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Sweden Update
For those who may not recall, Sweden did not shut down. They kept schools and businesses and restaurants open, encouraging only those at risk to quarantine. So… how are they doing?
It definitely looks like Sweden has stabilized. Which is excellent news for those who want to unwind the lockdowns ASAP.
Published in General
Hong Kong partial shutdown: schools still closed, limitations on how many can be in a restaurant and how big public gatherings can be. People who can work but can’t work at home go to work on the MTR wearing a mask. You can still go to the mall.
New coronavirus confirmed cases, last three days: 4, 5, 3.
The Worldometers charts are promising.
I would need to see another valley with a lower mountain than they had the 7-9 before I’d say they stabilized. Their valley on the 12th is higher and narrower than their valley from the 3-6.
Please add in the 114 deaths reported today, take two chill pills, and get back to me.
Like Gumby Mark said, their daily death count jumped from 20 yesterday to 114 today (tying their highest one-day death count). There’s likely a simple explanation: their reporting offices take off weekends and holidays (like Easter Monday, which is a national holiday in many secular European countries). Which results in the roller-coaster seen in the graphs above.
@iwe, you recently titled a post with the phrasing “…is this clean data?”
More than anything else, I’d like to convey this message: it’s possible we won’t have ANY clean data on the coronavirus epidemic for the next few weeks or even months. Why? Because population-level biomedicine is inherently messy in a way that most other “hard” sciences are not. There’s really not much more to it.
Take the Sweden example: the data fluctuates like crazy, probably because of reporting irregularities. But even if we smooth out the data by taking a 7-day average, we still get a curve that is neither clearly exploding like it did in Spain or Italy, nor clearly flattening out like it is in Spain or Germany right now. It’s some strange intermediate that we can’t confidently label as “out of the danger zone” or “just the calm before the storm”.
Adding to that murkiness, how do we define the lockdown status in Sweden? Yes, the government hasn’t officially ordered blanket stay-at-home orders. But reports both in the media and from friends living in Stockholm suggest that the streets are quieter than they have been at any point since WWII. In other words, even if their lockdown is mostly voluntary, it’s still likely much more comprehensive than we would feel comfortable with in the US.
Bottom line: any way you slice it, the data from Sweden is anything but clean. And yet it may be among the best data we have.
Instead of grasping from one straw to the next, each time asking “doesn’t this snippet of data PROVE X?”, try accepting that we might not be able to prove anything with confidence over the next month or two – but that doesn’t mean we can’t make important decisions.
Well said. I think this describes the entire last three months with this virus.
I think this is what terrifies the decision-makers. How do we make good decisions? What are good decisions? How will we measure their success? How will be be judged? I’m glad I’m not in their shoes.
Every one of these charts needs to include some number that represents the people per square mile or something. I live in the rural northwest corner of Washington State. We are doing fine up here, despite having early cases of COVID-19, and our close proximity to two major cities with flights in and out of China. Let’s open up, and way up.
But I’m not as sanguine about places like NYC.
Rejecting a one-size-fits-all approach goes both ways.
It’s probably like that all over. Looking at reports of death in my state, it goes like this for the last 2 weeks:
7 – 5 – 6 – 0 – 6 – 0 – 9 – 46 (??) – 0 – 9 – 11 – 8 – 5
I think population density will turn out to be a noticeable factor in the transmission of this disease.
Rounding off:
New York City: 27,000 per square mile
Los Angeles: 7,500 per square mile
Stockholm: 4,800 people per square mile
Wuhan: 3,200 people per square mile
Lombardy: 1,100 people per square mile
Boston: 14,000 people per square mile
Washington, DC: 11,500 people per square mile
Those numbers do not capture the much higher daytime population densities.
I think the after-event analysis and reports will find that viruses spread in crowded spaces with poor ventilation at virus-specific temperatures and humidities.
I think New York City will survive, but it will have to adopt far more stringent disinfection protocols for buildings and outdoor areas.
They wanted the job. They got it. Now’s the time for them to man up, make the best decisions they know how, and live with the political consequences.
President Trump, in his news conference made a good case for taking the actions that were taken. We can’t see the future. I had a doxy visit with my cardiologist today. He said that they have not been getting as many heart attacks lately. I have not seen any stats with regard to flu, but it seems logical to think that flu would be slowed by this.
I largely concur, except that we not just can but must make important decisions. The fact that Fauci and Xi are in accord with how they would like the United States to proceed does not necessarily mean Fauci is wrong, but a more measured approach going forward appears to be supported by the evidence. The notion that we are facing a supervirus that can survive a thousand years on a burning candle wick and can infect by air over 13 feet in a still room and we all need to douse the containers our delivered food came in in ethyl alcohol for 36 hours before we dare touch the food is patent nonsense. Otherwise, we would already have seen millions of deaths worldwide even leaving China’s blatant information warfare attempts, lying every step of the way about their virus (that only passes from animals to humans).
In passing, my disregard for PRC numbers for any serious consideration conveys to Hong Kong as well. We can argue how much they are under the thumb, but the Mandarin speaking undercover PRC troops have been an obvious force in Hong Kong since before the outbreak. And I still read of new cases of journalists deported or gone missing.
Xi is the criminal that started this, and he is the criminal with a death grip on Hong Kong.
I actually do not believe we will EVER have such clean data. The incentives and testing and protocols and reportings vary from hospital to village to city to country. But if a country has been consistent and diligent, we can probably learn something from their reporting over time.
The total death numbers are pretty objective for a Big Picture answer – is society being devastated with more deaths or not?
I am entirely fine with making decisions with imperfect data, because I understand that maintaining the status quo is ALSO making a decision.
I don’t know about better or worse outcomes proving anything, but a guy in Israel said something that I thought was interesting. He said the virus follows a similar timeline and trajectory in every country regardless of what they do. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but it was interesting. We seem to have little knowledge and less control than we suppose.
I think one area of unreported covid-19 deaths that will spike is people who died at home, without ever getting any kind of care or tests.
From an April 8 article:
It’s my guess that every community in America will find, over this spring and early summer, hundreds or even thousands of people who simply died at home rather than get help. Watching the evening news reports coming out of New York City the past month would be enough to scare anyone away from calling 9-1-1. It’s too bad they haven’t been testing these at-home deaths. It would important information, and I can’t imagine that it would pose that great a risk to the coroners to get some type of sample of blood or secretions to test for this virus or the flu.
The public health departments have been hysterical about not wanting to cause public panic. From where I sit, I think the worst panic was confined to the press and healthcare establishment. :-) There was little more reaction from the general public than buying up all the toilet paper people could find before they hunkered down in their homes. :-) But the real damage the press and public health establishment did, I think, was in scaring the heck out of the senior citizens, and that would have been deeply felt by people living alone.
Our civilization has some work to do if we want to keep our experienced, wise, and interesting 80-year-olds in our midst. :-)
I agree on all counts. In fact, I imagine if we met in person we’d see eye-to-eye on much of this.
The problem, in my view, is how this imperfect data is perceived by the rest of the world. Many people – and not just the Vox.com readers who have now replaced their portrait of the Dalai Lama on the wall with a picture of Anthony Fauci – are spooked enough that they want some modicum of scientific certainty before dropping major lockdown restrictions. And we both agree that such certainty doesn’t exist at present and may not exist in the next six months.
So the question is, how do we convince those frightened people to embrace winding back lockdowns? In my view, your (public) approach has been to oversell our confidence in the optimistic sprigs and shoots that emerge here and there. I object to that approach on both an ethical and a practical level.
The only path I see is to treat this like a massive clinical study. And part of that means providing study subjects, i.e. citizens, with “informed consent”: people need to be fully aware that they’re potentially subjecting themselves (or their elderly loved ones) to an unknown, presently unmeasurable risk. The other half of that approach is providing the best safety net we can in case the study doesn’t go as hoped. It’s a much tougher sell, but in my opinion the proper one.
Unfortunately, we can’t count on any politicians to promulgate this type of message, which means it’s up to us as individuals.
I think some decision makers are going to have to bite the bullet and do just what you’re saying. Somepeople are too frightened to consent to what they envision would be a death sentence, and they will be the loudest. We’re going to have to move ahead to save the country, economically and ultimately in terms of health, and perhaps a retrospective view afterward will provide some solace.
If we were smart, over the next six months we would set up the study we will need to have on hand next November.
We know this virus will come back again next November. The temperatures will be between 40 and 52, people’s upper respiratory tract will be dry because they will be breathing heated indoor air, and the holidays will provide the human contact that the virus needs to get started.
We should, right now, draw a research circle around an area outside of New York City. Perhaps somewhere in Connecticut that is heavily populated with Manhattan commuters. We should test everyone in that area now and every month afterward so we can actually track the spread and consequences of the disease.
Larry Kudlow has proposed following Japan in offering expense reimbursement to American companies transferring production out of the PRC. Do it! Now!
We all agree with that. Your problem is continually overstating what we know, seizing upon bits of data that you think support your case, and understating what we don’t know. Neither you nor I or anyone else know whether Sweden’s course is the right one or not. Nonetheless decisions need to be made even though a lot of the questions around this epidemic are simply unanswerable at this point.
Remember, another challenge in comparing countries is that they have different attribution methods for C19.
I vote for adopting Jewish Cleanliness laws. Because I can’t differentiate much from “because my holy book says so” and “because the science says so.”
Of course, I may come pre-loaded to accept Holy Book over Science, but this whole thing should be an exercise in how little we actually think we know.
Children have strong immune systems.
Most if not all have been asymptomatic.
Why close down schools? We need children to build herd immunity for the rest of us
public transportation: subways, trains, buses
I have a very strict no public transit policy in Los Angeles or California
One reason for the relatively high death count in NJ and CT is their proximity to NY: many people who live in NJ and CT commute to NY via train
I think that iWe has an excellent point, though the good news is a bit overstated.
The proponents of lockdowns hypothesized that the death toll would grow exponentially, to horrifying levels. The fact that we haven’t seen a shocking death toll in Sweden is an important piece of evidence contradicting that hypothesis.
It is only one piece of evidence, and should not be overemphasized. But neither should it be dismissed.
Please do not panic despite our attempts to create panic so we can force people to stay home and destroy their livelihoods.
Imperfectly calm as I type this
Stina, the overall pattern is what you would expect to have happen in any society with millions of people.
Many of us resent how these daily numbers are presented by the media. If it was not for the fact that there are larger agendas going on behind the shut down, including how the top one percent of the one percent probably shorted different industries before allowing this shut down, and for the fact that our media is a hostage to Big Pharma, we would be hearing on an hourly basis of how slam dunk stupid the “experts” on this crisis have been. (Hmm, stupid or bought and paid for?)
Remember, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who heads up WHO, did not state that COVID was a pandemic until some hours after Bill Gates donated 100 million to WHO. (So we were witnessing the bribery of a supposed international health org on a major matter – all bets are off from now on when a WHO official says anything about anything.)
We know from reading about how Germany is looking at their data collection methods, collecting the data and then analyzing the data, that this “pandemic’ is nowhere near the 3.4% that the WHO official was supposedly relying on to allow himself to state that COVID 19 is a pandemic. Rather it is most likely that the real mortality rate is some 0.1 to 0.7% of the population. (Framing this infection’s outbreak as a catastrophic situation that must be considered pandemic until there are zero deaths anywhere inside a society is simply silly — or outrageously criminal. Yet there is where we sit right now.)
If the global societies collapse across the world, due to the economy dying, what then? Does my death as a sixty something female matter only if I die from COVID? Won’t I be equally dead if I die of stress from not keeping my small business alive?
And some economists are saying a continuous shut down will lead to 20 to 30% unemployment. So if we save ten thousand people here and there due to a nation wide shut down, but then those 10,000 end up in bread lines and eventually die from malnutrition – their deaths do not matter?
Does a person’s death only matter if there is a vaccine in development for the condition for which the individual dies from?
I don’t dismiss it, although I’d prefer the chart be amended to show the 114 number cited above. My issue from the start of these references to Swedish data is why there is any sense that what goes on in Sweden has applicability to what goes on here, given the rather obvious differences between the two countries.