Open Air Failure
Sweden captured international attention for its decision to buck the trend on mandated shut-ins.
The results are now in as Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale.
Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.
“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”Sweden put stock in the sensibility of its people as it largely avoided imposing government prohibitions. The government allowed restaurants, gyms, shops, playgrounds and most schools to remain open. By contrast, Denmark and Norway opted for strict quarantines, banning large groups and locking down shops and restaurants.
More than three months later, the coronavirus is blamed for 5,420 deaths in Sweden, according to the World Health Organization. That might not sound especially horrendous compared with the more than 129,000 Americans who have died. But Sweden is a country of only 10 million people. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.
Sweden’s central bank expects its economy to contract by 4.5 percent this year, a revision from a previously expected gain of 1.3 percent. This is more or less how damage caused by the pandemic has played out in Denmark, where the central bank expects that the economy will shrink 4.1 percent this year.
7-Day Rolling Average Confirmed Deaths
Trump Flashback on Sweden
Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown. As of today, 2462 people have died there, a much higher number than the neighboring countries of Norway (207), Finland (206) or Denmark (443). The United States made the correct decision!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020
On April 30, Trump blasted Sweden for not having strict quarantines,
Flashback June 10
Vice President Mike Pence deleted a Tweet showing the campaign team, packed together for a photo-op, none of them wearing
“Stopped by to see the great men and women of the Trump-Pence Team today!” the tweet read. “Thank you for all of the hard work, keep it up!”
Rules? Who Cares?
No one, including Pence wore a mask and the group far exceeded the 10-person gathering limit outlined in Virginia’s phase one coronavirus guidelines.
Reopening in Reverse
Since late June it’s been reopening in reverse.
- Texas Shuts Bars at Noon as Covid Cases Surge
- Drinking Banned at Florida Bars and What About the NBA?
- 12 States Hit New Record Highs in Covid Cases
The US and Sweden are now following similar paths, Sweden never required masks, and in the US rules were not enforced, led by Trump and his fake news of the day Trump’s Fake News of the Day: States Testing Too Much
Mish
The high risk profile of covid is so clear. Elderly and people with existing serious health conditions. In other worlds, the general population never was at risk. Still isn’t. I keep telling the emperor he has no clothes..
More than 99% of people infected by covid survive.. get a grip..
This article did not age well. The US passed Sweden in terms of COVID deaths per capita a few weeks ago. With every passing week the Swedish strategy looks stronger. The lockdowns failed.
You can’t compare Sweden to the US. The average person in Sweden is much more healthy than the US. We already know from New York and New Jersey what Sweden would have looked like, if it was culturally similar to New York and New Jersey (or to Spain, France, or Italy). You can only compare Sweden to other, similar, Nordic countries. Of those, Sweden’s performance was by far the worst. Not only did they take the biggest economic hit, they also had 10x the deaths of the other Nordic countries.
We can learn one very important lesson, though, from Sweden’s ill-advised policy. We already knew that a country would take a huge economic hit from a prolonged lockdown, but the surprise lesson from Sweden is that a country takes just as big of an economic hit, or bigger, by not locking down at all. It turns out that the countries with the least damage to the economy are the ones that instituted moderate, but effective controls, such as Finland and Norway.
That said, it is certainly true that Sweden got very lucky when it turned out that, unexpectedly, a significant portion of the population has some immunity to Covid. While Sweden’s results were awful, they could easily have been orders of magnitude worse.
In 2006 every major medical institution agreed that no one should lock down the economy/entire countries. It was widely published and had consensus. Why did they ignore their own science? Sweden is done with COVID19 now and they will not suffer the incredible repercussions from an unscientific lock down. Now we see officials coming to grips with this reality and declaring that they will never lock down again, such as DeSantes in Florida. The lock down was an abject failure and the blame lies completely on the WHO and China for colluding to deceive the entire world on many levels for months.
Mish, maybe now that a month has passed you should do a follow up and discuss how you were so wrong.
Here are current economic forecasts:
Norway: 2020 -4.7% GPD/4.8% Unemployment
2021 +.9% GPD/3.4% Unemployment
Deaths/Million =49
Iceland: 2020 -9.1% GPD/8.3% Unemployment
2021 +1.3% GDP/7% Unemployment
Deaths/Million=29
Finland: 2020 -4.5% GDP/12% Unemployment
2021 +0.9% GDP/9% Unemployment
Deaths/Million=61
Sweden: 2020 -8.3% GDP/ 10.4% Unemployment
2021 +.9% GDP/8.8% Unemployment
Deaths/Million=577
Consolidating this data into GDP for 2020 plus GDP for 2021, and deaths:
Norway -3.6, 49
Iceland -7.8, 29
Finland -3.6, 61
Sweden -7.4, 577
Clearly the country who handled this the best was Norway, with Finland right behind. Both took very small economic hits, and had moderate deaths, with Norway having less that Finland. In third place is Iceland, which took a much bigger economic hit, but had the fewest deaths. That’s good, but the extra economic hit they took compared to Norway is huge, with not that much reduction in deaths.
In last place, by far, with no one even close, is Sweden. They took nearly as big an economic hit as Iceland, and at the same time had a death rate 20 times as high as Iceland. So, if anything, more recent economic data makes Sweden look worse, not better.
So, how did Sweden miscalculate so badly? They knew that lockdowns and restrictions would harm the economy. They erroneously assumed that by not locking down, they could prevent damage to the economy. It doesn’t work that way, however, because people are not as stupid as one might think. It turns out that when cases are high, and deaths are high, people elect to stay home more. So, even without a lockdown, Sweden’s economy crumbled. It turns out that a harsh lockdown in Iceland hurt the economy 7.8%, while no lockdown at all accomplished the same thing, and the best policies were somewhere in the middle.
Is this unique to Sweden? Hardly. I’ve seen the same thing in the US. My business goes up and down with cases. When cases are low, business is good, and when cases shoot up, business drops off.
The author is wrong in 3 ways:
… better censor this one
Covid-19 has not taken the large number of lives many experts predicted but it has taken a massive toll on the economy bringing many sectors to their knees. Over time answers have begun to emerge as to the extent covid-19 will have to impact our lives in coming years, however, the truth is being diluted and held hostage by politics.
The subject of a “covid future” has a lot of parts that we have yet to face. Successfully balancing the damage to the economy and the mess it makes of our lives with health issues is a difficult act. The article below delves into this subject and why we remain so confused as to the long term effects of this pandemic.
Unfortunately, the truth is that we have only a rudimentary knowledge of several aspects of infection spread, including on one critical aspect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: how THIS virus transmits
Worth reading in full:
Looks like Mike Whitney of The Unz Review provided much better analysis and fucked the person who wrote this Mish Talk article right in the ass. Do us all a favor and read what this guy wrote and try to do better next time. Be like Mike. link to zerohedge.com
The crux of that article is “Presently, Sweden is very close to reaching herd immunity which is a condition in which the majority have developed antibodies that will help to fend-off similar sars-covid infections in the future.”
I think that ridiculously uninformed author ought to actually do his research on the failure of Sweden or any other country or area to reach the illusory “herd immunity” and the ever-increasing likelihood that no such thing will exist for SAR-COV-2 because individual “immunity” seems to be extremely short-lived if it even exists at all.
IOW, the author is a covidiot …
If Sweden didn’t get it right, who did? How about Japan?
They wore masks because they always do. They learned that the worst places for infections are loud singing and cheering, plus gyms. The didn’t lock down, but encouraged people to avoid the three C’s, closed spaces, crowds, and close contact. Additionally, when cases appeared ready to spike, they encouraged people to stay home, if they could. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they have the lowest rate of obesity and heart disease in the world, but still, their number of cases and deaths is extremely low, orders of magnitude lower than Sweden.
There are more things to consider than just number of deaths and expected economic hit. I value liberty, and probably many Swedes do as well. When considering how they were able to keep more of their freedom to make a living and participate in their favorite activities, Sweden has been more successful than most other countries.
All of 7 deaths yesterday. Exiting early. Flatten the curve, longer tail.
Just check the US states… 11 states are doing worse than Sweeden on deaths per million. More US states are on track to catch-up, but more slowly and with a higher number of cases mainly because treatments are getting better.
Take the peak quickly or slowly but results are trending to being equal, it will take another year or two call a “winner” or “loser”.
No “winners” … only losers to greater or lesser degree …
Welp, sadly the US just passed Sweeden now – they 100% beat the US in what strategy to use. Cases are growing 2x faster in Denmark / Norway than Sweden today, but still on the manageable side – it will take another year to see where things stand. Even w/out a vaccine they will do better b/c of treatment improvements.
Hi everybody, can you summarise a few things:
Your country
what seems to be the short term plan for your country
what seems to be the long term plan for your country
I will go first:
Australia
containment
not clear “management” does not seem to have a clue
Thanks
In the US, each state is different. In Nebraska, we are managing it, not trying to contain it. Every person has been urged to sign up to an email list, and describe their health. Each day we get an email asking our health. I don’t answer them, however, if I ever have symptoms, or an exposure, I can answer the email with that information, and I will be called in for a test. This enables us as a state to find the people most likely to need testing, and provides a way for people who want to be tested to get a test.
We never locked down, though certain businesses were closed, such as bars, restaurants, gyms, and hair care. Those have re-opened now, under special rules for each. We don’t have a mask order, but they are strongly suggested. The Governor has stated that he doesn’t need to issue such an order, he just needs to tell Nebraskans to “do the right thing”, and that we will. I was out shopping at two stores today. About 80% had masks. I was also at the gym, where it was more like 50%.
Our cases remain flat, and deaths are falling. Our total case count is high due to rapid spread early in the pandemic at meat packing plants, but since then cases have been relatively constant at about 150-200 a day. Our overall death rate is low.
Hi Carl_R , thanks for your reply and analysis, it is a privilege to be able to have first han account from a person other than the media.
United States–
Official Short Term Plan: Prevent hospital overload. Limit elective medical procedures and require proof of negative SARS-COV-2 test for certain procedures. Slow the spread through government mandated partial shut-downs, mask wearing, and social distancing. Details are administered differently in each state.
Unofficial Result: In areas where there is not an outbreak, some hospitals are going broke. Various shortages are occurring in many supply chains. Ordering food via take-out costs 50% more than it did 3 months ago. There are going to be massive permanent layoffs unless many of the business restrictions are lifted ASAP. It appears the Trump administration will be blamed, even though much of the decisions have been made at state and local levels. Biden has announced he is going to adopt the Sanders big government, hard socialism, green energy platform whether the majority of US citizens want it or not. The Sanders platform promises big government will take care of everything and no one will want for anything. It is a lie, of course. Were it not for President Trump’s poor habit of using the coronavirus task force press conferences to lambast reporters and also the President’s pathological tweeting, Biden would have lost easily.
Official Long Term Plan: Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
Unofficial Result: As long as everyone has not yet been vaccinated, lawmakers appear poised to make everyone’s daily life look like the airports post 9-11 (possibly for years!). It is going to crush many small businesses. In my state, the governor recently imposed mandatory mask wearing orders with fines for non-compliance and we have been in “a state of emergency” for over 90 days. The minority party in the state legislature realized that our state has no time limit on how long the governor can enact an “emergency” and they wanted to make a law saying an emergency must not be declared for longer than 30 days, but since the majority party is the one currently in the governor’s office, they would not allow it to go to the floor for a vote. So far the “cure” looks like it is going to be much worse than the disease.
FWIW, I am currently sick with what is most likely COVID-19 (my symptoms match what many have described on the internet but I have not been tested). My state officially does not have many cases. I have been faithfully mask wearing, social distancing, and limiting contact with others since this whole thing started. I was infected anyway. In short, the virus is in the wild and there is likely no practical way of stopping it. I am self-isolating. I have taken some therapeutics at home and my illness has so far been pretty mild. The virus definitely deserves respect, but in my view the response of our political leaders has been mostly insane.
Hi CautiousObserver, I hope you get better soon, for all it’s worth I tell you the story of my doctor’s mother story. 90 years of age in Seville,Spain. She felt sick and tested positive, my doctor (her son ) over the phone from Australia organised with his Spanish counterpart a regimen of vitamin c delivered intravenously to fight the virus and reduce porosity of blood vessel with a consequent rise in blood pressure that was low, an anti-inflammatory steroid based used for tennis elbow, an antibiotic to combat the infection in the lungs, vitamin d and zinc. She was not on any medication before the ordeal, she was not put on a ventilator and in the arc of 2 days she was sitting up eating. Despite having that close call with his mother my doctor cannot believe the response to this virus: locking up people in winter will ensure a drop in vitamin d, more so if you shin is olive or black. I agre with you view that this virus cannot be stopped. The vaccine is likely to be ineffective,since never before one has been made that works on corona virus : to me it is a great money spinner rather than anything of significance. My generation (1964) still associates vaccines with great victories over smallpox and polio. Fast forward to now and you have a pipeline of money creation by Compulsory inoculation .
The “cure” here in Australia has been an economic wipeout, with the effects coming in full view when the subsidies to keep people safe at home will be rolled back.I think that when we will run out of money the virus will stop being a threat because we will be facing bigger problems .
Again I hope you get better soon
Keep in mind that the main reason there is no vaccine for a Coronavirus is simply because there has never before been a need. For SARS they started to make one, but SARS vanished before the vaccine went to phase III trials. There is nothing special about them that should make a vaccine impossible, but time alone will tell.
As far as treatment, it sounds like the treatment your mother got was good. I know I’ taking quercitin and small amounts of zinc and occasional Vitamin D as preventatives. (Quercitin is a zinc ionophore), and I have some NAC, and SOD plus Gliadin that I plan to take if I get infected, at least until given something by a doctor. The NAC has three potentially useful effects – it is a powerful anti-oxidant, it can cleave von willebrand factor, helping to avoid clots, and it also protects the liver. (There are studies under way testing whether NAC is helpful against Covid, but the results may be awhile before they arrive.) The SOD is iffy – most of it gets broken up in the digestive system, but supposedly when accompanied by gliadin a little will get through and boost your Super-oxide dismutase. I’m skeptical, but hey, if I catch Covid, I want every possible chance to help reduce the oxidative stress from the loss of the ACE2 receptors.
Interesting article that pretty much sums up the US handling of the Coronavirus.
I would need more explanation than was provided in the article to understand how utilizing the bulk of the data representing all the cases, hospitalizations, deaths that occurred during the entire lockdown period could be used to estimate (note the use of the word “probably” in the article) what would have happened had there been no lockdown.
The simple observation that R0 was “already headed lower” before lockdown was imposed does not seem sufficient proof that it would have continued on the same trajectory without lockdown as it did with lockdown … since the only evidence/data they have at their disposal after that point was with lockdown.
The math says that lock downs are not helpful.
If you take at face value the following:
Infection rate: 2.5
Days to becoming contagious: 2 days (staying contagious for another 10 days)
Day 1 – 1 infected person
Day 3 – 3.5 infected persons (the original person + 2.5 other individuals)
Day 5 – 12.25 infected persons
Day 7 – 42.875
Day 9 – 150.062
Day 11 – 525.21
Then, the math says that in 30 days you have more than 100M people infected.
If you believe we were able to identify this “novel” virus within 1 day of it appearing on the scene, then lock downs may have been a viable option.
If however you understand that it takes time for the medical community to agree that we have a new virus on our hands, then lock downs after 1 month are not useful.
Lock downs are designed to slow down the spread.
Lock downs do not eradicate the virus.
So, at first you slow down the spread, but, then, at some point you have to lift the restrictions.
Upon lifting the confinement, the virus still exists and though the infection rate may have been slowed down at the beginning, now it shall resume where it left off.
Confinement is not a viable strategy considering the numbers.
Strange for this to come from Norway, where what they did worked exceptionally well. They have few deaths, and almost no economic hit, beating Sweden handily in both areas.
Mish, it is too early to pronounce the final results. Per Worldometer.com, Sweden is below UK, Belgium, Spain, and Italy in deaths/1 mil.
I remember about 10 years ago reading Mish’s excellent analysis of many issues and thorough research he put into his opinion pieces. If Mish from ten years ago were to do a critique of present day Mish, he would show how New York has twice the population of Sweden but four times as many Covid-19 deaths. He would compare the population’s average age, healthcare systems, density, degrees of lockdown measures and a host of other metrics before reaching his conclusion. He wasn’t just another Trump hater. I miss the Mish from 2009 when I started following his work. Sad.
Don’t whine, Donald.
Specifically why?
“It’s not the people who die that count, it’s the people who count the dead.”
You are too early to declare what the effect on either the final economic effects are for Sweden or their neighbors. You are too early to determine what the ultimate death statistic results of a broader exposure to the virus will be. The first due to confirmation bias (the agencies do not want to change their own diagnosis that Sweden will suffer just as badly economically as their neighbors), and the second due to a lack of consideration for the dramatically different effects by age and health. If the elderly population in Sweden has been exposed and survived the virus, then their death statistics will be dramatically lower going forward. Mish, I know you like the “you conservatives (who don’t believe the government should exercize these shutdown powers like they have without taking into consideration who is really affected by the disease) are wrong” or “you skeptics (who doubted the deadliness of the disease and the extraordinary response called for by health statisticians called pandemic modelers) are wrong”. It may very well YOU will turn out to be wrong as we tally the other types of deaths that rose due to the Covid Response, the reduction in the quality of life for other countries, the worsening second wave effects, etc. I guess we shall see. For now, you can claim victory, but keep an eye in the rear-view mirror and keep questioning your own assumptions.
Best to you. I enjoy the site even though we come at things from a different political view.
An interesting comparison is the death rate per million in Tokyo to the death rate per million in New York City. New York City has 10 million people and 27k people per sq mile. Tokyo has 8 million people and 16k people per sq mile.
Population density might explain the discrepancy in the death rate per million between NYC (1638) and Tokyo (23), but there must be other environmental and behavioral factors.
Why follow a Sweden strategy now? I seriously don’t get why Republican Senators are just watching their party get obliterated by Trump. I predicted his hotels would go bankrupt and he would end the Republican Party. He already lost his Turnberry hotel to Marriott so the bankruptcy is right before our eyes. This goes down in the history books as the inflection point that drove the Republicans into oblivion.
What are folks like you going to do when Trump is re-elected in the fall? You already are emotional wrecks as it is.
Any claims about success or not of COVID-19 responses will remain premature until this pandemic has run its course. Looking ahead to June 1, 2022
I don’t believe the fake graphs. Only a 130000 people have died of “Covid” when over 2300000 case have been reported. This compares to the 320000000 people living in the country.
Mish is caught deep in the throes of TDS…he once wrote objective pieces, but since joining The Street he has become almost as partisan as MSNBC…Yes, Orange Man foolish in many ways, but why do you insist on behaving the same way?
This shows once again that one can ‘prove’ anything with statistics ! Despite lock downs, Belgium got 10K corona deaths on a 11 million population…. and yes I know that unlike other countries we included old people homes’ deaths, but even so , saying now that Sweden is a ‘failure’ looks a bit too simplistic and unfair…
Yes to be fair They and the UK have a more honest count of the dead, compare to Russia they are very poor, but Russia is/was requiring a post mortem result, so non comparable numbers. I heard Florida was going to require people to sign an affidavit that they died of da virus before they counted them.
Your point shows why you can’t directly compare one country to another. Sweden stayed most open, and so far has 543 deaths per million. Belgium locked down, and had 843. Is anyone saying “If Belgium had only stayed open like Sweden, deaths would have been a third less”? I think not. I’m sure most people would agree that had Belgium not locked down, deaths would have been higher than 843 per million, perhaps as high as New Jersey, at 1700 per million. So, in the end we are left to wonder why the deaths can reach a number like 1700 per million in one place, and only hit 543 in another.
Perhaps all the old people have died? See more here: link to marginalrevolution.com (I personally would not like to get C-19 even if I was young, since 20% experience symptoms that may lead to death)
I see the covidiots are out in force again. So let’s get a few things things straight.
This virus is significantly more deadly than the flu.
Without the measures taken in the tri-state area deaths in NY, NJ and CT would have been dramatically higher – collectively approximately 650,000 diagnosed cases with just over 50,000 fatalities.
The tri-state area case numbers and fatalities account for the overall US numbers trending down. The governors in the tri-state area did a good job driving down the infection and fatality rates. Remove the tri-state metrics from the overall US picture and we are no longer trending down as a nation. FL, TX and AZ and a few other states are all trending up! This is not rocket science.
The tri-state area has effectively driven down rates but the jury is out as to whether it can be sustained.
Experience in the tri-state area shows that fatalities lag hospitalizations which in turn lag diagnosis of Covid cases. In fact it takes as long as a month after case numbers trend up for fatalities to start trending upwards.
New Covid cases in the rest of the country appear to be hitting a younger population. Hopefully this will result in a lower fatality rate in these states but we need to wait, watch and hope. There is no guarantee that the younger population won’t pass the virus onto older family members. Given the lag time from diagnosis to hospitalizations to fatality it is too early to claim otherwise.
Interesting. Do you see Florida’s death per million (231) nearing New York’s death rate per million (1638) at some point? How far off in the future would you estimate? The death rate per million in Texas is 101–do you see it hitting New York’s death rate per million before or after Florida hits it?
Not necessarily. There are a number of unknown factors that come into play such as the size of the at risk population, the behaviour of the at risk population, possible virus mutations, local government response, quality and availability of health care etc. I hate to say it but for now it is watch, wait and see.
I really appreciate the fact that you took the numbers and pulled out the results by population density — I think you’ve hit on a possible factor that plays into the results that seems like common sense, but that I don’t believe has been ‘advertised’ much. (Or maybe it has been studied and discounted – but I haven’t seen anything to that effect…)
In my mind, that gives some reason (actually for hope!?) that Fla, TX, AZ and CA might not get as bad as New York did. If you basically can’t go anywhere without running into others, I would expect a much higher infection incidence. While in TX, Fla, etc., there is ‘more space’ for everyone. Having lived in Houston and spent time in Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles, I can attest that the whole feel of these cities is much different and ‘less packed’ than NYC.
Not so sure about that. To date N.Y. state has reported just over 400,000 Covid cases. Texas, Florida and Arizona are already at 220,000, 223,000 and 108,000 Covid cases respectively and the daily count is still rising. At Governor Cuomo’s direction N.Y. state mandated that non essential workers stay home, non essential businesses stay closed, limits on public gatherings, social distancing and mandatory face masks. The same cannot be said for Texas, Florida and Arizona. Cuomo has come in for some criticism as there are some aspects of the epidemic that could have been handled better but on the whole he gets high marks for driving down the number of daily cases.
Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.
Another way of looking at the same data.
With lockdown, per million people, US suffered 8.3 times more deaths than Norway, 5 times that Finland, 4.3 times that of Denmark.
Few more questions one could ask…
While it is likely that Swden could have been wrong, at least it asked itself questions whether lockdown is the ONLY right answer and dared to look for other solutions, which also means it considered the economic damage that lockdown would cause. This is not to say lockdown is not a solution but then each path has its own costs in terms of the economy and lives.
Covid essentially presented only bad options and taking a decision was never going to be as easy as LOCKDOWN NOW.
Comparing Sweden’s death per million to the USA death per million tells one story, but comparing Sweden’s death per million to NYC’s death per million tells another. Of course, NYC is much smaller than Sweden, although the populations are closer in size than that of Sweden and the entire USA.
I could compare Wyoming’s death rate per million (31) to New York state’s death rate per million (1638) and it wouldn’t be a great comparison either for similar reasons even though both are categorized as states.
70% of their deaths have been in nursing homes. So, the greater the lockdown, the greater the death rate. Hmm…
Something seems off comparing Sweden to the USA or Japanese populations. Isn’t contrasting Sweden, approx population 10 million, to NYC, population approx 8 million, a better comparison?
No, comparing Sweden to one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world based on population alone is not a better comparison. Sweden can easily be compared to its Nordic neighbors that chose different approaches under similar societal circumstances (wealth, education, environment, medical services, etc.). The open question is whether Sweden’s neighbors have just delayed the inevitable or permanently reduced their eventual case and mortality rates. Unlike many commenters, I don’t pretend to know the answer to that question.
That’s probably right.
Sweden’s population is about 10 million, death rate per million is 541, land mass is 173k sq miles, people per sq mile 57
Norway’s population is about 5 million, death rate per million is 47, land mass is 148k sq miles, people per sq mile 15
New York’s population is 8 million, death rate per million is 1638, land mass is 302 sq miles, people per sq mile 27k
Florida’s population is 21 million, death rate per million is 201, land mass is 65k sq miles, people per sq mile 400
Wyoming’s population is 578k, death rate per million is 37, land mass is 97k sq miles, people per sq mile 6
Tokyo, Japan population is 8 million, death rate per million is 23, land mass is 847 sq miles, people per sq mile 16k
Also, take into account nursing home deaths and non-nursing home deaths. Probably Swedes will be blaming themselves for the high nursing home deaths about which they could have done something.
The one thing missing from your analysis is that life expectancies are much higher in Sweden. Since Covid-19 is rarely fatal in individuals < 45 yo, and has a much higher Infection Fatality Rate in individuals > 65, the real analysis should be not the deaths per million, but weighted toward the age of the entire population. I.e., weighted, at least by the average age of the population.
There is also just the fact that nothing is going to even out all the statistical anomalies — including differences in reporting, etc. Also, Belgium has one of the highest death rates (and has always outpaced Sweden).
Sweden would have had much lower death numbers had they protected the nursing homes. For those under 70, the death rate is .8%. I believe the flu is around .5%. Personally, if I lived in a nursing home I’d pray for someone to bring the virus to me so I could check out, some things are worse than death.
It’s not very clear how to go about “protecting the nursing homes”, other than by way of reducing the overall level of contagion they are surrounded by.
“Nursing homes” don’t exist in a vacuums. “Protecting them,” all while those working there are busy working on their “herd immunity,” isn’t exactly the easiest balancing act to pull off.
gave you a like…. I had to take my dementia suffering mom to a nursing home three weeks ago…. Emotionally devastating for her…and for me….Death would indeed ve brought eternal peace, this is hell on earth….
So sorry to hear that, I hope your mother can adjust.
Thank you..
To argue, or imply, as Thalamus does, that we need to “compress the timeline” towards Herd Immunity is ridiculous without considering the excess deaths.
Heck, we are not even 1% of the population with known cases in the US, and HI needs 60%+ (we are years from achieving that, at a pace that doesn’t overwhelm our medical system).
We may not prevent deaths without a vaccine or treatment that reduces the mortality rate (right now), but there is no reason to just accelerate this beyond our healthcare capacity to treat and mitigate the death toll.
Of course, we cannot afford to shut down like we have, but the “re-opening” across many states shows there was a lot of wishful thinking / head in sand with our so-called “leaders” pandering to politics.
There needs to be an order of magnitude more serious thought to finding that sweet spot of opening while staying under that threshold capacity, and manage people’s expectations to that.
This is a problem we will have to live with for the next few / several years. It is time someone makes this loud and clear. It is NOT going away in months, or even in 2021. Gotta get real about this.
Depends on what winning is …
Look at what is happening in Australia. All the places that were successful with draconian containment policies are going to keep having mishaps upon reopening, forcing them to double down again and again. These comparisons are mistaking the first inning for the whole game.
Once contagion is low enough, the “mishaps” are generally localized.
So even if 10% of the country is under lockdown, as long as the rest trust their health authorities are on top of it, the other 90% are still able, AND willing, to go to work. China effectively locked down Beijing, forcefully (I assume) tested 7 million people, without disrupting the rest of the country too badly.
While far from ideal, that is a much better situation to be in, than where contagion is everywhere and spreading/growing, so that noone dares go anywhere.
A better comparator to Sweden than Canada is the province of Ontario, which had a strict shut-down starting in March. Sweden and Ontario have similar economies, manufacturing sectors and resource industries. Similar population sizes (Ontario is a third larger). Ontario has HALF the deaths that Sweden does.
It’s clear that Sweden was looking for its adults to behave like responsible adults, but that wasn’t sufficient. And there are 10 times the present cases from herd immunity. The UK went for herd immunity, realized they couldn’t do it and shut down hard late in the game.
Meanwhile Asian countries really kicked ass with their prevention methods.
And the US is determined not behave like responsible adults and we’re getting our
asses kicked.
We are on the cusp of hospitals getting overflowed with cases (“they weren’t supposed to wind up in the hospital” is close to making the transition to “they weren’t supposed to die in the hospital”).
Oh and by the way, after daycare in Texas opened up last month….
….At least 1,335 people have tested positive from child care facilities in Texas, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services reported Monday, citing figures from Friday.
Of those infected, 894 were staff members and 441 were children. The cases came from 883 child care facilities that are open in the state, DHHS said.
The new cases mark a significant increase from June 15, when there were 210 reported cases from 177 facilities — including 141 staff members and 69 children.
On May 15, Texas reported a total of 59 cases from 53 child care facilities. At that time, 36 staff members and 23 children were infected….
HAPPY SCHOOL OPENING!!
Glad I don’t live in Texas anymore.
Cherry picking some countries is a good way of research? Belgium, Spain, Italy and UK all have higher mortality rate than Sweden while having severe lockdown measures. This Bloomberg article is a much better analysis of European countris: link to bloomberg.com
“Cherry picking some countries is a good way of research?”
If you are trying to study rates of skin cancer; it makes more sense to compare Arizona to California and Texas, rather then to Alaska and The Yukon.
Sweden and Norway is, to everyone else, the exact same thing. There are no differences, no matter how loudly the both of them insist the other is somehow different (in a bad way…) And the Finns and Danes, aren’t far off, either.
More than pretty much any other group of countries anywhere, they naturally enable you to control for pretty much every other variable aside from, in Sweden’s case, policy differences.
“It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.” Gains were never expected and are not relevant, it’s losses right now that matter. If they didn’t take losses, then their economy is doing better, relatively speaking.
ICU Beds Running Out in 5 Texas Regions As COVID-19 Cases Pass 200,000
BY SOO KIM ON 7/7/20 AT 12:01 PM EDT
Novel coronavirus cases in Texas soared past 205,000 on Tuesday, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Hospitals in at least five regions across the state have reported less than 10 intensive care unit (ICU) beds as being available, according to the latest report Monday from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
The Nuevo Laredo region in southern Texas at the border with Mexico was reported to have the least number of ICU beds available with only five, according to the Texas DSHS.
link to newsweek.com
Anyone who claims that their civil rights are being violated if they are required to wear a mask goes down a long ways in my opinion. First, it’s not in the Constitution. You do have a right to bear arms, but not a right to bare lips. Second, there have long been rules that require you to cover various parts of your body in various circumstances, and they have been around so long that we just accept them with no question. In what way are our civil rights being violated if we have to wear a mask, but not if we have to wear shoes, or wear a shirt?
So where in the Constitution does it state that government officials can impose draconian lockdown orders on healthy people and businesses for months at a time?
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Independence Day in the Midst of Dictatorship
AIER >> Daily Economy >> Policy >> Freedom >> Crisis >> Authoritarianism
James Bovard
– July 2, 2020
How many Americans will greet July 4th Day with gratitude that their governor is no longer compelling them to “shelter in place” or “stay at home” so they can celebrate their freedom? Most of the media is ignoring the fact that this Independence Day is occurring under the most dictatorial restrictions of the modern era. But anyone who values their liberty must recognize the Great Political Unleashing that has occurred this year makes a mockery of the Founding Fathers’ intentions.
Earlier this year, more than 300 million Americans were constrained by “stay-at-home” decrees by governors and mayors. These restrictions were justified by mortality predictions from COVID-19 that turned out to be wildly exaggerated. But most of the media has presumed that the dictates were legitimate because they were supposedly based on “science and data” – regardless of pervasive wrongheaded forecasts.
The Centers for Disease Control estimated last week that 24 million Americans may have been infected with COVID – making a mockery of lockdowns designed to force citizens to pay any price for the slightest potential reduction in infections.
The Constitution doesn’t address it at all, which is why the Federal Government has no power to issue such orders. Well, they do, in a way, since such orders clearly would affect commerce among the several states, but they have wisely left it up to the states.
Let’s talk about history for a moment. What is the traditional role of government? It traditionally had 3 powers. It had the power to have a military, it had the power to have police, and it had the power to institute regulations for the benefit of public health. Even in ancient times you find governments building aqueducts, specifying how waste was to be handled, and the like. That evolved to creation of sewage systems, zoning laws telling people where they could build, regulations of restaurants and hotels, regulations on pollution, and a whole host of other things that they deem to be in the public interest.
Health regulations have always been handled at the State, City, and County level, and that’s why you see different reactions in different states. Whether a specific order, or a specific act is legal depends solely on the local statues, and on the State Constitution. All of the Covid health directives have happened at the local and state level, and not at the Federal level. Have some of the directives been illegal (under the laws of a state), or Unconstitutional (according the State constitution)? I have no idea, but I do know that very few directives have been struck down. If you feel a directive is illegal, feel free to sue to have it struck down, but your chances are probably not good.
Note that, in addition to the fact that the directives are most likely not unconstitutional or illegal, they are also not historically unusual. In 1918 a variety of communities implemented policies to try to limit the spread. Go back to the plagues of the middle ages and you find the same thing.
Only one thing has changed. Today people are spoiled, and have a sense of entitlement, and no knowledge of history. Therefore they assume that this is something new, and that since they have this totally unreasonable burden of wearing a mask, their poor rights are being trampled. Try going into a store with a mask, but no shoes. Guess what.. they won’t let you in. Why? Shoes are required. Why aren’t you complaining about that? Your precious rights to go anywhere you want in bare feet are being trampled on, and have been for many, many years.
Well Sweden has done better than the UK ( with a much stricter lockdown), 44,000 deaths in 65M compared to 5400 in 10M.
You can’t really compare the UK with Sweden. A look at all Scandinavian countries shows that they have unusually low death rates. People have speculated on a variety of possible explanations, but it is clear that they are very different than the UK, and very different than any of the Southern European countries.
Why Scandinavian countries? Their culture may be similar but not necesserily other things (e.g. how care homes are organised ).
I wish I knew why the Scandinavian countries are so different. Is it genetics? More Vitamin D supplementation? Lower BMI? More fish in the diet? I have no idea. All I know is that every one has a very low death rate, except Sweden, and even there, the deaths are apparently concentrated among immigrants.
Many Asian countries have even lower death rates.
If it was genetics, Minnesota, the Dakotas and parts of Seattle would be disease free…. Those places are more Scandinavian than Scandinavia.
Chances are it’s more mundane. Like Alaska, Scandinavia is situated at the end of the world, all by themselves. Social distancing is geographically reinforced, to a much greater degree than further south.
Which seem to have influenced the culture as well. Even when Scandinavians travel to Southern Europe for some sun, they tend to huddle together. The Swedes in the “Swedish” Hotel, where the hotel shop sells meatballs and “Aftonbladet” (Swedish newspaper); the Norwegians in the Norwegian one, where the corresponding shop sells fishballs and “Aftenposten” (Norwegian version of what, to everyone else is the exact same darned thing….). And then all of them go to the beach or pool with their fellow nationals, and lay in the burning sun all darned day. All the while loudly proclaiming how worried they are about skin cancer, while coating each other white with an inch thick layer of SPF 300 goop. And how this horrible thing called air conditioning is making them all ill, and how much better Scandinavia deep down really is… 🙂
Compared to that, peoples on The Continent are to a much greater extent piled high together and intermixed. With social and geographic mobility between countries across the Continent, more like between states in the US. Every German or Benelux girl met a handsome, dark, romantic Italian or Spanish boyfriend on some Erasmus exchange; while every Southern girl met a tall Dutch or German guy. And now they all ride around Europe on Ebikes together, and worry about Climate Change(tm) and Trump…..
So I suppose a lot of the reason for Scandinavia being an outlier, is simply that they sort of are outliers. New Zeeland, at the opposite corner of the end of nowhere, was largely spared as well. Even much bigger (relatively) Australia was, to a lesser extent.
New Zealand and Australia weren’t “spared”. Both have make a concerted effort to completely eliminate Covid. The thing is, a place like New Jersey made more effort to reduce Covid than Sweden. Why is the death rate 3x higher in New Jersey? Surely no one believes that if New Jersey had just had policies like Sweden, they would have only had 1/3 the deaths. More likely, if New Jersey had had policies like Sweden, they would have had even more deaths than they have had.
New Zeeland and Australia was “spared” in the same sense Denmark, Finland and Norway was.
They all made a concerted effort at containment. But so did places not situated at the far corners of the world. Like New Jersey and Lombardy and Belgium.
I’m just suggesting that geographic isolation, sparse populations and cultures which are (perhaps as a result of geography) more insular, makes it somewhat easier for them to avoid the worst of it, than more centrally located places where people live more densely interconnected.
Australia and NZ locked down early and cut flights. UK dithered and did little until it was too late, led by BoBo the clown. His clown mate BoZo in the US and BoSo in Brazil have chosen different comedy routines but have achieved equally laughable results
The UK is conveniently omitted from the charts above, as is Spain, Italy, Belgium etc.
I gather that once the deaths are properly stratified according to risk they’ll all fall within the same narrow band across countries.
It is kind of farcical to be comparing countries at any point. I said that before Covid and say it now. Even comparing states within the United States is a bit of a joke. It is surprising Canada is even close to Sweden or the US on that chart.
Mish . . . you should know better . . . its way to early to make any kind of conclusions . . . maybe by this time next year we will have a good idea of the winners and losers . . . until then you are just stoking the fire . . .
All our soldiers are dying, and none of theirs are….
But darnit, the war’s not over yet, so it’s still too early to say with 100% certainty who will ultimately win the war!
So, in the meantime, since we can’t say for 100% certain anyway, let’s just keep throwing soldiers on the bonfire!
That’s what winning is all about! Trump style!
I submit that a lot of people will disagree with your contention, including the author of this article.
Jul 7, 2020
Second wave? Not even close.
JB Handley
Why did politicians ever lockdown society in the first place? Can we all agree that the stated purpose was to “flatten the curve” so our hospital system could handle the inevitable COVID-19 patients who needed care? At that point, at least, back in early March, people were behaving rationally. They accepted that you can’t eradicate a virus, so let’s postpone things enough to handle it.
The fact is, we have done that, and so much more.
The headlines are filled with dire warnings of a “second wave” and trigger-happy Governors are rolling back regulations to try to stem the tide of new cases. But, is any of it actually true and should we all be worried? No, it’s not a second wave.
The COVID-19 virus is on its final legs, and while I have filled this post with graphs to prove everything I just said, this is really the only graph you need to see, it’s the CDC’s data, over time, of deaths from COVID-19 here in the U.S., and the trend line is unmistakable:
If virologists were driving policy about COVID-19 rather than public health officials, we’d all be Sweden right now, which means life would effectively be back to normal. The only thing our lockdowns have done at this point is prolong the agony a little bit, and encouraged Governors to make up more useless rules.
Sweden’s health minister understood that the only chance to beat COVID-19 was to get the Swedish population to a Herd Immunity Threshold against COVID-19, and that’s exactly what they have done, so let me start there.
The Herd Immunity Threshold (“HIT”) for COVID-19 is between 10-20%
This fact gets less press than any other. Most people understand the basic concept of herd immunity and the math behind it. In the early days, some public health officials speculated that COVID-19’s HIT was 70%. Obviously, the difference between a HIT of 70% and a HIT of 10-20% is dramatic, and the lower the HIT, the quicker a virus will burn out as it loses the ability to infect more people, which is exactly what COVID-19 is doing everywhere, including the U.S, which is why the death curve above looks the way it looks.
CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE
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Overall, we rate OffGuardian a Strong Conspiracy and Moderate Pseudoscience website that also promotes Russian propaganda.
Detailed Report
Factual Reporting: MIXED
Country: Unknown
History
Founded in 2015, the OffGuardian is an independent news and opinion website that “takes its name from the fact its five founders had all been censored on and/or banned from the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ sections.” According to their about page they “claim to provide a home for the comment – & the facts – you no longer find in the MSM.” They also state “Our editors & admins are based around the globe, in North America, Britain, and Southern and Eastern Europe.” The OffGuardian lists their editors at the bottom of each page.
Funded by / Ownership
The website does not disclose ownership, however, revenue appears to be generated through donations such as Patreon and Paypal. This disclaimer is found on the website: “OffGuardian does not accept advertising or sponsored content. We have no large financial backers. We are not funded by any government or NGO. Donations from our readers is our only means of income. Even the smallest amount of support is hugely appreciated.”
Analysis / Bias
In review, OffGuardian reports news with a pro-Russian bias. Many articles are very critical of Ukraine, such as this Ukraine admitted to interfering in the 2016 US election on Clinton’s side. This story does not offer hyperlinked sourcing, but rather translations of documents. OffGuardian also frequently promotes conspiracy theories regarding GMO’s such as this: Post-Brexit Farming, Glyphosate and GMOs. Although this story utilizes some credible sources, it also cites Mercola, which is a website that promotes quackery level pseudoscience. They also promote 9/11 conspiracies such as this The Fakest Fake News: The U.S. Government’s 9/11 Conspiracy Theory. They frequently cover False Flags and the US Deep State conspiracy as well as anti-vaccination propaganda.
In an article by Ukrainian fact checker’s, Stop Fake, they write about the OffGuardian as “Russian trolls exiled from Guardian find home for their hate.” Politically, there is a wide range of opinions expressed, with many falling on the pro-socialist side, such as this: Anti-Capitalism is NOT Anti-Semitism.
Overall, we rate OffGuardian a Strong Conspiracy and Moderate Pseudoscience website that also promotes Russian propaganda. (D. Van Zandt 5/29/2019)
Source: https://off-guardian.org
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Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC News) is an independent online media outlet. MBFC is dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices. We also provide original articles on media bias, journalism and politics. On our social media pages we provide current news and events from low biased sources as well as all content posted on our website.
Who owns and runs Media Bias/Fact Check?
Media Bias Fact Check, LLC is a Limited Liability Company owned solely by Dave Van Zandt. He also makes all final editing and publishing decisions.
Who in the heck is Dave Van Zandt?
Dave M. Van Zandt obtained a Communications Degree before pursuing a higher degree in the sciences. Dave currently works full time in the health care industry. Dave has spent more than 20 years as an arm chair researcher on media bias and its role in political influence. For the record, he also is not the President of the New School, that is a different David E. Van Zandt who is the head of a liberal college in New York City. I am an unaffiliated voter from North Carolina.
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Must be very good! Only really good publications get detailed hostile ratings like that! Similar to nearly every single fact-checking service: totally biased.
What’s wrong with tracking daily death data? It’s the only one that really matters. And even THAT one can be subject to over or under counting.
The pandemic that probably wasn’t one is almost over. (At least in US: if you take away NY and NJ it has been a total nothing-burger apart from rabid press conference and scary looking graphs.) But too many people are addicted to it continuing so it probably will – at least in mass consciousness.
ICU’s being full in Texas is normal, btw. You should read that report by Texan physicians a few days back.
Anyway.
My name triggers a few people here. [lol]
17% of Texas hospital beds are occupied by covid19 patients.
They have 20% surge capacity, so even if the covid19 patients doubled they would be fine.
It’s completely normal for Texas A&Es, or A&Es in general, to be overrun.
You need to post a disclaimer as to whether you’ve actually read any of the articles you post, Jojo. Don’t waste peoples’ time if you haven’t read them.
What’s important is for YOU to read them.
No thanks, if they’re not good enough for you, they’re not good enough for me.
It’s far too early to be making pronouncements like this.
Sweden was hailed as a success – It wasn’t
Neither economically nor a deaths per million basis
The US was a failure and recently it pretty much acted like Sweden, especially the Southern states
The southern states are still a dumpster fire. I live in rural East Tennessee and have been doing night stock for a grocery store in my hometown. The rate of new cases is accelerating, as is the number of Karens who shop and cough their brains out with no mask. I had to get a Covid test this morning because of those idiots. I resigned since I don’t need the job anyway. There’ll be two people working tonight, assuming nobody else got sick, when a full crew is five people. When Karen, Karen, Karen, and Karen can no longer find their favorite snacks on the shelf because they infected and depleted entire supermarket stocking crews, then and only then will they put on a mask.
Being a Karen means never wearing a mask.
Give me liberty or give me death.
Sure, whatever you say Karen.
I don’t understand why they’re like that. Perhaps they’re trying to look sexy, but there’s nothing more unsexy than not wearing a mask during a pandemic, especially the ones that have severe coughs.
I would never go on a date with any of those Karens because I know they’d always choose the most expensive items on the menu and would always take more than they would give. They’re the epitome of unsexy.
what are we all going to do?
We’re all gonna die!
dammit, why am I always a dollar short and a dollar late???
There’s another point worth mentioning about Sweden. The people applauding it have been noting its healthcare system was not overwhelmed, but the data at link to covid19insweden.com shows that cumulative deaths from Covid-19 so far are more than double cumulative ICU admissions for the disease. Data at the same site shows that had Covid-19 ICU patients been doubled at any point of time, the country would have run out of ICU beds.
Remember the brouhaha over “death panels” back when Obamacare was the health topic of the day……..?
In Europe, old people are too “frail” to “risk” transporting from old folks homes, to hospitals.
Not saying there’s necessarily anything wrong with that assessment; but decisions do tend to be made differently, when well-past-working-age patients are accounted for as pure “cost”; compared to when they bring in their “own” money, from “insurance” or not, from the outside; and are hence considered profit centers.
Sweden is a highly manipulated country with mucho Soros-related initiatives (forced immigration, press muzzled to not report how many women are being raped by hostile ethnic imports who hate them, women reported for hate crimes if they report being raped etc. etc. etc.) I don’t trust any numbers out of that occupied country.
This is what made me mention Stockholm on a previous post, this is for Sweden but Stockholm looks similar. It might be for various reasons, but fatalities are given as low now while cases still stay high. I won’t try to interpret why but it is enough to make question, just not sure what though
Images are from worldometer.
Writing in September, as I am, the conclusions in this article looks to be a little hasty, since Sweden now has the lowest infection rate in Europe.
Obvious lead at the end of the day is “US gets all the pain and none of the gain from its virus response.”