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We now know the result of Sweden’s COVID-19 gamble

So the pandemic is over? Because the pandemic must be over to judge whether it worked or not.

The article only states that they have a higher volume of deaths per capita.

Do they have a higher volume of cases per capita also? If so it would mean they are closer to the finish line, so of course they have spent a little more gas.

And if herd immunity isn’t possible, because you can get the virus multiple times, then all quarantining is pointless as it would never end. So feck it
 
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BUST.

Per million, Sweden has suffered 40% more deaths than the U.S.

https://news.yahoo.com/sweden-becom...IKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard&.tsrc=newsroom

Serious question for you Harry, how does one conclude that Sweden's policy was any worse when EU countries that took drastic measures (Belgium, UK, Italy, Spain) still have higher deaths per million?

Is case fatality an important or worthwhile metric? If so, Sweden's 7.4% is materially lower than many other EU countries.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
 
Serious question for you Harry, how does one conclude that Sweden's policy was any worse when EU countries that took drastic measures (Belgium, UK, Italy, Spain) still have higher deaths per million?

Is case fatality an important or worthwhile metric? If so, Sweden's 7.4% is materially lower than many other EU countries.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

Seems to me, with that information, Sweden’s approach is the way to go. Instead of slowly and painstakingly removing the bandaid they just said to hell with, rip it off and get it over with
 
Seems to me, with that information, Sweden’s approach is the way to go. Instead of slowly and painstakingly removing the bandaid they just said to hell with, rip it off and get it over with

SK, but using your logic about measuring success only after the pandemic is over, how do we know herd immunity is the way to go?
 
SK, but using your logic about measuring success only after the pandemic is over, how do we know herd immunity is the way to go?

You mean striving for herd immunity, foregoing lockdown?

We don’t KNOW anything as the definitive solution.

Sweden’s policy seems to me to be the way to go, bet they are done with this before the rest of us
 
Y
Sweden’s policy seems to me to be the way to go, bet they are done with this before the rest of us

No, Pick any among New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Germany, and maybe others for "the way to go". Fewer deaths, fewer cases, and back to some degree of normalcy. Many different strategies involved, but common threads are lots of mask wearing, lots of testing and tracing early (except for Japan), and strict quarantines of positives and those exposed and awaiting results.
 
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You mean striving for herd immunity, foregoing lockdown?

We don’t KNOW anything as the definitive solution.

Sweden’s policy seems to me to be the way to go, bet they are done with this before the rest of us

Sorta agree.

Just hope when all the smoke clears, the country can reach some agreement on how to deal with a future attack either by nature or an enemy.
 
No, Pick any among New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Germany, and maybe others for "the way to go". Fewer deaths, fewer cases, and back to some degree of normalcy. Many different strategies involved, but common threads are lots of mask wearing, lots of testing and tracing early (except for Japan), and strict quarantines of positives and those exposed and awaiting results.

Ehhhh maybe in the short term those countries look the best....but if it is possible to build immunity to the virus, won’t they just be delaying the inevitable?

Banking on an effective vaccine is one way to go, but I believe it will be years, if ever, before a truly effective vaccine hits the shelves
 
Sorta agree.

Just hope when all the smoke clears, the country can reach some agreement on how to deal with a future attack either by nature or an enemy.

Only way they aren’t done before the rest of us is two ways

1. A miracle vaccine is produced

2. Immunity to the virus isn’t possible or is short lives, resulting in the same person being infected multiple times

If 2 happens, we are all ****ed
 
Ehhhh maybe in the short term those countries look the best....but if it is possible to build immunity to the virus, won’t they just be delaying the inevitable?

You don't build immunity without in the neighborhood of 75% of the population having had the virus or having taken a vaccine. So 15% having had the virus is not a whole lot better than 5% having had the virus. So... no, they aren't buiding immunity by being reckless, they are just letting more people die.

One of the vaccines will work, by mid-2021. There are so many shots on goal. The worst case scenario would probably be a fast-waning neutralizing antibody response, thus requiring COVID-19 vaccine boosters every few years, or maybe even every year.
 
You don't build immunity without in the neighborhood of 75% of the population having had the virus or having taken a vaccine. So 15% having had the virus is not a whole lot better than 5% having had the virus. So... no, they aren't buiding immunity by being reckless, they are just letting more people die.

One of the vaccines will work, by mid-2021. There are so many shots on goal. The worst case scenario would probably be a fast-waning neutralizing antibody response, thus requiring COVID-19 vaccine boosters every few years, or maybe even every year.

but as more and more people get it, without measures in place to mitigate, won’t it spread exponentially? Speeding up to that 75% market faster and faster, I’ve read 50% btw

I’m not so sure a vaccine will exist, still nothing for the cold and the flu vaccine is anything but a lead pipe lock
 
The worst case scenario would probably be a fast-waning neutralizing antibody response, thus requiring COVID-19 vaccine boosters every few years, or maybe even every year.
Is there any reason this couldn't be incorporated into the annual flu shot many (most?) people get? Or perhaps just getting the Covid shot along with the routine flu shot?
 
w

I’m not so sure a vaccine will exist, still nothing for the cold and the flu vaccine is anything but a lead pipe lock

Even trying to develop a colds vaccine has never been worth it, since it kills nobody and there are >100 strains of cold viruses that are rapidly mutating.

The flu vaccine in never a lock only because the vaccine is developed in advanced based upon guesswork as to what the next dominant seasonal flu strain will be. They never guess 100% right, often come close, and occasionally miss by a lot.

AIDS vaccines have been hampered by the fact that it is a oddball virus (retrovirus) that evades immune surveillance.

There is no mystery about what the target is here, with COVID-19. The open question is the robustness of the immume response. Will you need a yearly booster? Every 3 years? Every 10 years? We aren't going to know for a long time, even after vaccinations are available.

i was just reading about some of the logistical problems that are non-technical. For example, we are going to need billions of glass vials, billions of syringes, billions of needles, and all of the current manufacturers of these items lack the capacity to produce anywhere near that much.
 
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You don't build immunity without in the neighborhood of 75% of the population having had the virus or having taken a vaccine. So 15% having had the virus is not a whole lot better than 5% having had the virus. So... no, they aren't buiding immunity by being reckless, they are just letting more people die.

One of the vaccines will work, by mid-2021. There are so many shots on goal. The worst case scenario would probably be a fast-waning neutralizing antibody response, thus requiring COVID-19 vaccine boosters every few years, or maybe even every year.

Along with Mark's question, is the vaccine going to be measles good (even if for a year) or flu good. In other words, might we get a COVID vaccine in May and by July the CDC announces they missed and the vaccine is marginal?

Listening to the vaccine issues makes me think treatment is the more likely game changer. The steroid find is a good start toward that.
 
Along with Mark's question, is the vaccine going to be measles good (even if for a year) or flu good. In other words, might we get a COVID vaccine in May and by July the CDC announces they missed and the vaccine is marginal?

Listening to the vaccine issues makes me think treatment is the more likely game changer. The steroid find is a good start toward that.
The Sar-Cov2 mutation rate is not particularly high, so it ought to be like the measles or chicken pox vaccines, very precise, with a highly-defined target. The flu vaccine lacks precision because of the huge number of flu strains that might possibly dominate a seasonal flu outbreak. Not a well-defined target at all.
 
Even trying to develop a colds vaccine has never been worth it, since it kills nobody and there are >100 strains of cold viruses that are rapidly mutating.

The flu vaccine in never a lock only because the vaccine is developed in advanced based upon guesswork as to what the next dominant seasonal flu strain will be. They never guess 100% right, often come close, and occasionally miss by a lot.

AIDS vaccines have been hampered by the fact that it is a oddball virus (retrovirus) that evades immune surveillance.

There is no mystery about what the target is here, with COVID-19. The open question is the robustness of the immume response. Will you need a yearly booster? Every 3 years? Every 10 years? We aren't going to know for a long time, even after vaccinations are available.

i was just reading about some of the logistical problems that are non-technical. For example, we are going to need billions of glass vials, billions of syringes, billions of needles, and all of the current manufacturers of these items lack the capacity to produce anywhere near that much.

good answer, I learned something

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Herd immunity is only a positive outcome of it arrives via vaccine. I don't know why some people still have difficulty with this.

The US population is 328 million. The lowest possible herd immunity is 70%, so that would be 229,600,000 infected Americans. Our current mortality rate is 4.5%. Let's go crazy and say we can lower that to 2%. That means 4,592,000 Americans die to get herd immunity IF even herd immunity is possible.
 
The US population is 328 million. The lowest possible herd immunity is 70%, so that would be 229,600,000 infected Americans. Our current mortality rate is 4.5%. Let's go crazy and say we can lower that to 2%. That means 4,592,000 Americans die to get herd immunity IF even herd immunity is possible.
Except our mortality rate wouldn’t be 4.5% but I don’t believe herd immunity should be the goal.

to properly estimate mortality rates you’d have to do it by age ranges and the current trended rates of the mortality by those ages. It’s likely well below 2%.
 
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Another poster and I got into this discussion on the Purdue board last week. To prove my point, I went into a comparative study between Sweden and Arizona.

Population:
Arizona: ~7.5 mil
Sweden ~10 mil

Population density (A rather important statistic and the reason I picked Arizona for the comparison):
About the same for both ~65 ppl / sq. mile

Noteworthy about population density:
Both populations have 1 major city (Stockholm / Phoenix) where over 50% of the population lives in the greater metro area of that city.

# of cases:
Arizona: 108,614
Sweden: 73,858

Testing per capita:
Arizona: ~113,000 per mil pop
Sweden: ~59,000 per mil

Deaths:
Arizona: 1963 (270 per mil)
Sweden: 5482 (543 per mil)

So what you end up with is two similar populations, two similar population densities, likely similar number of cases (considering that Arizona is testing at a rate double that of Sweden), and yet Sweden has double the amount of deaths. One would think that based upon these numbers, Arizona is going to achieve "herd immunity" in a similar or even better timeframe than Sweden is and yet Arizona is only suffering half the deaths. Therefore I would conclude that Sweden picked a bad strategy.
 
The US population is 328 million. The lowest possible herd immunity is 70%, so that would be 229,600,000 infected Americans. Our current mortality rate is 4.5%. Let's go crazy and say we can lower that to 2%. That means 4,592,000 Americans die to get herd immunity IF even herd immunity is possible.

The true mortality rate on this thing isn’t 4% or even 2%
 
BUST.

Per million, Sweden has suffered 40% more deaths than the U.S.

https://news.yahoo.com/sweden-becom...IKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard&.tsrc=newsroom
First, the difference in per capita deaths has dropped to ~33% (543 per 1M in Sweden vs. 406 per 1M in the U.S.).
Also, New York and New Jersey has had 3 times as many deaths per capita as Sweden. Connecticut and Massachusetts 2 times as many deaths per capita as Sweden. Nine states in total have had more deaths than Sweden, and two others about the same as Sweden.

More importantly, given the current trajectories of the two countries, it is likely that U.S. deaths per capita will exceed Sweeden's. Over the last 7 days, deaths in Sweden have averaged ~3 per day. In the U.S. it's been 556 per day. In other words, our deaths per capita are currently almost 6 TIMES that of Sweden. Now, things could change, but I'm not sure Sweden has been that much worse than the U.S. (In part because contrary to what many continue to believe, Sweden did not continue on with business as usual. They absolutely did not.)

Having said that, anyone who thinks Sweden will reach herd immunity (before the U.S. or otherwise) is delusional. Sweden is not "closer to the finish line." Hell, we have 30% more cases per capita than Sweden, albeit with twice as many tests per capita. Come, say, August, it is highly likely that the U.S. will have had a higher number of people per capita that had the virus than in Sweden. Of course neither country will ever be even remotely close to so-called "herd immunity" without an effective vaccine. Herd immunity, especially for a virus like Covid-19 that is easily transmitted, requires well over 50% of the population (probably >70%) be immune to the virus. Unless you throw Covid parties and are willing to put up with millions of deaths, it ain't happening. It would be criminal for any politician or government official to try to put us on a path towards herd immunity.

In other words, and to no one in particular here, wear a ****ing mask, dipshit.
 
Another poster and I got into this discussion on the Purdue board last week. To prove my point, I went into a comparative study between Sweden and Arizona.

Population:
Arizona: ~7.5 mil
Sweden ~10 mil

Population density (A rather important statistic and the reason I picked Arizona for the comparison):
About the same for both ~65 ppl / sq. mile

Noteworthy about population density:
Both populations have 1 major city (Stockholm / Phoenix) where over 50% of the population lives in the greater metro area of that city.

# of cases:
Arizona: 108,614
Sweden: 73,858

Testing per capita:
Arizona: ~113,000 per mil pop
Sweden: ~59,000 per mil

Deaths:
Arizona: 1963 (270 per mil)
Sweden: 5482 (543 per mil)

So what you end up with is two similar populations, two similar population densities, likely similar number of cases (considering that Arizona is testing at a rate double that of Sweden), and yet Sweden has double the amount of deaths. One would think that based upon these numbers, Arizona is going to achieve "herd immunity" in a similar or even better timeframe than Sweden is and yet Arizona is only suffering half the deaths. Therefore I would conclude that Sweden picked a bad strategy.
Give it time. Arizona will catch up. Over the last 7 days Arizona has averaged 42 deaths per day - Sweden ~3. Given these trends, Arizona will pass Sweden in deaths per capita by the end of August. Of course given that cases and deaths are rising in Arizona (over 100 yesterday) it will likely pass Sweden even sooner.

Yes, Sweden did pick a bad strategy, especially when compared to its neighbors. They ended up with a lot more deaths and an economy that is still greatly depressed.

One could argue that we initially picked a better strategy. Unfortunately, however, we not only gave up on that strategy too soon, way too many dumbasses refused to follow the strategy - or even common sense.
 
First, the difference in per capita deaths has dropped to ~33% (543 per 1M in Sweden vs. 406 per 1M in the U.S.).
Also, New York and New Jersey has had 3 times as many deaths per capita as Sweden. Connecticut and Massachusetts 2 times as many deaths per capita as Sweden. Nine states in total have had more deaths than Sweden, and two others about the same as Sweden.

More importantly, given the current trajectories of the two countries, it is likely that U.S. deaths per capita will exceed Sweeden's. Over the last 7 days, deaths in Sweden have averaged ~3 per day. In the U.S. it's been 556 per day. In other words, our deaths per capita are currently almost 6 TIMES that of Sweden. Now, things could change, but I'm not sure Sweden has been that much worse than the U.S. (In part because contrary to what many continue to believe, Sweden did not continue on with business as usual. They absolutely did not.)

Having said that, anyone who thinks Sweden will reach herd immunity (before the U.S. or otherwise) is delusional. Sweden is not "closer to the finish line." Hell, we have 30% more cases per capita than Sweden, albeit with twice as many tests per capita. Come, say, August, it is highly likely that the U.S. will have had a higher number of people per capita that had the virus than in Sweden. Of course neither country will ever be even remotely close to so-called "herd immunity" without an effective vaccine. Herd immunity, especially for a virus like Covid-19 that is easily transmitted, requires well over 50% of the population (probably >70%) be immune to the virus. Unless you throw Covid parties and are willing to put up with millions of deaths, it ain't happening. It would be criminal for any politician or government official to try to put us on a path towards herd immunity.

In other words, and to no one in particular here, wear a ****ing mask, dipshit.
I agree with most of this. It should also be noted that:
New York: 413 ppl / sq. mi (with NYC being 27,000 ppl / sq mi), 1618 deaths per mil pop
New Jersey: 1215 ppl / sq mi, 1702 deaths per mil pop
Connecticut: 736 ppl / sq mi, 1211 deaths per mil pop
Massachusetts: 894 ppl / sq mi, 1169 deaths per mil pop.

As I stated above, population density is also a huge factor in how the quickly the virus spreads. As time has gone by, we have been developing treatments and identifying cases earlier, which is a large part of why the mortality rates have been falling. The virus spread more quickly through the states above due to population density (and some stupidity), so the mortality rate was higher earlier in those areas. The mortality rate in New York going forward is only going to go down (unless there is a massive spike again).
 
Except our mortality rate wouldn’t be 4.5% but I don’t believe herd immunity should be the goal.

to properly estimate mortality rates you’d have to do it by age ranges and the current trended rates of the mortality by those ages. It’s likely well below 2%.

If we assume the 10 people have it for every one that is reported, we are down to a death total of a million. That is at .45%. And given it appears antibodies are short lived, that number will keep growing though admittedly at a lower rate. But we still don't have herd immunity because the antibodies are short lived.
 
If we assume the 10 people have it for every one that is reported, we are down to a death total of a million. That is at .45%. And given it appears antibodies are short lived, that number will keep growing though admittedly at a lower rate. But we still don't have herd immunity because the antibodies are short lived.
Correct. Keep in mind, however, that immunity does not necessarily require the presence of antibodies. T-cell mediated immunity is also possible. In fact, some scientists have theorized that the reason some people have little or no symptoms after being exposed/infected is that a past exposure to other coronaviruses gave them some level of immunity due to their T-cells. In fact, there is a recent paper from Karolinska (Sweden's version of a Mayo Clinic) suggests that 30% or more Swedes may have Covid-19 specific T-cells. (But that still ain't getting them to herd immunity.)

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...gher-than-previously-thought-study-finds.aspx
 
I agree with most of this. It should also be noted that:
New York: 413 ppl / sq. mi (with NYC being 27,000 ppl / sq mi), 1618 deaths per mil pop
New Jersey: 1215 ppl / sq mi, 1702 deaths per mil pop
Connecticut: 736 ppl / sq mi, 1211 deaths per mil pop
Massachusetts: 894 ppl / sq mi, 1169 deaths per mil pop.

As I stated above, population density is also a huge factor in how the quickly the virus spreads. As time has gone by, we have been developing treatments and identifying cases earlier, which is a large part of why the mortality rates have been falling. The virus spread more quickly through the states above due to population density (and some stupidity), so the mortality rate was higher earlier in those areas. The mortality rate in New York going forward is only going to go down (unless there is a massive spike again).
No disagreement from me. I especially agree with your belief that deaths are down because we have better protocols for treatment.
 
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