
Which countries have protected both health and the economy in the pandemic? - _Microft
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy
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bartelby
I don’t think I’d agree with the author’s characterization of the data. The
graphs don’t seem to show any obvious trends, really. If anything, the graphs
show how wildly variable the virus’ impact can be even among countries with
similar economic and demographic profiles.

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SpicyLemonZest
I'm not sure I agree with the source article's characterization of its data.
There have to be confounding factors, given how widely the GDP impact varies
among countries with similar death rates. So a negative correlation across
countries doesn't demonstrate that individual countries don't face tradeoffs.

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rehman
Quite fascinating, no India our there. India is worst affected, both Covid
wise and economy wise. Worst mismanagement of all time.

~~~
jbergens
Agree India should have been included. But they measured deaths per capita and
I think India is still very low on that scale.

Could be more interesting to include both deaths and hospitalized or do
another comparison but then include all void-19 cases in each country.

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ergl
Like other commenters pointed out, I think it's important to look at the
economy of each country. Spain's GDP, for example, heavily relies on tourism
(12%, according to official sources [1]), with most of that happening during
the summer. Almost no one is traveling to Spain right now, so you could expect
almost a 12% drop in GDP. That's a big chunk of the 22% drop you see in the
chart.

[1]:
[https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=estadist...](https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/en/operacion.htm?c=estadistica_C&cid=1254736169169&menu=ultiDatos&idp=1254735576863)

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dwd
Australia's not shown but it's been mostly business as usual apart from the
tourism industry and brick&mortar retail which have been basket cases for
years.

Peak contraction was something like 16% in April during the main lockdown and
had rebounded back to year-on-year growth by June. Some industries like home
renovation have been booming.

Queensland in particular with an equivalent population to New Zealand still
only has 6 fatalities.

~~~
DarthGhandi
Australia spent $200bn within the space of a few months on direct welfare
handouts alone, retailers selling imported junk are now giving out special
dividends to investors like it's the peak of an economic boom.

It's yet to be shown they've handled the economic side well and I doubt
history will judge the fiscal response positively.

That's a lot of wasted opportunity with regards to infrastructure spending.
The National Broadband Network in comparison cost $40bn and estimates for an
East coast high speed rail network from Brisbane to Melbourne came out at just
over $100bn by infrastructure Australia and was deemed much too expensive to
proceed by both sides of politics despite having a valid ROI business case
drawn up.

~~~
dwd
More like $101 billion to date (over 6 months).

They announced 130bn initially, then revised that down by 60 due to an
accounting error. I think there was need for an additional 15bn with Victoria
going back into lockdown and some other extensions.

Probably well spent as any money you give directly to workers quickly
circulates back into the economy. There's no trickle down, but it definitely
floats to the top.

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BXLE_1-1-BitIs1
I am reminded of Switzerland before WWII. They read the German newspapers and
listened to German radio and were well attuned to the Nazi threat. By making
Switzerland too tough a nut to crack, they prevented invasion: something no
other bordering state accomplished.

Taiwan is in a similar situation with the colossus next door. The disease
threat from China is well understood in Taiwan and they took effective
measures with the first rumblings from Wuhan. Masks and partitions were
mandated and supplied. Suspected contacts were put up in hotels to prevent
familial transmission. The quarantined people were supplied with food and a
stipend and visited frequently to ensure their needs were taken care of.

The CDC had attachés stationed in the US embassy in Beijing until Trump cut
their budget.

Canada had a respected emergent disease monitoring service that got neutered
by being put under the thumb of bureaucrats.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
> By making Switzerland too tough a nut to crack

I remember reading that most "oligarchs" in Germany and other parts of Europe
had their interests there, and for that reason Hitler didn't want to mess with
it.

I'm not sure Switzerland would have been "too tough" for the German army
otherwise.

~~~
gumby
This was part of their defense (and there is no sarcasm intended in this
comment). It was a true defense in depth, from mining the tunnels and arming
the citizenry to diplomatic efforts to make themselves not worth invading (or
conversely, worth leaving alone).

Similar strategies are adopted in nature, both by animals and plants.

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anoncake
Is the pandemic over? Because if it isn't, there is no way to tell yet.

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slaw
Sweden and Belarus

~~~
mcrae
Did you read the article? Or are you just regurgitating to Fox News talking
points?

Sweden - on both health and economic measures - has fared nearly as worse as
the United States (read: not great).

~~~
slaw
I have no idea what Fox News says, I used Wikipedia. Sweden did very good.
Take a look at 'All-cause daily deaths 2015–2020'

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden)

~~~
IvyMike
Please read the article; it covers this. And as for your link--Sweden doesn't
fare that well in contrast to some of its neighbors, and isn't really a
standout case.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Sweden is doong better than almost all places now .

It has single digit death rates.

It's basically done with Covid.

Which neighbors are you referring too?

~~~
IvyMike
Let's say Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway. If ONLY THERE WAS AN ARTICLE
SOMEWHERE THAT COVERED THIS.

> Notice too that countries with similar falls in GDP have witnessed very
> different death rates. For instance, compare the US and Sweden with Denmark
> and Poland. All four countries saw economic contractions of around 8 to 9
> percent, but the death rates are markedly different: the US and Sweden have
> recorded 5 to 10 times more deaths per million.

I'm not trying to "demonize" Sweden, but the poster above is trying to imply
that Sweden is some kind of exceptionally good case. By the metrics I can see,
it's not that either.

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panpanna
Two important notes on Sweden:

1\. Its economy relies heavily on export. When the rest of the world do bad,
Swedish economy does bad too.

2\. It has been argued that Sweden has a very odd definition of covid deaths:
if you had it when you died, you died of covid. Two recent studies showed that
only 15% of those who "died of covid" actually died because of covid.

This might explain their very high death rate at care homes...

Edit: haven't read the studies and can't find them right now so don't quote me
on that.

~~~
teclordphrack2
"2\. It has been argued that Sweden has a very odd definition of covid deaths:
if you had it when you died, you died of covid. Two recent studies showed that
only 15% of those who "died of covid" actually died because of covid."

You are wrong. You are making the same lie that those in the usa are making
when they try to claim that of 180,000 dead only 6% actually died of covid and
the rest died with covid.

You die of covid when you die with fluid in your lungs of pneumonia. You die
of covid when you get in a wreck and they have to take you to the next county
over skipping the two hospitals that are overcrowded with covid patients. You
die of covid when your heart gives out or you have respiratory failure. One
thing causes the others and leads to the death.

Quit being ignorant or blatantly lying.

A source would help to make me fill like an idiot. Please make me feel like an
idiot and have a source.

~~~
ksaj
Indeed this reminds me of how they characterize dying "of old age." That
nearly always means heart attack. Sometimes it means some other organ failure,
and often it is connected to a cancer. But "old age" it is. Even though it
could have been any one of dozens of conditions. It is often hard to tell
whether those conditions are what killed them, or whether they aggravated a
different condition enough to make that condition kill them.

I think a lot of the issue with Covid is deciding whether or not to label the
deaths in that same manner. Some countries do. Others don't. And they'll
probably never agree which one is right.

