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A comment on Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia. Parent comment

Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by prox on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:58AM (#24717592)
It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by logicchains on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:02AM (#24717628)
>It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.

This is clearly not true because it didn't overwhelm Sweden's hospitals, or Japan's, or South Dakota's, even though they didn't have lockdowns, just voluntary social distancing.

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by cygx on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:11AM (#24717682)
Not as clear as you make it sound: Swedes did change their behaviour/travel patterns in response to Covid-19, the Japanese instituted mask etiquette a century ago, and no one lives in South Dakota.
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by thu2111 on Friday October 09, 2020 @10:26AM (#24730205)
No, it's pretty clear. Relatively minor changes in behaviour (Swedes were famously out chatting in cafes and shopping at a time when many other places were under universal curfews and business closures) cannot explain the huge deviation from what the models predicted, at least not without making the models entirely unfalsifiable. Meanwhile masks are useless. Look at the graphs of almost any country that has a mask mandate and when that mandate was introduced - no inflection point is visible. Nowhere! If masks worked, at least some places would show a clear change in growth rate $incubation_period days after the mask mandate was enforced, but it never happens.

As for "nobody lives in South Dakota", well, tell the people who live there that.

And don't forget Belarus. The usual excuse for that is "you can't trust anything out of Belarus", although of course many people live there and no overflowing hospitals were reported by any foreigners there either.

There's a very clear and visible pattern here, which is a really deep desire to believe that epidemiology as a field knows what it's doing, that the models work, that lockdowns weren't useless. But the data is as clear as day. No correlation between lockdowns and health outcomes. No lockdowns yet no ICU exhaustion in Sweden despite Sweden having one of the lowest ICU capacities in Europe - the exact opposite of what we were told to expect. Mask mandates have no visible impact on the spread of 'infection' (PCR positives, not quite the same thing).

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by fabian2k on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:06AM (#24717647)
I intentionally mentioned behaviour changes first in my comment, we can't fully separate rules and lockdowns from voluntary behavioural changes. In the end all that matters is the changed behaviour, not whether it was enforced or not.

Full lockdowns are also not the best way to handle increasing numbers now, they were necessary earlier this year because we didn't know much about the virus and which situations are the most dangerous. With the knowledge we have today we can use more specific interventions to contain the virus.

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by polytely on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:14AM (#24717702)
Well it probably depends on the amount of IC beds / ventilators / trained personnel available per location. I know that here in The Netherlands they narrowly avoided a triage situation where your condition decided if were going to get treated.

A second order effect that might not be obvious is that during the first wave a lot of non-emergency procedures were postponed, a lot of these non-emergency procedures can still be quite urgent and can have negative consequences for the people who had to wait.

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by xiphias2 on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:32AM (#24717798)
Maybe in Netherlands non-emergency treatments were postponed, but in Hungary even some emergency treatments were deprioritized by the government. I tell my parents every times I speak to them to be very careful to not get sick, as they can’t expect the same level of treatment that they had a year ago.
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by Yetanfou on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:22AM (#24717745)
Att the start of the pandemic Sweden had the next-lowest number of ICU places per capita in Europe (Portugal had the lowest). The capacity was doubled, field hospitals were built... and not used since the hospitals could handle the inflow. This was partly due to some very controversial and in my opinion unethical guidelines which mandated morphing instead of oxygen for certain groups of elderly (i.e. involuntary euthanasia) but it is unknown if those policies had much effect on the park ICU occupation.

Apart from some bad mistakes in the beginning where the infection was allowed to spread in care facilities Sweden has weathered the epidemic (as in the local version of the pandemic) no worse than surrounding countries and certainly no worse than e.g. New York.

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by cygx on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:47AM (#24717861)
no worse than surrounding countries

Deaths per 1k population:

                total       last month
    Sweden      0.59        0.0058
    Denmark     0.11        0.0053
    Finland     0.063       0.0016
    Norway      0.051       0.0020
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by goalieca on Thursday October 08, 2020 @07:52AM (#24718230)
I’m tired of seeing scoreboard style comparisons everywhere as some sort of gotcha. Any scientific analysis worth its salt will look into the values to start explaining the numbers and put it all into context.

For instance, can we explain where Sweden’s deaths occurred? Large care homes (100+ residents) that were ill prepared? Are they expected to have a large amount or average amount of excess deaths at the end of 2020? Why is it tracking average and why are some lockdown heavy countries tracking much higher (because lack of health care due to shutdowns?) What even represents a covid death or case?

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by onecommentman on Thursday October 08, 2020 @10:57PM (#24726288)
What makes presenting a list of numbers a “gotcha”? It’s a better starting point for discussion than a random unsupported assertion. I would interpret a complaint about introducing numbers and measurement as evidence that the complainant has a weak position that can’t stand objective scrutiny. Numbers aren’t everything, but they’re definitely a something...
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by Yetanfou on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:00PM (#24723900)
> For instance, can we explain where Sweden’s deaths occurred? Large care homes (100+ residents) that were ill prepared?

A large problem in Sweden is that many of the staff in care homes do not speak Swedish or don't speak/read it well. This has led to the instructions on how and when to use PPE not being followed or not being followed well which led to a large number of infections in care homes [1]. Since people in care homes tend to be part of high-risk groups for severe COVID-19 this had led to a large number of deaths which could have been prevented. I stated this in the original message ('Apart from some bad mistakes in the beginning where the infection was allowed to spread in care facilities').

[1] https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2020-07-10/svag-svenska-kan-ha-pa...

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by gerikson on Thursday October 08, 2020 @08:01AM (#24718295)
> This was partly due to some very controversial and in my opinion unethical guidelines which mandated morphing instead of oxygen for certain groups of elderly (i.e. involuntary euthanasia)

This is an extremely serious accusation. I live in Sweden and have not seen any reference to this practice mentioned in media.

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by juusto on Thursday October 08, 2020 @09:22AM (#24718855)
I saw something related to it in two outlets, the BBC and YLE (finnish news).

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52704836

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-is-taking-a-high-to...

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11433976

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by gerikson on Thursday October 08, 2020 @10:51AM (#24719581)
The intent was to give palliative care, not literally murder people . Although this source does sound the alarm that the line is thin.

In essence, palliative care for cancer does not translate into the same effect with COVID-19.

https://www.dagensmedicin.se/artiklar/2020/06/15/palliativ-v...

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by Yetanfou on Thursday October 08, 2020 @05:15PM (#24724025)
Seriously?

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/a/dO3ddB/en-pa...

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/GGk664/de-nast-intill-av...

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/4q9V1g/kritiken-mot-aldr...

https://www.dagensmedicin.se/artiklar/2020/06/15/palliativ-v...

https://www.expressen.se/debatt/min-pappas-dod-i-covid-19-bl...

https://www.aftonbladet.se/ledare/a/Ln0r9Q/morfin-istallet-f...

https://www.exakt24.se/lakare-upprord-efter-lackt-journalant...

https://www.exakt24.se/lakare-forskrackt-dodshjalp-istallet-...

https://lakartidningen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2020/05/geriatrik...

https://www.varldenidag.se/nyheter/lakare-kraver-syrgas-till...

https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/skriftli...

If you have not heard of this it is because you're following the wrong media, clear and simple. Even Aftonbladet published on this, there was an open letter in Läkartidningen (doctor's journal), Dagens Medicin wrote on it, the 'alternative' media were all over this, questions were asked in Riksdagen.

Why did you not know? Also, why did you not simply search around a bit to verify the statement before posting your reply?

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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by gerikson on Friday October 09, 2020 @04:24AM (#24727925)
Applying palliative care on the recommendation of Socialstyrelsen is not euthanasia.
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by martyvis on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:09AM (#24717672)
Japan has a culture of wearing masks when conditions prevail (normally pollution related but also disease). They also tend to be not into physical contact in social settings, and are more likely to be in compliance to societal laws.
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by fabian2k on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:03AM (#24717633)
That's an additional factor if you get to the limits of your healthcare system. At that point Covid gets more lethal because many people don't get adequate care, and every other critical illness also get more lethal because the hospitals are overflowing.
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Re:Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenz... by collyw on Thursday October 08, 2020 @06:03AM (#24717634)
Sweden showed that not to be the case. It's the only real control I know of for the hypothesis that you present as fact.
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