Re:Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to colle...
by martindbp on Tuesday July 07, 2020 @02:46PM
(#23762634)
Simple: it's not over yet, but it might be for some hard hit areas of Sweden. We'll see. Then there is another question whether it was worth it to shut down the world economy over a 0.05% death rate, or a few years worth of flu at once. I'd say probably no. We didn't know this back in Feb/March, which is why I was very much for a quarantine then, but not now. I don't think the powers that be would have done a complete shutdown if they'd known what they know now.
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Re:Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to colle...
by tomjakubowski on Tuesday July 07, 2020 @04:11PM
(#23763441)
> it might be for some hard hit areas of Sweden
The long-term success of Sweden's approach appears to hinge on this question. What evidence is there which supports that their hardest hit locales have achieved herd immunity?
Re:Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to colle...
by martindbp on Tuesday July 07, 2020 @04:54PM
(#23763956)
My own observeration from Stockholm is: beaches crowded during heatwave, public transit is crowded as usual. Lots of movement of people, travel within Sweden etc. Practically nobody is wearing a mask. People are still generally careful, washing hands, keeping the distance in lines etc, but I don't think this can explain the cases going down. In March-April, I think people were the most careful, when hundreds were dying every day. Since then people have gradually become more relaxed, but the numbers keep going down.
Of course, it could be that these rather small measures have pushed r0 a bit under 1 ever since March. But there have also been reports that for each person tested with antibodies, two more are actually immune, which would put the immunity at maybe 30% two weeks ago. At least it's in the right ball-park, as some have proposed that herd immunity could be reached at much lower percentages than previously thought.