference is startling

20-07-30 A1 - G8 + CHINA COVID.jpg

20-07-30 A2 - World-China-USA-Canada.JPG

20-07-30 A3 - Deaths by Clearance.jpg
20-07-30 A4 - Deaths by Clearance NO TESTING.JPG​

especially if you look at the bottom row of the second table where the numbers of cases and deaths have been adjusted using Canada's actual ratios and applying them as if Canada and the US had the same size of population and column 11 of the first table that shows that an American picked at random has almost double (1.97 times if you want to be picky) the chance of dying from COVID-19 as does a Canadian picked at random.

It appears to me that the major difference between the two countries is that Canadians approached the COVID-19 situation as a problem that everyone had to pull together in order for as many people as possible to pull through so they tolerated measures that caused them some slight personal inconvenience for the benefit of society as a whole (even if they weren't ravingly enthusiastic about it) while Americans approached the COVID-19 situation as either

  1. a referendum on Mr. Trump;
    *
  2. a lead up to the 2020 elections;
    *
  3. a violation of their "constitutional rights";
    *
  4. a partisan political issue;
    *
  5. something to be ignored;
    *
  6. something to be blamed on anyone they could think of;
    *
  7. a really neat opportunity to make a whole lot of money by price gouging;
    *
  8. something that should be used to advance their own personal agenda;
    *
  9. something that would help eliminate their "enemies";
    *
  10. NOT something where everyone should all pull together in order to try and make sure that the largest number of people would pull through;
    *
    or
    *
  11. some combination of two or more of the above.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Yes, we flattened the curve, and now we and Sweden are pretty much at the same point on the graph. We flattened the curve and crushed the economy and the lives of many. We flattened the curve and plundered the treasury to the benefit of many special interests.

We flattened the curve and have an infection fatality rate of .65 or even less. We flattened the curve and the public was mesmerized and terrorized. We flattened the curve and according to CDC numbers 131000 have died from pneumonia while 121000 have died from Covid.

It is easier to fool a man than it is to explain to him how he has been fooled.

There are 2 ways to be fooled. One is to believe what is false, and the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

:peace
Click to expand...

Did you know that "pneumonia" is a symptom and NOT a disease?

Are you one of those who believes that absolutely no one has died from COVID-19 because the only people with COVID-19 who died died when their hearts stopped beating which means that they died of "heart failure"?
 
maxparrish said:
Sweden got it mostly right (save for old folks homes):



Note their classic pandemic curve(s) for unsuppressed infections:

View attachment 67289239

If not for Malmo and the immigrants from the under-developed world, one might presume Sweden has reached herd immunity. However, it is a region in which statistics indicate they may not have done so, and the community could still be a festering and stubbornly infected reservoir.

On the other hand, the rest of the country is sparkling clean, unsullied by riotous minorities, and filled with pretty white folks - albeit stubbornly social welfareist.
Click to expand...

Tell them that...

Coronavirus: Sweden's Tegnell admits too many died - BBC News
 
maxparrish said:
I'm not disputing a fact, I am disagreeing over whether that ranking is due to the involuntary circumstances of a particular nation in Western Europe or due to the failure to pursue a lockdown policy used by its neighbors...or both.
Click to expand...
Riiiiight

You called my reference to it a "rant," repeatedly downplayed its importance, and failed to acknowledge how the common thread of the worst hit nations is that they didn't respond properly or fast enough.


I demonstrated that according to your own "logic" (and that is a generous characterization) IF the differences in outcome were merely due to different government policies then you need to explain how 200 plus nations have done better at planning and execution of their policies to prevent COVID to explain why those in Western Europe that are in the top 12 of deaths.
Click to expand...
There is no mystery. Other nations locked down faster or more completely, and/or are a bit more isolated, and/or are just lucky (so far).

And as you should have noticed in my previous post and elsewhere, there are circumstances where voluntary adoptions of restrictions can work. However, we have also seen (over and over and over and over...) how those voluntary measures can also fail.

And of course, what you fail to explain is why we see (over and over and over and over...) that insufficient reactions, locking down too slowly, opening up too fast all result in surges of cases and/or deaths.


...Sweden being 7th among those dozen nations of European failures doesn't argue that Sweden's unique strategy is a standout failure...
Click to expand...
Yes, it does. Saying that "Italy did not lock down fast enough" or "at least Sweden wasn't the absolute worst!" most certainly does not prove that "Sweden's approach worked." That's just flat-out fallacious.

It's like saying "In 2019, the Baltimore Orioles had 54 wins and 108 losses, which is the second worst record in the MLB. But hey, Detroit had the worst record of the season. Therefore the Orioles' strategy was a total success, which proves that the rest of the league was completely wrong!"


Now you are pointing out that the three other countries two of which are Scandinavian, and a third in Northern east Europe (Finland) have done much better. That is true, but we know why at least two of those nations are doing better - Norway's own health ministry says their infection was not only small, but already dieing out before they took action.
Click to expand...
• "Dying" not "dieing"
• Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are Nordic nations, which is the term I used
• Yes, it makes sense to compare Sweden to the other Nordic nations
• I haven't seen any such claims (nor does a politician saying so necessarily make them true)


Norway cannot be counted for comparative policy purposes when a pandemic is dieing out on its own.
Click to expand...
Well, that is complete and total bull****. COVID-19 has not "disappeared on its own" anywhere in the world yet.


Finland... kept non essential business open, they partially locked down education, and focused on closing large public facilities (museums, libraries) and restaurants/bars. As their infection was mainly in the capital, that region was SEALED and QUARANTINED, enforced by both the military and police.
Click to expand...
So basically... they locked down.

You also failed to mention that they banned ALL groups larger than 10 people. Tsk, tsk


But none of this suggests that Sweden, twice as large and with three major sources of infection urban infection hotspots could have quarantined 50 percent of its population from all travel into or outside of their urban borders....
Click to expand...
Of course they could. There is no question Sweden had the ability to enact stronger controls. Don't even front.


Bottom line, no two countries are alike. One cannot take a score of countries, cherry pick a couple, and then claim that those were the only outcomes possible with a set of policies.
Click to expand...
LOL

Hello?!? That's exactly what you are doing! You started this thread proclaiming that "Every Week, Every Month, Every Day Sweden Proves World Got It Wrong" and your evidence is... that Italy, Spain and the UK did worse. Thanks, but no thanks, for the blatant hypocrisy.


Yes those eastern countries WERE "LUCKY" ... MEANING they had much lower initial exposure and they had forewarning to close their borders early and fully. Something not done or not possible for Western Europe, including Sweden.
Click to expand...
And again, that is complete bull****. Those nations didn't lock down international travel all that much differently than any other nation. And "lower initial exposure" only helps if you lock down fast enough. EVERY nation started with "low initial exposure." If the government takes no action, then it will just take a little longer for the virus to spread.
 
maxparrish said:
Sweden got it mostly right (save for old folks homes):



Note their classic pandemic curve(s) for unsuppressed infections:

View attachment 67289239

If not for Malmo and the immigrants from the under-developed world, one might presume Sweden has reached herd immunity. However, it is a region in which statistics indicate they may not have done so, and the community could still be a festering and stubbornly infected reservoir.

On the other hand, the rest of the country is sparkling clean, unsullied by riotous minorities, and filled with pretty white folks - albeit stubbornly social welfareist.
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Meanwhile, Florida, which tried to be Sweden, saw 252 deaths over the past 24 hours. Arizona fared much worse with 172.

July 29-30 Deaths per million:

Arizona: 24

Florida: 13



Texas and CA have yet to report.

United States Coronavirus: 4,600,388 Cases and 154,541 Deaths - Worldometer

The premise of your thread has been destroyed.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
There is no such thing as herd immunity with covid. It's been shown that people lose their antibodies over a few months. The EU as a whole has almost eradicated the virus and is on lock down to prevent idiot Americans from bringing it back in.

Second, Sweden has done objectively worse than countries who followed the recommended procedure and shut down early and hard, but they still did better than the abject failure that is the United States whose genius strategy was to do nothing and just let it infect everyone.

While you want to somehow blame the minorities, it hilariously was the dumbass white right wing Trump supporters that ****ed the country over. America is suffering longer and harder than everyone else. Most other 1st world countries are already back to work and have been for months. Your ignorance did this, stop trying to blame minorities for your own dumbass decisions.
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Only the right wing may believe the pandemic is a hoax. The left is willing to listen to subject matter specialists.
 
maxparrish said:
So after you argued that Sweden's approach was unlike that of other western European countries which caused it to fail, you are now telling me Sweden mostly did what everyone else did any way...WTF?
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lol

Wow, talk about motivated reasoning.

Again: Sweden took a more relaxed approach for several months -- but it wasn't that much more relaxed. Meaning it doesn't take much for SARS-CoV-2 to spread widely. When things got worse, the government and public clamped down more, and got the virus under control.


And now you say Sweden's people actually complied with measure in ways parts of the US did not...which explains what, that the US still has a lower death rate? Huh?
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lol... yet more motivated reasoning, I see.

The point, again, is that voluntary measures can work -- but only if people actually abide by them. Swedes showed a fairly high level of compliance for voluntary measures, including when they needed to be stricter; while states like Texas and Florida and Arizona largely ignored voluntary measures (and poorly enforced mandatory measures). As a result, Sweden's current rate of daily deaths per 1 million people is low and continuing to fall (0.871) whereas the US is higher climbing (3.21, which is double where it was about 3 weeks ago).


Visbek, you need to take a break and figure out what you believe before you comment further. You're no longer making any sense.
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lol

No, I'm making perfect sense. Lemme break it down for you:

• More distancing = the virus spreads less
• Lack of controls = virus spreads more
• Lack of compliance with controls = virus spreads more
• Few nations or states can actually succeed with primarily voluntary measures
• Sweden did not succeed with primarily voluntary measures

We see this over and over and over and over.

• China, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore etc prevented huge case numbers, despite being dense areas that were hit early, with strict distancing (mostly but not exclusively due to government policy)

• New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, France, Malaysia, Somalia, South Sudan etc all dramatically reduced cases with social distancing (mostly but not exclusively due to government policy)

• Texas, Florida, Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Brazil, Afghanistan, Colombia, etc did not lock down or opened up too soon, and thus have high case loads.

• Fun fact! Louisiana locked down, brought cases down -- but not enough. Then they opened up again, and cases surged. So no, SARS-CoV-2 did not magically disappear on its own, despite the wishful thinking of Dear Leader.

91-DIVOC-states-normalized-Louisiana.jpg

All of this is fully consistent with the research, such as the Lancet study published last month, which is a huge metastudy showing that yes... social distancing, masks and other measures work.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext

That means your only possible argument is that "voluntary distancing works," but we already have tons of evidence that it fails in many places. Thus, it is irrational to proclaim that "Every day, Sweden is proving the world got it wrong."
 
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