I would think twice before relying on anything the right-wing Spectator says. They are Boris Johnson and Trump supporters, and they were against the lockdown from the start.
In actual fact, Sweden has just recorded its highest ever daily death toll today.
I don’t fully believe the Swedish death stats, because they seem very erratic, and they are are doing little testing, so many deaths may have been recorded as being from other causes.
But Sweden’s death rate per million is still the 7th highest in the world (ignoring tiny states and territories), and is now nearly 3x higher than Denmark, more than 7x higher than Norway. It’s not clear that it’s leveling off.
The main point of flattening the curve was keeping within hospital capacity. Sweden seems to be doing that. Their plan would seem to assume they’ll have a steeper climb in the beginning. What remains to be seen is whether the somewhat slower climb but longer plateau plan other countries are using ends up with less deaths overall.
For comparison, the USA has had about an extra 66 deaths/million in the past 11 days, but I’m not sure if the USA is at the same point on the curve as the Nordic countries.
It’s silly to stare at a single number when there are a million different factors affecting things. What happens is that many hospitals will register deaths after the weekend, because despite possibly being superhuman even medical professionals need to rest sometimes. That’s why reported numbers always dip on weekend days, and the average for friday to monday is around 60, which is right about where it’s been for the past weeks. That’s what they mean when they say the numbers are stable, even if it’s not the same number that gets registered between 12 AM and 11:59 PM from one day to the next.
We can’t know it’s failing until we see how long other countries are in their “flat” section and how steep the drop off is for Sweden. In fact, how the second wave goes will be telling. You can’t predict that future yet.
I suggest you actually look at the chart of daily deaths in Sweden. It goes in cycles, higher and higher each time. Today is not yet shown in the chart, but it’s the highest yet.
The pattern is most clearly NOT stable, but rising.
Is it? One side seems to be saying “we’ll see” another saying “it’s already obviously failed”. I’m not advocating that we know Sweden was right all along. But it is still certainly possible they’ll end this wave with similar fatalities and not get much of a second wave compared to other countries. Part of the Swedish reasoning is that their plan can be held longer than the more serious lockdowns in other countries. Do you not at least buy that premise?
It pretty much IS working. The people who have died this week were infected some time last month while the number of infected was rising, because people don’t just get infected and perish where they stand. What the statistics show currently is that the number of new cases and the number of people in intensive care is going down, which is the desired outcome.
Sweden reported 682 new infections and 172 new deaths yesterday. The third highest increase in infections and the second highest increase in deaths since the beginning.
More concerning to me than the daily increase number is that their weekly average daily growth rate is NOT continuing to decrease as much most other countries have at this point. Now maybe the reports of decreased ICU admissions will reflect in a greater rate decrease over the next 7 day cycle maybe not, but they are no longer tracking right on the same curve as Switzerland, are moving slight up and away, and while that is still not currently being a disaster it is very worrisome.
It’s an apples vs oranges thing. Their standard of ‘success’ isn’t number of infected or deaths but whether or not their medical system gets overwhelmed.
If they don’t reach capacity on hospital beds or equipment, they’re saying that’s good enough. That sounds a bit callous, but it’s not entirely meritless. We’ve got the same arguments going on in the US about the balance of the economy vs overall health, though we have much less prep work. Sweden has already set up tent hospitals and expanded testing, equipment, and ICU capacity to a greater degree than we have, i.e. there would likely be less push back in the US to opening things up if we also did those things.
Of course, that depends on Sweden’s ability to stay within the capacity of their medical system. If they get to or beyond 100%, that’s a clear failure point, and they’ll rightly be castigated for experimenting with their citizens’ lives. If they don’t, they have a strong argument for their strategy, albeit one that couldn’t be replicated everywhere else and one that literally does put a price on people’s lives. That first point is important. Sweden relies on its citizens trusting the advice of its government and voluntarily following guidelines, which clearly hasn’t happened in several other countries, including much of the US.
I’d add that I have not ready anyone here arguing that Sweden’s way is better … just not accepting as a given that it is for sure worse. It might end up being.
It still remains to be seen, and what it informs for the rest of us if their approach ends up not being a disaster (or maybe even saves lives lost in aggregate over the entire course including in a Fall wave and due to economic fallout) will be open for discussion.
