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I respectfully submit, that what does or does not constitute being "disastrous", is subjective.
They've lost about 6000 people out of a population of 10 million.
Roughly equivalent to Georgia in the U.S. Although at the current rates of mortality, Georgia will soon eclipse it. Not great but not the worst, at 57 deaths per 100k. Spain, Italy, and the UK were worse. Sweden's death rate per 100k is on par with the U.S.
It's unclear if their approach will be any better in the long run. They took the herd immunity approach to try and spare their economy, but like everywhere their unemployment is worse than 2008 levels.
When people talk about Sweden, the leave out that Sweden did ban all gatherings of 50+ and engaged in a massive informational campaign about how covid is spread, and how to flatten the curve through social distancing, etc... And they complied.
Sweden's population has taken social distancing quite seriously. To the extent that they practically had a slef-imposed lockdown for a couple months.
Swedish bloggers have posted pictures of their deserted streets in April. Pictures of Swedish schools show the kids respecting distance, nothing like the crowded halls of American schools.
That's how they've avoided a disastrous breakout without official lockdowns. Their population does not engage in same foolishness ours does, with our frat parties and motorcycle rallies that we consider it our God-given right to engage in, no matter the cost.
Disagree pretty firmly with this flavor of epistemology. You're basically saying "they got good results, therefore they must have distanced better than us".
The evidence you're citing - bloggers and photos - is random and spotty. "Discovering" facts/trends of reality according to what amounts to situational anecdotes is a bad idea. You're giving undue weight to photos that bolster the conclusion you favored. What would happen if a bunch of equally spotty and random photos showed people in Sweden not "obeying"? How do you know this didn't happen, and just never turned into photos that got shared online?
Rather than anecdotes, we must use data. Google mobility data is a sound proxy for deltas in social activity and it tells a pretty compelling story. Compared to its own regular baseline, Sweden certainly did alter its social behavior... but less so than most other countries - including us brash, uncouth rascals here in the U.S.! (Check the "mobility by country excluding parks" chart if you don't believe me.)
What does this tell you? Well, look, it doesn't say that self-imposed social distancing played no role. It just tells you that the degree of self-imposed behavioral change was less acute than the degree in the U.S.
Sweden's mistake, as you allude to later, was in its poor protection of nursing homes. Regions that got hit early on all flubbed this. It's a common sin - and it's not like it's one that lockdowns would have averted, since NY/NJ/CT/MA all transmogrified into Alcatraz and still had the same disastrous result in nursing homes. Take that away and you have a country that's basically par for the course with the rest of the world - in fact, Sweden's overall YTD mortality (I am not making this up or being cavalier) is about on par with a bad flu year.
That's how they've avoided a disastrous breakout without official lockdowns. Their population does not engage in same foolishness ours does, with our frat parties and motorcycle rallies that we consider it our God-given right to engage in, no matter the cost.
don’t forget protests where most people have their masks over their chins.
Disagree pretty firmly with this flavor of epistemology. You're basically saying "they got good results, therefore they must have distanced better than us".
The evidence you're citing - bloggers and photos - is random and spotty. "Discovering" facts/trends of reality according to what amounts to situational anecdotes is a bad idea. You're giving undue weight to photos that bolster the conclusion you favored. What would happen if a bunch of equally spotty and random photos showed people in Sweden not "obeying"? How do you know this didn't happen, and just never turned into photos that got shared online?
Rather than anecdotes, we must use data. Google mobility data is a sound proxy for deltas in social activity and it tells a pretty compelling story. Compared to its own regular baseline, Sweden certainly did alter its social behavior... but less so than most other countries - including us brash, uncouth rascals here in the U.S.! (Check the "mobility by country excluding parks" chart if you don't believe me.)
What does this tell you? Well, look, it doesn't say that self-imposed social distancing played no role. It just tells you that the degree of self-imposed behavioral change was less acute than the degree in the U.S.
Sweden's mistake, as you allude to later, was in its poor protection of nursing homes. Regions that got hit early on all flubbed this. It's a common sin - and it's not like it's one that lockdowns would have averted, since NY/NJ/CT/MA all transmogrified into Alcatraz and still had the same disastrous result in nursing homes. Take that away and you have a country that's basically par for the course with the rest of the world - in fact, Sweden's overall YTD mortality (I am not making this up or being cavalier) is about on par with a bad flu year.
My takeaway from the nursing home problems around the world is that nursing homes are not particularly good things for old people
School either. I've been wondering if we need it at all.
In fact, much of our frustration is due to the fact that covid has messed up our nornal routine of shipping our parents to old folks homes and our kids to school so the adults can leave the house empty & go to work all day. Now that we actually have to be around our families, people are upset.
My takeaway from the nursing home problems around the world is that nursing homes are not particularly good things for old people
School either. I've been wondering if we need it at all.
In fact, much of our frustration is due to the fact that covid has messed up our nornal routine of shipping our parents to old folks homes and our kids to school so the adults can leave the house empty & go to work all day. Now that we actually have to be around our families, people are upset.
Yeah, this, I agree with without hesitation. (Well, school isn't something I'm ready to toss out with the bathwater, but it certainly can have its ups and downs.)
Nursing homes, like a lot of things, are jury-rigged to be either really great or really terrible. You'd think it depends on how well you can pay into the system, but even that's mediated by a little luck of the draw.
When we were chatting about nursing home risk factors (why was the virus able to spread so easily?) and my wife casually mentioned that residents having roommates isn't uncommon, I was stunned. I suspect a lot of people are like me, comfortably ignorant of these realities until you have direct family brush up against them. Learning that fact, alone, left me confounded and flabbergasted ala Steve Martin at how much energy we're throwing away on social media mask vigilantism when we have such obvious, nefarious low-hanging fruit right in front of our faces.
Granted most facilities (one hopes!) would temporarily separate roommate residents during a pandemic. But hard ceilings seem to remain for LTCs where it comes to physical space (for separating by risk factors), equipment (to prevent potentially contaminated items traveling from resident to resident), and staff (it's common for staff to work at different homes on different days).
It would take a lot of money to address these factors, and yet we could've surely done it for a fraction of the cost of furloughing an entire country for months on end. Why didn't we? Well, it would carry a financial cost, but also a psychological one - the cost of lifting up the lid and peeking inside at how cavalierly we treat our elderly.
Yeah, this, I agree with without hesitation. (Well, school isn't something I'm ready to toss out with the bathwater, but it certainly can have its ups and downs.)
Nursing homes, like a lot of things, are jury-rigged to be either really great or really terrible. You'd think it depends on how well you can pay into the system, but even that's mediated by a little luck of the draw.
When we were chatting about nursing home risk factors (why was the virus able to spread so easily?) and my wife casually mentioned that residents having roommates isn't uncommon, I was stunned. I suspect a lot of people are like me, comfortably ignorant of these realities until you have direct family brush up against them. Learning that fact, alone, left me confounded and flabbergasted ala Steve Martin at how much energy we're throwing away on social media mask vigilantism when we have such obvious, nefarious low-hanging fruit right in front of our faces.
Granted most facilities (one hopes!) would temporarily separate roommate residents during a pandemic. But hard ceilings seem to remain for LTCs where it comes to physical space (for separating by risk factors), equipment (to prevent potentially contaminated items traveling from resident to resident), and staff (it's common for staff to work at different homes on different days).
It would take a lot of money to address these factors, and yet we could've surely done it for a fraction of the cost of furloughing an entire country for months on end. Why didn't we? Well, it would carry a financial cost, but also a psychological one - the cost of lifting up the lid and peeking inside at how cavalierly we treat our elderly.
I've visited a number of nursing homes. The nice ones are pretty nice, but they cost something like 100k a year to live in.
The "normal" ones are generally how you describe. The elderly in them were not mistreated, but not treated particulaly well l either, and yes many shared kind of hospital-room like living quarters. They generally had cafeteria style eating, shared bathrooms and the residents are herded together for social time. Easy to see how a virus can spread.
I've visited a number of nursing homes. The nice ones are pretty nice, but they cost something like 100k a year to live in.
The "normal" ones are generally how you describe. The elderly in them were not mistreated, but not treated particulaly well l either, and yes many shared kind of hospital-room like living quarters. They generally had cafeteria style eating, shared bathrooms and the residents are herded together for social time. Easy to see how a virus can spread.
I hadn't even thought about shared bathrooms, those arguably might be worse than shared bedrooms because of the higher traffic.
Short of being able to just dump a couple truckloads of cash onto making these less ethically dubious, I don't even know how you begin to solve the problem.
Since I can't breath easily in a mask no matter how thin for more than 20 minutes or so I'm done as soon as COVID is no more deadly than a seasonal flu, even a bad one. I wasn't made to have my face covered and my breathing restricted. I need to breath cool air and not have something covering my skin. If I get it, and/or become immune to it, I won't wear one either.
Yes, I have hard enough time breathing without a mask. When I wear a mask and have trouble breathing then when I inhale the mask goes up against my nose and goes into my mouth, smothering and choking me. The harder I have to try to breathe the more the mask goes into my mouth. I end up gasping more and more for air. I can only mitigate it slightly by keeping my nose uncovered and trying to do more breathing with my nose, but that only helps some. I am still having trouble breathing. The mask doesn't taste good, either.
When I wear a mask with elastic it breaks out my skin as well. Sometimes the allergic reaction triggers an asthma attack.
Yes, I have hard enough time breathing without a mask. When I wear a mask and have trouble breathing then when I inhale the mask goes up against my nose and goes into my mouth, smothering and choking me. The harder I have to try to breathe the more the mask goes into my mouth. I end up gasping more and more for air. I can only mitigate it slightly by keeping my nose uncovered and trying to do more breathing with my nose, but that only helps some. I am still having trouble breathing. The mask doesn't taste good, either.
When I wear a mask with elastic it breaks out my skin as well. Sometimes the allergic reaction triggers an asthma attack.
Would a doctor confirm this?
How about a shield?
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