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And in Sweden where they thought they had the right idea (round up the old people, let everybody else act as usual)...
"The Swedish healthcare system has thus far withstood an onslaught of COVID-19 cases under the country's less restrictive approach to fighting the pandemic, but it can't hold out much longer unless cases subside, public health experts there warned.
Over the past month, the cumulative number of cases has climbed sharply with no sign of flattening, according to data compiled by Statista, reaching about 22,000 in a nation of roughly 10 million. That's less on a per-capita basis than in the United States, but not by much.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86256
And from someone else- https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/sweden-coronavirus-response-death-social-distancing.html
What I haven’t seen much of is rational discussion about why there is such unwavering faith that Sweden’s tiny public health agency could be superior to the collected knowledge about COVID-19 in every other economically developed country.
Last edited by jeremyp; 05-05-2020, 06:57 PM.Comment
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Is there an accepted mortality rate? Right now, in the US, we have 70k deaths/1,200k cases or about 5.8%. I recognize at least a couple of points that make that interpretation naive: if there were no new cases, a bunch of people would still die over the next month (raising the number), we are probably significantly under diagnosed (lowering the number), Conor’s post implies we are likely to have more deaths than have been counted, etc. However, it is what the data show in a defensible manner.Comment
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Sweden is one of the best examples of falsifying stats. They only count Corona cases/deaths in hospitals, they do not test any deaths that occurred elsewhere and they also deny certain "hopeless" cases admittance to hospitals. If you are 70+ and have two pre-existing conditions, hospitals will not admit you for Corona.Comment
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Coronavirus and the Sweden Myth
The country’s approach to the pandemic sets a seductive example. But the United States shouldn’t copy it.
In Sweden, business is not actually proceeding as usual. Most travel and mass gatherings are not allowed, and some schools have been closed. But restrictions from government are considerably less severe than many other countries. Restaurants and bars are still functioning, some of them only with minimal distancing taking place.
The results have been mixed. Sweden has the highest fatalities and case count per capita in Scandinavia, but is lower than some of its neighbors to the south. Economic disruption has been significant but not as debilitating as other countries. In the capital, Stockholm, the nation’s top infectious disease official recently estimated that approximately 25 percent of the population has developed antibodies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/o....co/fz4N5tAhVAComment
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This is one of the reasons why "corona deaths" is a somewhat subtle question. If an 80 year old former smoker with a dilated atrium, high blood pressure and asthma dies in a hospital of cardiac arrest after a terrible bout with the corona virus it is quite a bit different a category as a 30 year old perfect health female yoga instructor dying of the virus.Originally posted by norunner View Post
Yes, they both died "of" corona virus. The 30 year olds death tells us something much more significant about the virus, the 80 year olds death tells us not nearly as much.
Having just seen a 59 year old friend die of the virus after working a long week in a nursing home and knowing that he had asthma but was otherwise in near perfect health tells me that at present this virus is quite a bad ass bat lung ninja. If an 85 year old obese smoker dies of CV19 its not as strong evidence for the same conclusion. The same holds for the aggregate statistics. Once they are broken down into proper categories we can make a clear picture of how deadly the virus is.
Regarding Sweden, they have a total population of 10M and a population density that ranks 193rd. They basically have two counties where population densities are problematic for CV19. Not really a model for the US CV19 hotspots like NYC.
Last edited by user4; 05-05-2020, 07:52 PM.Comment
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For what it is worth, Sweden’s population is not much bigger than NYC or NJ, but its population density is obviously much less.Comment
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There is a metric for these conditions, which is number of years of life lost. For the first case, it mighty only be several years while for the 30 year old it might be 53. However, an 80-year old smoker is someone that his exhibited an ability to live beyond the norm for the lifestyle and might be only of those that would get to well in to their 90s. Aggregates cover all of the individual cases, of course. However, as the article on excess deaths indicates the data are generally about 3 weeks behind and even those need additional data input. The one metric using this approach for the US has 36,000 excess deaths -- as of April 14; at that point the official COVID-19 total was only 28,800 (and that total in the table that I am keeping has about 2000 of the 3700 extra cases added by New York on the 17th so about 26,000 from the usual 'official' sources). The implication is that the excess deaths exceed the official tally by more than 100%; and that means that the US is somewhere around 150,000 deaths now.Originally posted by user4 View Post
This is one of the reasons why "corona deaths" is a somewhat subtle question. If an 80 year old former smoker with a dilated atrium, high blood pressure and asthma dies in a hospital of cardiac arrest after a terrible bout with the corona virus it is quite a bit different a category as a 30 year old perfect health female yoga instructor dying of the virus.
Yes, they both died "of" corona virus. The 30 year olds death tells us something much more significant about the virus, the 80 year olds death tells us not nearly as much.
Having just seen a 59 year old friend die of the virus after working a long week in a nursing home and knowing that he had asthma but was otherwise in near perfect health tells me that at present this virus is quite a bad ass bat lung ninja. If an 85 year old obese smoker dies of CV19 its not as strong evidence for the same conclusion. The same holds for the aggregate statistics. Once they are broken down into proper categories we can make a clear picture of how deadly the virus is.
Regarding Sweden, they have a total population of 10M and a population density that ranks 193rd. They basically have two counties where population densities are problematic for CV19. Not really a model for the US CV19 hotspots like NYC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden
Some places within states have only modest testing. The two major counties for Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Brown (Green Bay) have only tested about 5 people per positive case. By contrast, Dane County (Madison) has a quarter of the cases and three times as many tests as Green Bay, and over the last ten days has tested 94 people per positive. Another things shows up as tests become more widespread - a lot more younger people, especially 0-9 are showing up. A month ago in Wisconsin 0-9 and 10-19 made up 0.28% and 1.09% and now are at 1.21 and 3.54% (20-39 have also increased in relative number while 60-79 have dropped by almost a third. This means that perceptions of who gets the virus are not accurate and some decisions are made because of this.Comment
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Nashville is under "stay-at-home" orders. Stockholm is "open for business." But per Apple data, iPhone users in these cities have nearly the exact same adjustment in driving, walking, and transit use...
I don't want to put too much weight on this Apple data, because it's an approximate aggregation, and there are bound to be problems with cross-country comparisons. But it's in keeping with news reports that Swedish restaurants (etc) are de jure open, but de facto empty.
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Meanwhile.....
Live updates: Vice President Pence says coronavirus task force could be disbanded within a month
Vice President Pence told reporters today that the coronavirus task force created to manage the federal government’s response to the pandemic could be disbanded within a month because “of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country.”
The task force is headed by Pence and made up of officials from the administration, including public health officials who have urged a careful approach to easing social distancing restriction put in place to mitigate the outbreak.
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Do you really believe we've made tremendous progress?Originally posted by Conor Dary View PostSunlight is said to be the best of disinfectantsComment
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Tremendous Progress!
Coronavirus in the U.S.: An Unrelenting Crush of Cases and Deaths
While cities like New York have seen a hopeful drop in cases, upticks in other major cities and smaller communities have offset those decreases.
Any notion that the coronavirus threat is fading away appears to be magical thinking, at odds with what the latest numbers show.
Coronavirus in America now looks like this: More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new coronavirus cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States — which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million — is expanding by between 2 and 4 percent daily.
Last edited by Conor Dary; 05-05-2020, 09:59 PM.Comment
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Probably more correct to say "function of inaccuracy" and deliberately so for many countriesOriginally posted by lonewolf View PostComment
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Meanwhile...
Peak passed on pandemic-linked deaths
Fatalities in UK by late April exceeded 42,000, suggesting hidden toll
CHRIS GILES — ECONOMICS EDITOR
Coronavirus-related deaths in England and Wales passed their peak by the middle of last month, according to official figures that also show there were 42,000 more in the UK this year than normal by late April.
The scale of mortality by the third week of April suggests that the UK death toll from the virus has exceeded 50,000 based on the 6,995 deaths recorded since April 20 from those who tested positive.
FT
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What are you doing, debating yourself? Could you please limit your posts to what you believe?Originally posted by Conor Dary View Post
Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectantsComment
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