…so that poster hasn’t suggested we ignore this. Gotcha.
I think we have more than enough data to confidently say that Sweden fucked up. Having to close many of those schools now because they are struggling to keep things under control is just one example.
Of course they did. So did everybody else that did not take the same approach New Zealand did. I get that.
Absolutely. Every country should be a couple of large islands on the other side of the world, and if they had just done that, we wouldn’t be in the position we are in now.
Considering that Switzerland has better than 3 times the world’s death rate (981/million compared to the world’s 255), I’d say it has more to do with their failed response than any factor of geographical isolation. Goes even more so for the US at 1186/million.
Did they look at how many children are actually attending school? Schools are open here, but well over half of kids are choosing to stay remote. In my school, I have between 0 and 1 student in person in each class.
That’s not the same as having 30 kids in a room.
That’s a good question. I’m afraid I haven’t read the actual studies yet. I do think you point out a good example of how you have to be careful with all these articles about studies, even when they come from reputable publications, because we’ve seen time and time again that there are any number of ways to spin things. Or, maybe a fairer way to say it is that the situations are often either so confounded or so replete with limitations that it makes it hard to say anything definitive.
Sorry, goodness knows where I got Switzerland into my head. Sweden, of course.
Same point can be made, with 1005 deaths/million in Sweden.
I think the confounding variables aren’t even known a lot of the time, because so many decisions are being made on the very local level and the data isn’t even available. I don’t know how many students are attending in person in any school but mine, really: that data is not released. When we went remote, the district talked about “fewer that half” were intending to come to in-person school. About 40% said they’d come to mine. But fewer than that actually showed up, and then that number dropped to almost nothing when they realized that at-home was working pretty well and that with most kids remote, the lessons and class structure were designed around that expectation and they didn’t get much from being here in person, anyway. But I don’t know if that second drop happened in other schools.
It’s the failed response that’s the common element for most every country, right? Are we keeping a current list of all the successes?
Are we also keeping a list of the likely outcomes for NOT taking action?
Define success.