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

TU Curmudgeon said:

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

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Better yet, how about we write the individual names of 200+ nations on ping pong balls and draw nine of them of them from a loud air-mix lotto box ?

Aside from the fact that the thread is about Sweden, not the US, your choice of comparison is arbitrary and without a point. No one trusts any numbers coming from Russia or China, and India and Brazil rank higher than Canada in GDP, but are left off your "plus" list.

Moreover your "list" could also have noted (were your sampling less arbitrary) that the US and France rank 10th/11th among deaths per million (Worldometer chart attached), far lower that the UK, Italy, Spain, etc. You could have also noted that the US ranks much lower in fatalities per case than most in western Europe, including Germany. In fact the US fatality rate per case is about 1/5th of that of other leading nations (see Attachment, World In Data).

Some charts and graphs for your edification:





Finally, your home brew stats are fatally flawed, not only because of your cherry picked list but also because they are based on some dubious numbers. In particular the clearance rates are worthless because epidemiologically some are impossible. For example, at 60 percent clearance one would have to assume THAT EVERY CASE in FRANCE since April 18th is still "unrecovered". As most cases are resolved within a month, or at most six weeks, this statistic is not reliable.

And the reason why is it unreliable is obvious: a) different countries have different definitions of 'recovered' and b) the priority for stat compilers is to report infections and deaths, not who recovered at home or discharged from a clinic or hospitals. c) some don't bother to report the stat (UK and Spain, for example).

OlNate said:

Tell them that...

Coronavirus: Sweden's Tegnell admits too many died - BBC News

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Read what you are responding to (mostly did it right "save for old folks") and what your own link says:

Dr Tegnell, who is Sweden's state epidemiologist and in charge of the country's response to Covid-19, told BBC News in April that the high death toll was mainly because homes for the elderly had been unable to keep the disease out, although he emphasised that "does not disqualify our strategy as a whole".

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So I don't need to "tell them that", I need to tell you the same thing, again.

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.

eace

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you flattened what? :lamo

At the point of Sweden on the graph? You have actually looked at the US graph? Your death rate is as bad as it was 2 months ago, Sweden might still be bad, but a lot better than the US graphs are doing. Florida just had it's deadliest day with 252 deaths today, the worst so far was 216 yesterday and before that it was below 200. Arizona also had it's deadliest day so far. Sweden is nowhere near it's deadliest day. Sweden had 9 deaths, even if you multiply that by 30 (the US is about 30 times the size of Sweden when the population is concerned) and it is still about 1/5th of the past few days in the US.

So no, the US is not flattening the curve, it is plateauing at best, not flattening at all.

maxparrish said:

Read what you are responding to (mostly did it right "save for old folks") and what your own link says:



So I don't need to "tell them that", I need to tell you the same thing, again.

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Mmm...no. You don't get to take the justification out of the admission of failure, and claim success. It doesn't work that way.

maxparrish said:

Better yet, how about we write the individual names of 200+ nations on ping pong balls and draw nine of them of them from a loud air-mix lotto box ?

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Please feel free to do so.

maxparrish said:

Aside from the fact that the thread is about Sweden, not the US, your choice of comparison is arbitrary and without a point.

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I agree that that is your opinion. I simply took the world's most economically advanced nations and used them since they were the most economically similar in their ability to fund the fight against COVID-19.

maxparrish said:

No one trusts any numbers coming from Russia or China, and India and Brazil rank higher than Canada in GDP, but are left off your "plus" list.

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I can see why you would want to compare India (PPP GDP per capita US$9,027) or Brazil (PPP GDP per capita US$17,106) with the US (PPP GDP US$67,426) because that comparison ignores the fact that neither India nor Brazil has the financial ability to fight COVID-19 that the US does.

BTW, just for fun, you might want to compare the US data (which is also unreliable) to the Canadian data after adjusting for PPP GDP per capita.

For example, that would reduce the Canadian adjusted deaths from 8,917 to 6,896 and increase the number of test per million from 103,241 to 133,498.

As far as the "recovered" number is concerned, that is the reported number of cases where the patient is no longer "actively infected to the point of being symptomatic" and does not include the cases where the patient died. I use "cleared" which is the sum of the "recovered" and the "dead".


You might also want to note that a Canadian picked at random has 50.82% of the chance of dying from COVID-19 than does an American picked at random.

Visbek said:

Riiiiight

You called my reference...a "rant"...and failed to acknowledge how the common thread of the worst hit nations is that they didn't respond properly or fast enough.
Other nations locked down faster or more completely, and/or are a bit more isolated, and/or are just lucky (so far).

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Repeating unsupported claims that other nations were being spared because of their lockdown timing (speed) or scope doesn't make it supported let alone true. And then admitting that those other nations actually might have just been lucky or more isolated pretty much means that you really have no idea why critically hit nations were critically hit and why those not were not. So you just make up a reason, pulling an assumption from your subjective arse.

And as you should have noticed...there are circumstances where voluntary adoptions of restrictions can work. ... (but) those voluntary measures can also fail. And of course, what you fail to explain (are) insufficient reactions, locking down too slowly, opening up too fast all result in surges of cases and/or deaths.

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I don't need to explain what you assume. You ASSUME that there is always a casual relationship of locking down preventing infection, and that opening up always causes more infection. Far more egregiously you then imply that if those that open up had waited just a bit longer, nothing would happen when they did open up.

Logically speaking, it is possible that infection rates are slowed by some form of locking down (although in the short run may have the opposite effect). However, all other things being equal there is ZERO reason to suppose one can safely reopen after a period of time. LOCKDOWNS don't eliminate the virus itself, and they were NEVER intended to. IF the virus does not return after fully opening up then there is ONLY one of two plausible reason: a) seasonal socializing patterns change from indoor to outdoor or b) herd immunity has been achieved.

Therefore the question becomes which is better, continuing to cyclical between open and closed for the duration of the pandemic (18-24 months of 85 percent lock-down as proposed by the Imperial College) and hope for a vaccine, or just get it over with and let the infection spread till herd immunity is achieved.

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.

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If it achieved or nearly achieved herd immunity of course it worked - that is the goal of letting it run its course. The only part that they did wrong was not protecting old folks, primarily in long-term care facilities.

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!"

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Except that in baseball actual talent followed by strategy are the overwhelmingly prime determinants behind a wining record, unlike COVID. Covid death rates are an artifact of a populations obesity, diabetes, and cardo-vascular comobidities, as well as median age and (ironically) increased GDP.

Either that or the third world's medical and health care system is far superior to Europe and the US - which is it?

• 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)

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First, yes they are Nordic nations, and they are also three Scandinavian nations closer to Europe and of similar culture, while Finland is more separated in geography and culture compared to the other Nordics.

Second, of course it can make sense to compare Sweden to other nations. However, as with any sampling, the larger the comparison the more likely that the differences are more than chance. That's why your intentional limiting of the sample is wrong.

Cont...

Cont.

Third, I'm surprised that you are not aware Norway's public health authority has acknowledged it seems they had it wrong.

Norway Health Chief: Covid lockdown was not needed | Principia Scientific Intl.

At the time, no one really knew. It was feared that virus was rampant with each person infecting two or three others – and only lockdown could get this exponential growth rate (the so-called R number) down to a safe level of 1. This was the hypothesis advanced in various graphs by Imperial College London for Britain, Norway and several European countries.

But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered. ‘It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on 12 March, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1… We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down.’ Here’s the graph, with the R-number on the right-hand scale:

"Our assessment now, and I find that there is a broad consensus in relation to the reopening, was that one could probably achieve the same effect – and avoid part of the unfortunate repercussions – by not closing. But, instead, staying open with precautions to stop the spread."

This is important to admit, she says, because if the infection levels rise again – or a second wave hits in the winter – you need to be brutally honest about whether lockdown proved effective.

Norway’s statistics agency was also the first in the world to calculate the permanent damage inflicted by school closures: every week of classroom education denied to students, it found, stymies life chances and permanently lowers earnings potential.

So a country should only enforce this draconian measure if it is sure that the academic foundation for lockdown was sound. And in Stoltenberg’s opinion, ‘the academic foundation was not good enough’ for lockdown this time.

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That should conclude your carping over Norway.

Well, that is complete and total bull****. COVID-19 has not "disappeared on its own" anywhere in the world yet.

So basically... they (Finland) locked down.

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

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As a virus it won't disappear on its own, as a pandemic it would disappear. Once herd immunity is achieved it will be rare and unusual. And, by the way, basically they (Finland) l"locked down lite", , not even close to what NY NJ or California did nor close to most of Western Europe (and the ban on groups of 10 came late in the lock-down, before it was 50). So what should that tell you? That just maybe Finland's very low numbers BEATING western Europe (including Germany) had nothing to do with locking down and more about closing borders, not only internationally, but in internal quarantine zone around Helskinki, the hot spot of infection?

Nawwww...that couldn't be it, could it?

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.

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Incorrect. The world got it wrong ABOUT SWEDEN choosing the path to herd immunity. And my evidence is that they suffered, on average, no worse than most of their neighbors in western Europe who, it has been alleged, chose the right path.

If you think everyone else in Western Europe also did it wrong, then the heck are you and so many others picking out Sweden to excoriate? Clearly it isn't because they are so much worse off than the average of Western Europe, its because you'all can't stand that they didn't embrace your affection for authoritarian controls...something that warms to cockles of your heart, no?

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.

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Incorrect, a recent study pointed out that days between the first reference case and partial (or better yet) full border closure determines the number of infection rate of new cases - regardless of lockdowns (which may also slow the spread of new cases as well but is an independent variable).

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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You give no explanation of how or why The EU has beaten the Covid outbreak, and then you claim that dispite a cure the virus is all but eradicated in the EU. How so, you said the immunity disappears after a couple of months. Then you dispute Swedens numbers and medical experts, based on what? Sounds like you just pick and choose what ever story seems convenient.

TU Curmudgeon said:

Please feel free to do so.

I agree that that is your opinion. I simply took the world's most economically advanced nations and used them since they were the most economically similar in their ability to fund the fight against COVID-19.

I can see why you would want to compare India (PPP GDP per capita US$9,027) or Brazil (PPP GDP per capita US$17,106) with the US (PPP GDP US$67,426) because that comparison ignores the fact that neither India nor Brazil has the financial ability to fight COVID-19 that the US does.

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First, obviously you still avoid explaining your criteria for inclusion, regardless of your desire for dealing with "advanced economies". Canada has one of the highest GDP's per capita's (tax haven's and oil states excluded) in the world, but nothing like the size of China or the US economy. On the other hand, China's and Russia's per capita GDP mean or median does not come close to the others. If your list is based on size, then India and Brazil should be on the list, with China and Russia, not Canada. If its based on resources per person, then there are scores of European countries and several in Asia aside from Japan that are far richer than China or Russia.

Ergo, your apples and oranges list has zero "economically advanced" coherency - until you state a formal criteria for inclusion by GDP or GDP per person then its more than my opinion its crap, its a necessary conclusion.

Second, the ability to fight Covid isn't an issue; there is likely no large difference in ability to "fight" an infection that doesn't have a cure and whose major "treatment" is wearing a cloth over one's face or having a nurse tend to one's usual needs (oxygen, meals, etc.). More importantly, GDP is not so much as a variable for better resources because studies show the opposite - it's an associated variable that correlates with the disease; the higher a countries GDP the higher the case rate.

As I stated: your "list" could also have noted (were your sampling less arbitrary) that the US and France rank 10th/11th among deaths per million (Worldometer chart attached), far lower that the UK, Italy, Spain, etc. You could have also noted that the US ranks much lower in fatalities per case than most in western Europe, including Germany. In fact the US fatality rate per case is about 1/5th of that of other leading nations (see Attachment, World In Data).

BTW, just for fun, you might want to compare the US data (which is also unreliable) to the Canadian data after adjusting for PPP GDP per capita.

For example, that would reduce the Canadian adjusted deaths from 8,917 to 6,896 and increase the number of test per million from 103,241 to 133,498.

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I have no idea what you think your homebrew "corrections" by GDP even mean. My suggestion is that you stick to the variables widely examined and understood in the literature, not some pull it from your arse "finding".

And recovered is meaningless without knowing how a case is defined, who is tracked as a case, and how late the system is in providing resolved cases. As I demonstrated, a rate of 50 or 60 percent of "recovered" is epidemiological meaningless (e.g. the number for France).

Among the questions needing answered for EACH subject country and its method of counting:

- Are "cases" all positive tests, even for the same individual?
- Do "cases" mean anyone, with or without a doctor's supervision having a positive result on a test?
- Do "cases" include asymptomatic individuals?
- Do "cases" include symptomatic but untreated individuals?
- Do "cases" include those who see a doctor, have a positive test, and require no further treatment?
- Are "cases" defined as just "clinical cases", meaning those hospitalized and then discharged".

Without knowing whose counted, who is actually tracked, and who gets reported as "discharged" or "recovered" (a term used interchangeably but having different meanings) for each country under comparison, your spitting in the wind.

And the chances of an American picked at random having COVID, and therefore possibly dying has largely (but not always) about twice that of a Canadian. In fact, that has been true since March 15th when the infection exploded in the US NE but not so much in Canada. Within 10 days that gap opened up to 4 to 1 in infection rate...and rocketed away.

I have no idea what you think that means, other than from the outset the NE was plastered.

maxparrish said:

Repeating unsupported claims that other nations were being spared because of their lockdown timing (speed) or scope doesn't make it supported let alone true.

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Your request to ignore the obvious facts is denied.

I don't need to explain what you assume. You ASSUME that there is always a casual relationship of locking down preventing infection....

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How mature :roll:

Anyway. There are no "assumptions." It's what we know from actual scientific research, including the nature of how the virus actually spreads.

If anyone is making crap up, it's you -- e.g. proclaiming that the virus magically stops spreading.

Logically speaking, it is possible that infection rates are slowed by some form of locking down (although in the short run may have the opposite effect). However, all other things being equal there is ZERO reason to suppose one can safely reopen after a period of time. LOCKDOWNS don't eliminate the virus itself....

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Scientifically speaking, we know that lockdowns reduce the replication rate of the virus. It's not hard to understand, for those not afflicted by motivated reasoning. Let me break it down for you:

SARS-CoV-2 predominantly spreads via respiratory droplets, often in individuals who are presymptomatic or have very mild symptoms. The fewer people that an infected individual comes into contact with, the less the virus spreads. Masks also help, because they block the transmission of the viral particles. Thus, the more you isolate, the less the virus spreads.

In theory, viruses can be eradicated by extreme social distancing. However, that isn't possible in the real world, as SARS-CoV-2 can spread undetected, meaning there will be reservoirs of the virus even when official case counts are near zero.

I have no idea where you are coming up with this "social distancing can increase infection rates in the short term." I can only assume that you are utterly ignorant of the fact that the incubation period for COVID-19 is up to 14 days. Delays in testing can push that back by another 7-10 days. That means that if a country starts strict social distancing on August 1st, it might not show up in the numbers for several weeks. In turn, that means that if we don't start distancing soon enough, we've locked in weeks of exponential growth. That most certainly does not mean that "social distancing causes more cases."

IF the virus does not return after fully opening up then there is ONLY one of two plausible reason: a) seasonal socializing patterns change from indoor to outdoor or b) herd immunity has been achieved.

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Good grief. There is no indication whatsoever that SARS-CoV-2 is seasonal. Did you miss how it has ripped through the world in winter, spring and summer?

Herd immunity is possible -- but we don't have any proof that any community has it. Sweden certainly hasn't; as you've been told before, antibody tests in Stockholm show 20% of the population has recovered.

And we still don't know how long immunity lasts. If it lasts for 3-6 months, then it is entirely conceivable that herd immunity cannot be reached without a vaccine.

Therefore the question becomes which is better, continuing to cyclical between open and closed for the duration of the pandemic (18-24 months of 85 percent lock-down as proposed by the Imperial College) and hope for a vaccine, or just get it over with and let the infection spread till herd immunity is achieved.

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There is no question whatsoever that cycles of locking down is the superior method.

The reason why should be obvious. If we do nothing, and let the virus rip, then it's going to kill far more people. And not just COVID-19 patients. COVID-19 will fill up and overwhelm the hospitals, just like it did in Italy and hot spots in the US, which increases all types of mortality.

And on top of that, if immunity only lasts 3-6 months, then it is highly likely that we'll get repeated waves of the virus, meaning the loss of life will be in vain.

Except that in baseball actual talent followed by....

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Oh, just stop. It's an analogy. The point, since you refuse to acknowledge it, is that you're lauding the policies of one of the worst hit nations in the world.

Second, of course it can make sense to compare Sweden to other nations.

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...except you denied the idea that we can make comparisons. Hmmmmm

That's why your intentional limiting of the sample is wrong.

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lol

You missed the part where I'm not limiting anything.

That's the thing about Sweden being in the Top 10. I can pick over 190 nations that have done better. And even the ones that did worse just prove how social distancing works.

maxparrish said:

Third, I'm surprised that you are not aware Norway's public health authority has acknowledged it seems they had it wrong.

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I'm surprised you are not aware that Principia Scientific International is a conspiracy theory and pseudo-science site.
Principia Scientific International (PSI) - Media Bias/Fact Check

Back in the real world, the report acknowledges that the measures brought the virus under control (p 18); that testing and isolation had a significant impact; that tracking and quarantines had a moderate impact; that discouraging domestic travel had a small impact; that social distancing measures had a moderate impact; that closing schools for older students had a bigger impact than for younger students.

And no, the virus wasn't "on its way out" in the middle of March, when they locked down. It was on the rise. Looks like you got suckered by your own source.

As a virus it won't disappear on its own, as a pandemic it would disappear.

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lol... What did our Finnish friends say on this point? (Via Google Translate, with a few fixes)

SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay; it does not disappear by itself. The virus does not appear to have acquired some fixed mutations that have changed its infectivity or virulence in a positive or negative direction....

In a population almost without immunity, R will be around 3 and quickly give rise to a dramatic epidemic if no action is taken and no one changes behavior.... As it can take several years before vaccination becomes possible or very effective medicine becomes available, we must try to keep the epidemic under control without [a] large action burden.

Then they point out that the virus will spread further if people do not comply with measures; that Finland may face new waves between December and April; that they will rely heavily on basic hygiene, testing, tracing and models.... Any of this sounding familiar?

And, by the way, basically they (Finland) l"locked down lite", , not even close to what NY NJ or California did...

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Yaay, yet more total bull****. Again, pages 16-17 of Finland's May 5th Report:

• Testing, isolation, quarantine from day 1
• Groups larger than 10 were banned
• Bars, pubs, night clubs, shut down
• Restaurants restricted
• Theaters, museums, libraries shut down
• Gyms, swimming pools, water parks shut down
• Sporting events canceled
• Schools were shut down
• Borders were shut
• Internal travel was discouraged

That just maybe Finland's very low numbers BEATING western Europe (including Germany) had nothing to do with locking down and more about closing borders, not only internationally, but in internal quarantine zone around Helskinki, the hot spot of infection?

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lol

Well, aside from your being totally wrong about how much they locked down, Finland's own health ministry certainly doesn't agree with your assessment. Oh, and guess what? One of the nations where Finland still requires travelers to quarantine is... wait for it... Sweden. No quarantine is required from people traveling from Germany, Denmark, Belgium (!) and Italy (!!). Hmmm.

Incorrect. The world got it wrong ABOUT SWEDEN choosing the path to herd immunity.

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lol... Nothing in my post assumes that Sweden was trying to get to herd immunity.

And my evidence is that they suffered, on average, no worse than most of their neighbors in western Europe who, it has been alleged, chose the right path.

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Good grief. No, no, no.

Spain, Italy, and the UK started out wrong. THEN they locked down, and got it right. Yeesh.

If you think everyone else in Western Europe also did it wrong, then the heck are you and so many others picking out Sweden to excoriate?

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Because they f**ked up.

More importantly, you are touting them as doing great, when the reality is that they f**ked up.

Equally important is that you are deliberately misinterpreting the entire situation to fit your warped and deeply wrong narrative that "social distancing doesn't work." Well, it does. We have the evidence. We see it working. We know it flattens the curve.

If you insisted that "Italy did everything right every step of the way, and the virus went away on its own regardless of social distancing," then you'd get the exact same treatment.

Incorrect, a recent study pointed out that days between the first reference case and partial (or better yet) full border closure determines the number of infection rate of new cases...

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lol... A mysterious (and conveniently xenophobic) study that you can't bother to provide.

I'm pretty sure I know the paper you're "referencing." But let's see your source anyway.

letting a crap load of your own living and breathing citizens die up front (prior to the medical community catches up during a pandemic) might be the most non-Christian thing i've heard of in years.

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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Many people think that Sweden just allows people to go around doing whatever they want, but reality is far from that. Sweden has done a lot more than most people think.

Sweden’s minister of health explains:

“Sweden is tackling the COVID-19 pandemic through both legally binding measures and recommendations. The government and the Swedish Public Health Agency have taken a number of decisions involving a wide range of new regulations and recommendations that affect the whole of society, including people’s private lives. There is no full lockdown in force, but many parts of Swedish society have shut down.

Life is not carrying on as normal in Sweden. Many people are staying at home and many have stopped travelling. This has had severe effects on Swedes as well as on the Swedish economy. Many businesses are folding. Unemployment is expected to rise dramatically. The Government has taken several measures to mitigate the economic effects and to stabilise the economy.

Sweden shares the same aim as all other countries: to protect the life and health of its population. Fundamentally, Sweden’s measures only differ from other countries in two regards: we are not shutting down schools for younger children or childcare facilities and we have no regulation that forces citizens to remain in their homes.”


Sweden’s response to COVID-19: “Life is not carrying on as normal”


They also claim to have good compliance with their social distancing rules up to near 90% now. Something that’s much easier to do when the leader of the country is in sync with the health authorities rather than working against them as Trump has done.

In June they also finally got the message that testing, quarantine and contact tracing works. After a slow start in March and April they are now on par with Germany who does a good job with this.

They also do things like restrictions on bars that only allow patrons to sit at socially distanced tables instead of standing around in crowds or cheek to cheek at the bar (something we could do).

Unfortunately they have suffered badly in terms of both mortality rates and economic damage compared to other countries before they got their act together.

As far as herd immunity goes, they don’t seem to be pursuing that anymore. They realize that even now only about 10% of their country has been infected and with more than 60% required herd immunity would mean a long and deadly road ahead. They have now decided to try to control the virus like their European neighbors have. It’s great to see that’s working for them.

If we are going to emulate another country we should pick one that has both a low mortality rate and minimal economic damage. Not one who scores poorly in both categories.


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TU Curmudgeon said:

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

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1. I use charts produced by Worldometer OR WorldinData. I no longer make my own as trend lining is no longer instructive.

2. When I use Worldometer I report 'Daily Deaths per day' or 'deaths per day per one million", depending on context

3. When I use WorldinData I use 'Daily new confirmed CV-19 deaths per million' for each country.

4. Charts are labeled as such. Some charts have added labels (via pcpaint) for clarity.

If you are having trouble reconciling your data with mine point out the discrepancy and I will help resolve.

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


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.

[/QUOTE]

TU Curmudgeon said:

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

Click to expand...

1. I use charts produced by Worldometer OR WorldinData. I no longer make my own as trend lining is no longer instructive.

2. When I use Worldometer I report 'Daily Deaths per day' or 'deaths per day per one million", depending on context, seven day moving average when possible.

3. When I use WorldinData I use 'Daily new confirmed CV-19 deaths per million' for each country, seven day moving average when charted.

4. Charts are labeled as such. Some charts have added labels (via pcpaint) for clarity.

If you are having trouble reconciling your data with mine point out the discrepancy and I will help resolve.

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

Click to expand...

Yes it is. Why don't we use a standard graph to illustrate?

What standouts is, especially if you check the original world in data charting (linear, 7-day moving average, data "unaligned"):

a) On March 14th the two were effectively identical (.01 or less per million).
b) On March 15th the US moved to .02 per million.
c) By March 16th Canada started increasing.
d) By March 20th the gap between the rate of increase becomes visible.

The US Peaks rockets upward, peaks earlier and higher, and then plunges.
The two approach a merge in late May or early June.
The the sunbelt states in the US start to increase.

Canada (which I affectionately call a horizontal Chile when it comes to population distribution) is like the US. However, it did not experience a NYCity and NJ meltdown.
Canada does not have a seasonal sunbelt state wherein summers drive people to spend more time indoors, under AC.

Integrityrespec said:

You give no explanation of how or why The EU has beaten the Covid outbreak, and then you claim that dispite a cure the virus is all but eradicated in the EU. How so, you said the immunity disappears after a couple of months. Then you dispute Swedens numbers and medical experts, based on what? Sounds like you just pick and choose what ever story seems convenient.

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100% of the EU has outperformed the US, and most EU countries outperformed Sweden. Every other developed country on earth had a national strategy, they shut down early and hard, wore masks and social distanced, and most have been back to work for months.

The US had no national strategy and large swathes of the population believed Republicans that masks don't help and the virus is just a democratic scam. Now Americans are suffering for it harder economically and in terms of body count. Yes, your idiocy has consequences.

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...

Your last paragraph is a joke, right? Just checking.

Visbek said:

I'm surprised you are not aware that Principia Scientific International is a conspiracy theory and pseudo-science site.
Principia Scientific International (PSI) - Media Bias/Fact Check

Back in the real world, the report acknowledges that the measures brought the virus under control (p 18); that testing and isolation had a significant impact; that tracking and quarantines had a moderate impact; that discouraging domestic travel had a small impact; that social distancing measures had a moderate impact; that closing schools for older students had a bigger impact than for younger students.

And no, the virus wasn't "on its way out" in the middle of March, when they locked down. It was on the rise. Looks like you got suckered by your own source.

View attachment 67289512

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It's late so i'm only going to answer your latest canard and bad faith reading.

First, PSI's news report was correct. All the PCorrect mudgunning by "mediabiasfactcheck" can't change that. The telegraph and others have reported the same story, as has "The Local" which is Norway's English language news source.

https://www.thelocal.no/20200522/no...olled-infection-without-lockdown-health-chief

Second, either your confused or disingenuous. The May 5th study is a set of presumptions and partial assessment, which provides some background and expectations based on the model as then understood. It also provided the knowledge and graphs showing that the R rate was nearly 1.0 (1.1). (ITS IN THE ARTICLE LINK).

On May 22 the health minister gave an interview with a news station, and provided the latest view of her agency which includes those who write its reports (obviously):

Camille Stoltenberg, the agency's Director General, told state broadcaster NRK that the agency's analysis now suggested less restrictive measures would have been sufficient.

"Our assessment now....is that we could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts by not locking down, but by instead keeping open but with infection control measures," she said.

The institute reported at the start of this month that the reproduction number had already fallen to as low as 1.1 even before the lockdown was announced on March 12.
This suggests that it would not have required heavy-handed measures such as school closures to bring it below 1 and so push the number of infected people in the country into a gradual decline.

"The scientific backing was not good enough," Stoltenberg said.

Click to expand...

Three, this has NOTHING to do with your graphing of the newly discovered cases of infection. As she made clear (and has contained in the report) it has to do with the Ro factor dropping such that it was already at near 1.0.

When a pandemic is losing its virulence and approaching 1.0 (it was 1.1) BEFORE lockdown measures are mandated or have time to take effect then its obviously shriveling with little mandated action. THAT IS not what Sweden faced and is EXACTLY WHY Norway is an inappropriate comparison.

While your busy making irrelevant graphs of cases discovered, and ignoring the RO findings, and touting some model's presumptions that mitigation has an effect your are missing the point...the virus in Norway was nearly at or below one and never required anything like the lockdown AND is inappropriate to compare to Sweden.

Frankly, I have neither the energy nor the time to re-explain what you are unable to grasp when you have had the links necessary to get it.

Peter King said:

you flattened what? :lamo

At the point of Sweden on the graph? You have actually looked at the US graph? Your death rate is as bad as it was 2 months ago, Sweden might still be bad, but a lot better than the US graphs are doing. Florida just had it's deadliest day with 252 deaths today, the worst so far was 216 yesterday and before that it was below 200. Arizona also had it's deadliest day so far. Sweden is nowhere near it's deadliest day. Sweden had 9 deaths, even if you multiply that by 30 (the US is about 30 times the size of Sweden when the population is concerned) and it is still about 1/5th of the past few days in the US.

So no, the US is not flattening the curve, it is plateauing at best, not flattening at all.

Click to expand...

I agree with you, but I do not consider the data for Florida or Arizona or most of the rest of the country to be reliable. There are too many accounts from all the past 6 months, and especially today, demonstrating dishonest data collecting.

This is a planned event, and the agenda is money and politics and power.

Nickyjo said:

Your last paragraph is a joke, right? Just checking.

Click to expand...

It is a tongue in cheek framing, on the other hand there is an element of truth as well.

Peter King said:

you flattened what? :lamo

At the point of Sweden on the graph? You have actually looked at the US graph? Your death rate is as bad as it was 2 months ago, Sweden might still be bad, but a lot better than the US graphs are doing. Florida just had it's deadliest day with 252 deaths today, the worst so far was 216 yesterday and before that it was below 200. Arizona also had it's deadliest day so far. Sweden is nowhere near it's deadliest day. Sweden had 9 deaths, even if you multiply that by 30 (the US is about 30 times the size of Sweden when the population is concerned) and it is still about 1/5th of the past few days in the US.

So no, the US is not flattening the curve, it is plateauing at best, not flattening at all.

Click to expand...

"Flatting the curve" depends on which curve. The US is flatting or plateauing the case curve, it is increasing on the death curve after having plunged from 2200 (7 day average) to 550 (7 day average) and presumably will cease growing till it reaches 1000 to 1250 per day in deaths, and then start declining again.

However, the "case curve" in the US is no longer reflective of the death rate in the same sense it was during the major growth phase - its a composed of far more young and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals, as well as a myriad of repeat testing of the same case.

maxparrish said:

It's late so i'm only going to answer your latest canard and bad faith reading...

Click to expand...

lol, yet more ad hominems, motivated reasoning, cherry-picking....

Sorry not sorry, but neither PSI or Telegraph are remotely credible. "The Local" is much better (and is what you should have linked), but still didn't report Stoltenberg's NRK interview, or the report's findings, with sufficient accuracy.

Stoltenberg never says "social distancing does not work at all." Her point is that the most extreme measures -- notably closing K-6 schools -- probably weren't necessary, only because the virus wasn't replicating at its maximum rate. TheLocal left out that she stands by the March 12 policies ("This does not mean that we do not stand by the advice we gave then, given the knowledge base we had at the time"), and that R0 may have been much higher than they estimated. It also somehow forgot to notice that R0 was rising a week before controls were enacted. Hmmm....

Anyway. Everything I said about the report is accurate, because it comes right from the report, including the parts I directly quoted. The report is very clear that that testing and contact tracing and voluntary distancing before government mandates brought down the replication rate; numerous mitigation and suppression efforts were enacted and do work; that the virus will not just magically disappear on its own; that only 1-2% of Norway was infected and that herd immunity might only kick in at 50-70%; there are also numerous references to COVID-19 having an R0 of 3; as noted previously, that this virus may be around for years; and that mandatory mitigation and suppression policies may be required if rates go high enough.

(At the risk of using another analogy that will completely go over your head: If you give a patient an antibiotic and she gets better, and you later find out the illness was viral rather than bacterial, that doesn't prove that "antibiotics don't work.")

And it bears repeating: The report itself acknowledges that almost all of the mitigation and suppression policies WORK. (Again, p16-17). The only ones they don't think have much effect is closing K-10 schools and discouraging internal travel.

By the way, travel quarantines weren't enacted in Norway until... wait for it... March 12th. By your own stipulations, that rules out closing borders as the primary cause of the drop. Ooops.

By the way, what is Norway doing now?

- Continue basic hygiene and social distancing (hand washing, stay 1m away from people etc)
- Maximum recommended group size is 20 (including with sports)
- Before June 15th, groups of up to 50 can meet, as long as safe distances are kept (1m)
- After June 15th, max is 200
- Changing facilities for sports centers are closed
- Bars that serve alcohol but not food can open, as long as safe distances are kept
- Foreign travel is allowed but discouraged
- Quarantine went from 14 days down to 10
- Employers need to keep employees at least 1m apart; working from home strongly encouraged
- Education is restarting, but universities/colleges are still remote

That's over 2 months after the Stoltenberg interview. If distancing has no effect, then why didn't they just relax all those controls in mid-May? Why not go back to 100% normal today with just quarantines on travelers? Why hasn't lifting travel quarantines caused an explosion of cases?

Of course, what they're doing now is generally consistent with what I've been saying for months: Get virus rates down. Continue testing, contact tracing, basic social distancing, opening slowly and carefully, and so on. Add restrictions if cases get too high / spread too fast. Norway is a little on the aggressive side, but we'll see what happens.

Anyway. The basic facts remain: Norway and Sweden are very similar in geography, culture, demographics, and government. Norway locked down more than Sweden. Norway did a better job of suppressing the virus. This is not a coincidence, there's an actual causal link. It is entirely rational to compare the two.

Oh, and you still have to explain why everything I'm talking about explains what's happening pretty much every nation on the planet, while you still have to deny that Sweden screwed up, that the virus is out of control in places like Brazil, that relaxing controls caused surges of cases and deaths in Texas and Florida and Louisiana and Arizona, how even ineptly reimposing a handful of controls has (for the moment) flattened new cases in those same states....

Visbek said:

lol, yet more ad hominems, motivated reasoning, cherry-picking....

Sorry not sorry, but neither PSI or Telegraph are remotely credible. "The Local" is much better (and is what you should have linked), but still didn't report Stoltenberg's NRK interview, or the report's findings, with sufficient accuracy.

Click to expand...

Apparently the Visbek rules of debate and evidence, are that Visbek gets to hand-wave assertions accompanied by citations until (if ever) a news source he personally likes reports it the way he wants (if ever).

But you know that's not how it works, no?

1) I make a claim, back it with a citation. You come up with claim backed by a citation that refutes the assertion, or you fail. You failed with the PSI citation - you just didn't like them.

2) I then reinforced the claim, backed it up with more citations and references to the event. After more handwaving about the telegraph, you begrudgingly give a nod to "The Local" while carping that its still not accurate.

3) You finally provide a google translation of an article from NRK on THE INTERVIEW (not the interview transcript or audio) that very briefly characterizes what was discussed. You believe it refutes the prior citations and one supposes and probably will believe it also refutes "The Week" and "The Spectator" as well. But aside from your reliance on "I don't want to believe you or your sources", NOTHING in the NRK article on the interview is inconsistent with any of these other sources, including "the Local".

Norway health chief claims coronavirus could have been controlled without lockdown | The Week UK
Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame COVID | Spectator USA

No one, other than you, said "social distancing does not work at all" - its an intentional straw man, i.e.; a lie. While she did say that harsh measures, like the lockdown probably weren't necessary (and I agree)she did not say "only because the virus wasn't replicating at its maximum rate."; i.e. a second mischaracterization, a lie. And finally, no one disputes that "given the knowledge at the time" they stand by the advice they gave - that is explicitly stated in those "untrustworthy" sources like the PSI already.

So cease all the babble and tripe over the report. The question is not whether or not the government efforts, taking effect when the virus threat was effectively over helped push down transmission further and I have no interest in turning this into a squabble over what a May 5 report said or didn't say regarding model assumptions, what was done on March 12th, and what they now believe on May 22nd...again another straw man by you. THE FACTS STAND, by May 22nd her and her agency developed a new view. IF you think the report is contrary to her view and that the report was right and she was wrong, then argue with her. Otherwise your whining and axe grinding on an irrelevant point is a wearisome canard.

In short, per the author of the Spectator (a center-right source) and the PSI article:

But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered. ‘It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on 12 March, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1… We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down.’[/B

Camilla Stoltenberg, director of Norway’s public health agency, has given an interview where she is candid about the implications of this discovery.

‘Our assessment now, and I find that there is a broad consensus in relation to the reopening, was that one could probably achieve the same effect – and avoid part of the unfortunate repercussions – by not closing. But, instead, staying open with precautions to stop the spread.’

This is important to admit, she says, because if the infection levels rise again – or a second wave hits in the winter – you need to be brutally honest about whether lockdown proved effective.

Norway’s statistics agency was also the first in the world to calculate the permanent damage inflicted by school closures: every week of classroom education denied to students, it found, stymies life chances and permanently lowers earnings potential.

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That's all we need to know about Norway (oh, that and they don't support the use of masks, and they don't believe their measures were all that different from Swedens).

maxparrish said:

"Flatting the curve" depends on which curve. The US is flatting or plateauing the case curve, it is increasing on the death curve after having plunged from 2200 (7 day average) to 550 (7 day average) and presumably will cease growing till it reaches 1000 to 1250 per day in deaths, and then start declining again.

However, the "case curve" in the US is no longer reflective of the death rate in the same sense it was during the major growth phase - its a composed of far more young and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals, as well as a myriad of repeat testing of the same case.

Click to expand...

That is what I wrote, Sweden is lowering it's curve while the US has not yet, in fact the death rate is going up again. We do not know how much higher the death rate may get, but I hope it does not go any higher and instead goes down.

Peter King said:

That is what I wrote, Sweden is lowering it's curve while the US has not yet, in fact the death rate is going up again. We do not know how much higher the death rate may get, but I hope it does not go any higher and instead goes down.

Click to expand...

I am confident it will. I've run a few simple correlations of case rate to death rate. The national case rate has gone flat, the drivers of most of the growth in cases (Texas, Arizona, Florida and California) started drop as much as 10 days ago. Therefore, by August 4 to 7 should see a flat death rate (1250 a day) and then falling again.