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The Virus - Are You Affected?

Jokodo said:
Sweden is number 8 globally in deaths per million population (not counting small states and territories below 100k inhabitants), despite its low population density and despite a populace happy to obey recommendations, as you claim. And unlike other countries ahead on this list, it's not clear that deaths in Sweden have plateaued. I find I'm having a hard time being impressed by how they handled it.
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Both Denmark and Sweden should have a higher mortality rate. They are both pursuing the herd immunity tactic. That's what they were aiming for. They both fucked up. Sweden did a better job than Denmark and therefore have more dead. By having less restrictions. I don't think you understand the herd immunity tactic and what the goals are. It's like you think that Sweden has done a worse job than Denmark somehow?

One interpretation is that they were counting on Swedes and Danes behaving like Italians, because they followed the Italian numbers. But they didn't. So the effect of the social distancing strategy was more effective than what is desireable.
 
DrZoidberg said:
Jokodo said:
Sweden is number 8 globally in deaths per million population (not counting small states and territories below 100k inhabitants), despite its low population density and despite a populace happy to obey recommendations, as you claim. And unlike other countries ahead on this list, it's not clear that deaths in Sweden have plateaued. I find I'm having a hard time being impressed by how they handled it.
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Both Denmark and Sweden should have a higher mortality rate. They are both pursuing the herd immunity tactic. That's what they were aiming for. They both fucked up. Sweden did a better job than Denmark and therefore have more dead. By having less restrictions. I don't think you understand the herd immunity tactic and what the goals are.
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I do. Do you understand what it actually implies? With a health care system as starved as the Swedish one, ensuring a constant trickle of new infections to eventually achieve natural herd immunity without overloading the system would take anywhere between 18 months and 3 years, and it would *still* result in tens of thousands of deaths, because you can't park the elderly population on Mars, and because, even as severe cases are more common in older people or people with preexisting conditions, they are not limited to them.

It's like you think that Sweden has done a worse job than Denmark somehow?
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That is indeed what I think. Denmark has realized that natural herd immunity is not a reasonable goal and appears to be somewhat successful at stomping out the current wave and taking precautions to avoid future outbreaks. Sweden not so much.
 
I would also presume that doctors could possibly get a better handle on treatment for Covid-19 as well.
 
Jokodo said:
3) Stomp on it hard so that the reproduction rate drops to significantly below 1.0 and the number of active cases is actually declining. Simultaneously expand testing infrastructure. When active cases have dropped to the hundreds (and undetected active cases have become insignificant), open up but with the handbrakes on, i.e. refrain from mass events for pretty much the rest of the year and open up the borders for e.g. family/friend visits with health checks in place but no mass tourism. If you have a very good idea who has it, it is enough to reduce the movements of those who have it. As long as you have no real idea who has it, reducing everyone's movements is the only safe bet.
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Trying that would probably cause a civil war here from all the right wing loonies who don't want to be cooped up.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Jokodo said:
3) Stomp on it hard so that the reproduction rate drops to significantly below 1.0 and the number of active cases is actually declining. Simultaneously expand testing infrastructure. When active cases have dropped to the hundreds (and undetected active cases have become insignificant), open up but with the handbrakes on, i.e. refrain from mass events for pretty much the rest of the year and open up the borders for e.g. family/friend visits with health checks in place but no mass tourism. If you have a very good idea who has it, it is enough to reduce the movements of those who have it. As long as you have no real idea who has it, reducing everyone's movements is the only safe bet.
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Trying that would probably cause a civil war here from all the right wing loonies who don't want to be cooped up.
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Speaking of the right-wing loonies, the idiots still haven't learned how to spell.

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What do you think, Halfie, of your compatriots being dumber than mudflaps?
 
DrZoidberg said:
Jokodo said:
3) Stomp on it hard so that the reproduction rate drops to significantly below 1.0 and the number of active cases is actually declining. Simultaneously expand testing infrastructure. When active cases have dropped to the hundreds (and undetected active cases have become insignificant), open up but with the handbrakes on, i.e. refrain from mass events for pretty much the rest of the year and open up the borders for e.g. family/friend visits with health checks in place but no mass tourism. If you have a very good idea who has it, it is enough to reduce the movements of those who have it. As long as you have no real idea who has it, reducing everyone's movements is the only safe bet.

If we stomp hard on it during the first wave, and if we make sure we have enough testing capacity to keep the numbers low once we've driven them down, by minimizing undetected infections to the 10s or 100s per month, then (and only then) can we return to a kind of normal that is economically viable for months or years (unless you're in tourism - tough luck!). A normal where schools operate in two shifts, a morning and an afternoon shift, to reduce class size, where the borders are open but mass tourism disencouraged, where working from home will be the default for most office jobs when no meeting is scheduled, use your imagination - but where production is up and running and you won't be scorned for visiting your friends.

The problem with your number (2) is that it sounds nice in theory, until you plug in actual numbers, like how long "doing what we do now" would have to be maintained, or how many people die along the road. When you do that, you quickly find it's simply not feasible. Sweden now has around 10,000 registered active cases. Let's assume that cases remain active for an average of 3 weeks, that the real number of cases is 10 times the official number, and that herd immunity is reached at 60%. In that case, it would take 60 3-week periods to get to herd immunity by "slowing the spread in a controlled manner". That's more than 3 years! More than three years with moderate restriction in place (they'd have to be somewhat stricter than what Sweden currently has, as the active cases are still growing), and possibly three years with 3-digit (or close) daily death counts. This. Does. Not. Work.

Stomp on it hard and test everyone with any chance of having contracted it when the numbers of active infections have become manageable works. It's what China did, and other countries seem to be on the right track: Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, Austria, maybe Czechia and Denmark.

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Stomping hard has only worked in China, South Korea and Taiwan. Why? Because they were the ONLY countries in the world who had prepared for a possible SARS like outbreak. Without adequate preparation we're fucked for stomping hard.

There's also cultural problems. China, South Korea and Taiwan are all Confucian cultures were figures of authority are respected. People are obedient and they work together. Northern Europe is similar. So we have also managed to contain the spread quite well. But we were not prepared for this. Not at all. Sweden was bizarrely unprepared, thanks to two decades of mismanagement and budget cuts to disaster preparedness. So stomping hard was not an option.

The Catholic countries don't give a fuck about what figures of authority says. They just do their own thing. The English speaking part of the world are fiercly indipendent. They're not going to obey anyone no matter what. In India the poor can't afford to obey the social distancing rules. In Africa they're doing so little testing that we have no idea what's going on. It probably isn't great. It's the same deal in the Middle-East. Syrians have other things to worry about. Russia is probably not being honest about the extent of the spread of this. China is also probably lying about numbers.

USA has a special culture of small government and trusting people to take care of themselves. That's awesome for the economy when things are nice and stable. But an absolute disaster when there's a disaster.... like now. USA is fucked. I'm sorry to say. They have the worst culture possible for tackling this. They also have the most obese people in the world. Obesity puts you at an extreme risk for the Corona virus. That's not great. So yeah... it's not going to be a good time for USA.

And not to be a hippie about this... but we're all in this together. If there's any one country in the world that doesn't play ball and manages to stomp hard then it's a wasted effort for any other country. China... a totalitarian state with a closed border, is now constantly getting new cases from people with Covid-19 travelling in from abroad. If they can't even stop it nobody will.

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also, don't look at the number of active cases. There's so much variation in how the tests are done. Only look at the number of people dead from Corona. But that isn't reliable any longer. Because in many places they've stopped testing the dead.... like France. But it's still a much better metric than active cases
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Surplus deaths (deaths now minus average deaths at this time of year, for a given time period) is probably the least worst measure to get a grip on what's actually happening. But even those figures are likely to be wrong, particularly in badly affected areas, simply because coroners, doctors, and other officials who handle deaths, have far more important things to do than collect and report statistics for the bureaucrats.
 
Crap, checked data, turned out 2 tested positive in my town. Russia is quickly catching up to the rest of the world :(
 
Jokodo said:
I do. Do you understand what it actually implies? With a health care system as starved as the Swedish one, ensuring a constant trickle of new infections to eventually achieve natural herd immunity without overloading the system would take anywhere between 18 months and 3 years, and it would *still* result in tens of thousands of deaths, because you can't park the elderly population on Mars, and because, even as severe cases are more common in older people or people with preexisting conditions, they are not limited to them.
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Both Sweden and Denmark has an over-capacity in ICU's. That means restrictions in both countries have been too rigid.

What Sweden lacks above all is personal protective gear for health workers. This means that Covid-19 has ripped through old people's homes unchecked. Whoops. These are people who often wouldn't survive even with a ventilator

Jokodo said:
It's like you think that Sweden has done a worse job than Denmark somehow?
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That is indeed what I think. Denmark has realized that natural herd immunity is not a reasonable goal and appears to be somewhat successful at stomping out the current wave and taking precautions to avoid future outbreaks. Sweden not so much.
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You're delusional. Enjoy the voices in your head
 
DrZoidberg said:
Both Sweden and Denmark has an over-capacity in ICU's. That means restrictions in both countries have been too rigid.

What Sweden lacks above all is personal protective gear for health workers. This means that Covid-19 has ripped through old people's homes unchecked. Whoops. These are people who often wouldn't survive even with a ventilator

Jokodo said:
That is indeed what I think. Denmark has realized that natural herd immunity is not a reasonable goal and appears to be somewhat successful at stomping out the current wave and taking precautions to avoid future outbreaks. Sweden not so much.
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You're delusional. Enjoy the voices in your head
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You are delusional if you think letting it rip through three population at even slightly above current rates will be anything like fast. And I read that Sweden is now at 80% occupancy of ICU beds - after doubling the capacity they had at the beginning of the year. We're probably looking at more than 2 years with your "plan".

And that is assuming it can even work. We don't know that: we don't know that surviving an infection (almost) universally grants longterm immunity. Sure, it's a very reasonable assumption given what we know about similar viruses, but still too much of an assumption to bet 10s of thousands of Swedish lives, or tens of millions globally, on it.
 
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TSwizzle said:
ZiprHead said:
My brother returned home back to Michigan from Florida two weeks early because things were getting virus weird down there.
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It's getting a bit weird in Michigan from what I’ve seen in the news.
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If you are in a city, yes, it's getting very weird. My brother however lives two miles from the nearest paved road and his neighbors (which he cannot even see unless he drives by) are mostly summer cottages and homes. His and his wife's entire existence is social distancing.
 
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