Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach)

Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 21, 2020 11:34PM

The Original Michael

Registered: 07/06/2008
Posts: 1,347

Sweden

Before replying, it's worth reading the attached article about Sweden and the virus. For those of you who haven't followed what other places are doing, Sweden took a different approach to dealing with this.

Instead of closing everything down, they allowed schools and businesses to remain open, trusted their citizens, and requested their vulnerable to stay inside or exercise precautions, while their younger healthy citizens went on with life, though with a few changes.

They did not expect that nobody would get sick and knew there would be deaths, but thus far they have fared no worse than other countries, and per the article are doing better than forecasts.

This begs the question: if the Swedish approach is at worst showing no significant difference compared to other countries, or at best doing better than other countries, then was it worth it for states to shut down the economy?

EDIT- Here is another article from today. The gist is a statistical model showing no real empirical difference in death rates in lockdown vs non-lockdown states. For those of you who are going to accuse me of taking this lightly, I'm not. However, I do question the overall effectiveness of some of the measures put in place. My bottom line- If, at the end of the day, there is no statistical difference between draconian measures vs less restrictive measures, then in many states, we've cost millions of people their jobs for no net saving of human life.

No empirical evidence (Lockdown vs non-lockdown states)

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2020 01:00AM by The Original Michael.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 03:22AM

Hummin Cummins

Registered: 06/10/2018
Posts: 149

I’ve been waiting for this to be mentioned here. I had heard about the Sweden’s approach and numbers but didn’t have any information to support it.

The statistics are interesting. Sweden’s approach is also interesting.

With this, I believe that it’s important to consider the “mental health” element of all of this. I know that’s a topic many people don’t want to talk about but I believe it’s important. I believe it should be factored into this crisis. We may never know the impact this pandemic had our mental health. I will argue, however that it will be significant.

Sweden’s approach, in my opinion, does a better job of addressing this aspect of the crisis. Humans are social beings. We can’t change that. But at least Sweden’s approach allows for more opportunities to be “social” in small settings

Take Easter, for example...Missing church for many was devastating. I was thankful for online services but for many that was not enough. But take the religious aspect out of it. What would it do for individuals mental health if they could see their extended family for an Easter celebration. It makes a difference.

Obviously huge gatherings like Sporting events, concerts, and yes probably tractor pulls don’t necessarily fit this category but you get my point.

It will be interesting to see how entering phase 1 and 2 of the plan will begin to swing things back towards the positive. But ultimately I do believe that the Swedish model is at least worth examining...For the health of ALL of us. Not just me or you individually. But all of us

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 03:24AM

Chairman mau

What Sweden is doing is not really an exception, it's more in line with past practices. It's what WE & other European countries as well it seems, are doing now that is the exception. When did it become the norm to rather than isolate the sick & protect the vulnerable, you try to lock in the healthy & productive ? This is not working, can not work, & was never intended to work. Can any reasonable person look at some of these orders , with the exception of maybe closing huge gatherings, & say that they were intended to keep us healthy. Stay inside .Are you serious ? One of the worst things to encourage contamination. People have to go out for essential purposes. Just a fact. They are just as vulvernable & or contagious rather on an essential mission (as determined by government) as a non essential one. My point of it" can not work." What is assured is the economic destruction resulting from these policies & the resulting death toll, which I promise you will not not be the subject of daily news conferences. And yes, Michael, you will be accused of taking this lightly, & valuing money over life.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 03:39AM

Numbers

Quote
Chairman mau
What Sweden is doing is not really an exception, it's more in line with past practices. It's what WE & other European countries as well it seems, are doing now that is the exception. When did it become the norm to rather than isolate the sick & protect the vulnerable, you try to lock in the healthy & productive ? This is not working, can not work, & was never intended to work. Can any reasonable person look at some of these orders , with the exception of maybe closing huge gatherings, & say that they were intended to keep us healthy. Stay inside .Are you serious ? One of the worst things to encourage contamination. People have to go out for essential purposes. Just a fact. They are just as vulvernable & or contagious rather on an essential mission (as determined by government) as a non essential one. My point of it" can not work." What is assured is the economic destruction resulting from these policies & the resulting death toll, which I promise you will not not be the subject of daily news conferences. And yes, Michael, you will be accused of taking this lightly, & valuing money over life.

The less they go out the less people they infect.
Go out 10 times a day, spread the virus 10 times a day.
Go out 1 time a day, spread the virus 1 time a day.

How do you know this isn't going to be good for the economy a few years from now?
How do you know this virus isn't going to kill 10,000,000 this year?
I understand you don't think its very bad, but no one thought the Spanish Flu was bad until after the fact.
If the Lock downs work, you will get to say, see I told you it wasn't going to be very bad.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 03:29AM

Numbers

Quote
The Original Michael
Sweden

Before replying, it's worth reading the attached article about Sweden and the virus. For those of you who haven't followed what other places are doing, Sweden took a different approach to dealing with this.

Instead of closing everything down, they allowed schools and businesses to remain open, trusted their citizens, and requested their vulnerable to stay inside or exercise precautions, while their younger healthy citizens went on with life, though with a few changes.

They did not expect that nobody would get sick and knew there would be deaths, but thus far they have fared no worse than other countries, and per the article are doing better than forecasts.

This begs the question: if the Swedish approach is at worst showing no significant difference compared to other countries, or at best doing better than other countries, then was it worth it for states to shut down the economy?

EDIT- Here is another article from today. The gist is a statistical model showing no real empirical difference in death rates in lockdown vs non-lockdown states. For those of you who are going to accuse me of taking this lightly, I'm not. However, I do question the overall effectiveness of some of the measures put in place. My bottom line- If, at the end of the day, there is no statistical difference between draconian measures vs less restrictive measures, then in many states, we've cost millions of people their jobs for no net saving of human life.

No empirical evidence (Lockdown vs non-lockdown states)

Lots of ways to look at it.
If the lock down is working how do you prove it?

Sweden 1/3 the population of Texas has 4 times the deaths.
How do we know that keeping sick people in the US from traveling to Sweden isn't helping them?

How do we know that making sick people in New York not travel isn't helping Wyoming?

How do we know that this isn't helping the Economy in the long run.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 03:44AM

Jake Morgan

Admin
Registered: 03/25/2008
Posts: 2,526

I've been waiting for this too. I didn't click the link to the article you posted because I've read tons of articles about Sweden lately. Ironically many of the articles I've seen have a very little relevant data.

When comparing these European countries to our approach in the US... Sweden is a pretty homogeneous demographic. America, not so much. The European countries, as well as Canada, New Zealand, etc..., they have a very different mindset than we do in the US. There's a little more "We", and a little less "Me" so keep that in mind when evaluating the data. (Our "Me" attitude can be a strength, but it can also be a huge weakness at times. We have more of this in the US...) I keep posting this because it's this attitude that caused government to overreact.

Sweden's population density is 58/mi² (people per sq mile) with approximately 10 million people total. Here's a graph of Sweden's infections as of today (April 22):

Instead of comparing Sweden to the US, let's make a more fair comparison...

That's the equivalent of Arizona's population density (also 58/mi², but Arizona's population is a little less at 7.5 million) . For those who have taken a drive around the desert Southwest... there's lots and lots of empty space and a few big cities. Sweden has more smaller cities but it's a pretty fair comparison. Here's Arizona's graph:

You can see that Sweden started much earlier, and even though the data is limited, it appears to be peaking much later. Arizona is following a much different profile. Arizona's cities are more dense and larger so Arizona's curve is actually really really, impressive in comparison. Again, this data is still very limited and it will be interesting to see what they both look like in another month or two. As of today Arizona has 5,256 infections, while Sweden has 15,322. Again, all these number has other external factors like testing rates, climate, population density in cities, health care, average age, etc...

I'm not for a wholesale shutdown. I've stated over and over again that we should get somethings back going with protective measures in place. There are plenty of business in plenty of regions that could be back up and running. Was our approach perfect? We'll only know in a few years. Was it effective against the virus thus far? The curve sure seem like it. Was it an overreaction? Probably in some geographical regions. Was Sweden's approach perfect? Only history will tell us. The graph clearly shows that it's been less effective against limiting infections thus far.

The Sweden comparison is a very interesting discussion, and the radio shows that I listen to during the day sure seem to puts Sweden on a pedestal lately but comparing their response to our response is like comparing a fleet of Case IH Quadtracs to the three Cub Cadets in my shed, it's just a totally different scale. I'm not saying it's not an interesting discussion, but not really a fair comparison. Finding apples for apples comparisons and arm chair quarterbacking this thing is not a simple task. Which is why much (most) of the criticism against our leadership is just politically driven and not based in any reality. Some of it is deserved but much is just posturing and propaganda.

Jake Morgan
Owner, PULLOFF.COM
Independent Pulling News

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2020 05:15AM by Jake Morgan.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 01:17PM

RCP

Registered: 01/23/2011
Posts: 241

As cruel as it sounds, the only statistic that is somewhat dependable is deaths per million of inhabitants. I say this because the number of deaths per inhabitants is regardless of the number of people tested. Obviously if you test more people you will find more Covid, the number of deaths is irrespective of any testing. The one thing is the cause of death has to be properly stated.

The number of deaths per million inhabitants gives a barometer of the health of the inhabitants and the ability of society to take care of the sick people. When the number of deaths as a percentage declines to a level you can accept, then you can say that you have something that works. By comparing identical populations, you have a chance of determining which approach is the one you like.

Regards
Rich

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 01:29PM

Hummin Cummins

Registered: 06/10/2018
Posts: 149

Add to this “example” Florida. Anyone see what they’ve done in Florida and obviously that is “elder land USA” One of the LOWEST death rate and infection rates of all 50 states. They didn’t shut everything down. Didn’t lock themselves indoors. They protected their most vulnerable population in assisted living homes through PPE, visitation, common sense health measures.

Their governor ENCOURAGED them to get outside and get some sunshine. And now their results are showing very promising.

Here’s the bottom line...We have A LOT of smart people in this country. With a lot of different ideas. Let’s be willing to let them figure this out and let’s not be so close minded. But let’s also not be dumb!

I hope we get to go pulling this summer. I really do. I just don’t know...I’m willing to have an open mind

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 02:03PM

Jake Morgan

Admin
Registered: 03/25/2008
Posts: 2,526

Deaths per million can also be a useful tool, but it's not really any better and can have some serious flaws as well. There's no perfect way to measure. Deaths per million will very greatly with infection rates (not known infection rate but true infection rates). For example, If one population has a 50% infection rate and one population has a 10% infection rate then the deaths per million will be drastically different. Since we don't have any real clue on true infection rates we have no way to verify how accurate deaths per million is. We just don't have the testing to have good data. Again, I don't want to discount deaths per million, I just want to point out that like other metrics it has some flaws, and with the lack of any real knowledge of true infection rates it's a critical flaw.

Jake Morgan
Owner, PULLOFF.COM
Independent Pulling News

This page is a free service. The cost is covered out of my pocket. It takes a great deal of time and a fair amount of money to keep this website going. Donations for: photos, classified ads, forum discussion, etc... are appreciated.

Side Note: We are no longer accepting PayPal donations. They have changed their terms of service and stated they would fine PayPal users for spreading "misinformation" and "hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory". PayPal did not provide definitions for some of these vague terms. Woke corporate policies regarding "misinformation" could result in an automatic fine of $2,500 which would have been removed directly from the customer’s PayPal account. PayPal did backdown from some of their policies but quietly implemented portions of them in later terms of service. A financial institute has no right to monitor social media accounts or speech. This is unacceptable and I'll no longer do business with PayPal.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 23, 2020 08:57AM

Sascha

Moderator
Registered: 03/27/2008
Posts: 1,141

Sweden is indeed an interesting case, but after just checking the latest numbers, in my opinion it's a sad disaster.

I am about 300 mls from Sweden. 6 hours in the car and I am there so it's not a "foreign place to me".

If I compare what's going on there with my state, we are 8 mio people, had 9400 cases teste positive and 340 death so far. There are about 10 - 15 dying here in a day.

Sweden, 10 mio people so far tested 16750 positive and they have 2000 death - and there were like 80 - 100 people a day dying there in the last few days.
That's basically 8 times worse than where I am...

And we are free to roam, the economy not shut down and shops are open again - we just must not be closer than 5ft to 2 or more strangers in public.

Floating Finish - the German Tractor Pulling Web Show and EU Live Streams: [www.youtube.com]

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 04:21AM

bandit496

Registered: 03/26/2008
Posts: 494

Jake, all the data aside, I believe you hit it big with the comparison of the mental aspect of Americans versus Europeans or Swedes in this particular instance--the "me" attitude of Americans is very selfish.."I" have a right to go fishing; "I" have a right to go shopping when "I" want to, where "I" want to. Oh, it it okay for "me" to do this or that , but what happens when there is ten thousand or one million "me"s? Not saying government is right or wrong in the issue (remember I live in on of the more draconian measured states). Think about this..the idea of more testing--governors and others are calling for a million tests a day to get through this. It will take 320+ days at that rate for everyone in the US to be tested. The "Law of Large Numbers" plays hard in this situation. JW

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 22, 2020 04:46AM

Jake Morgan

Admin
Registered: 03/25/2008
Posts: 2,526

I didn't want to derail this thread so I started another one about my Quadtrac vs Cub Cadet analysis and our economy from my other post in this thread.

Jake Morgan
Owner, PULLOFF.COM
Independent Pulling News

This page is a free service. The cost is covered out of my pocket. It takes a great deal of time and a fair amount of money to keep this website going. Donations for: photos, classified ads, forum discussion, etc... are appreciated.

Side Note: We are no longer accepting PayPal donations. They have changed their terms of service and stated they would fine PayPal users for spreading "misinformation" and "hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory". PayPal did not provide definitions for some of these vague terms. Woke corporate policies regarding "misinformation" could result in an automatic fine of $2,500 which would have been removed directly from the customer’s PayPal account. PayPal did backdown from some of their policies but quietly implemented portions of them in later terms of service. A financial institute has no right to monitor social media accounts or speech. This is unacceptable and I'll no longer do business with PayPal.

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Re: Did we have to shut everything down? (Sweden's approach) April 23, 2020 12:11AM

Face in crowd

Sweden has restrictions. Plenty of them. They have limited gatherings to 50 or less. They have closed all schools except elementary schools. People have been misled by the media into thinking that Sweden is "open" when in reality Sweden is really not all that little less restrictive than states like Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota.

Will it work out? We shall see. I just think that the media bias is a little too strong right now. There's a push to manipulate public opinion toward taking COVID 19 lightly. And the sheep are following no doubt. Protesting even. When in reality, nothing has changed. It's still here. No vaccine has been found yet. Easing restrictions will occur, but as the President said, "we should be smart about it."

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