
Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued - smallgovt
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866
======
Marazan
Sweden banned international flights from outside of Europe.

Sweden banned gathering of more than 50 people.

Sweden closed down the universities.

Sweden permanently closed down 5 restraunts this weekend for flouting social
distancing rules.

And, most importantly, their cases are not plataueing, their deaths are not
plataueing.

[https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6...](https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa)

~~~
tomohawk
Looks like a plataue to me

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-
mi...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-
million-7-day-average?country=CAN+FRA+DEU+ITA+KOR+ESP+SWE+GBR+USA)

These both use the same data, but the rolling average shows the trend.

~~~
Marazan
That chart is garbage for Sweden, it is in no way a 7 day average of the
arcgis data I posted.

The official death total by day of death has a massive lag, if the out world
in data chart was actually a 7 day average of it there would be a huge drop
over the last week.

------
jariel
Cases have not really plateaued.

The large graph in the article is very misleading because it's a type of 'epi
curve', the reporting is late on the data points making it always 'seem like'
it's tilting down, even if it never actually is.

With an epicure - you don't know until some time after the flattening that it
has happened.

Daily cases are here [1]

It's inconsistent largely due to the cyclical nature of testing and reporting,
but it's softly trending upwards.

Note of course that it's not exploding, however.

It'll be at least a couple of weeks before we see if it's plateauing.

[1]
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/)

------
hn_throwaway_99
One thing I think is important to point out is that Sweden has the highest
percentage of people living alone of any country in the world, and it is much
less common than, say, Italy to have older people living with younger people.

Similar to how NYC, the densest place in the US, has been hit so much harder
than elsewhere, I think it does at least make a good argument that approaches
should be regionally based.

------
olivermarks
'In contrast with other countries where political leaders have fronted the
national response to the crisis, Dr Tegnell has led the majority of news
conferences'

'chief state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is broadly popular in Sweden. An
experienced scientist with more than 30 years in medicine, he is known for his
relaxed demeanour and preference for pullovers.

"He's a low-key person. I think people see him as a strong leader but not a
very loud person, careful in what he's saying," reflects Emma Frans, a Swedish
epidemiologist and science writer. "I think that's very comforting for many."

She argues that many national and international media have been "searching for
conflict" within the scientific community, whereas she believes there is a
consensus that Anders Tegnell's approach is "quite positive", or at least "not
worse than other strategies"

~

This seems a much better non partisan approach than the endless two party C19
press conference and criticism political warfare the US & UK have to endure

------
keithnz
not sure they are a shining example, they are just over twice the population
of NZ, they have had over 2000 deaths, we have had 19. Yesterday we had 1 new
case.

Today in NZ is the first day out of our strictest level of lockdown and a
large number of businesses are going back to work as long as they follow
strict distancing, and safe interactions. Also public facing businesses can't
open, if you are a shop, you need delivery options or contactless pickup /
payment options.

~~~
mieses
There are some relevant differences between Sweden and New Zealand.

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/21/sweden-coronavirus-
anti...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/21/sweden-coronavirus-anti-
lockdown-immigrants/)

~~~
keithnz
what do you think are the relevant differences?

~~~
piva00
Being part of the EU, Schengen where people can travel abroad much more
frequently due to distances. Also, it's common in the end of February to go
skiing during Sportlov week so traveling to the hotspots in Austria and Italy
was a bit more frequent for Swedes than New Zealanders, I assume.

------
URSpider94
The title appears to break HN rules, as it doesn't match the title of the
linked article. @dang?

------
kilroy_jones
And all it took was a few thousand unnecessary deaths. Vietnam and Taiwan
temporarily shutdown, and the former had 0 deaths while the latter has had
less than 10.

~~~
cryptonector
Hmm? Plenty of countries that did shutdown did experience "a few thousand
unnecessary deaths". What's your point?

OP's and/or TFA's point, as well as many people's who talk about this, seems
to be that Sweden is faring as well as its neighbors that did shutdown. That's
a _big_ deal.

And did Taiwan shutdown? IIRC they did not. They were able to get way ahead of
everyone and stop the spread of covid-19. Since most other countries did not,
it's not fair to compare Sweden to Taiwan.

Some people are bent on there being shutdowns no matter the cost, no matter
the cost-benefit analysis, no matter if there is no real benefit.

~~~
davidw
> faring as well as its neighbors

It isn't though. Look at the number of deaths in Norway and Finland, and
adjust based on population. Sweden is not doing very well. _Perhaps_ , long
term, the other countries catch up if they go through a cycle of opening up
some and shutting down, but we don't know that now.

~~~
piva00
Norway's method to count deaths due to CoViD-19 is very different than
Sweden's.

~~~
detaro
How do they differ?

------
jinushaun
Congrats to Sweden for "only" having 2,000 dead. Tell that to the over 56,000
dead Americans despite lockdown.

Also, Sweden is under de facto lockdown even if they don't want to call it
that.

~~~
erikig
That said, it is important to note that Sweden has one of the highest _death
rates_ in the world. Almost 40% higher than the US and at least 200-300% that
of its neighbors.

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-
mi...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-
million?tab=chart&time=2020-01-31..2020-04-10&country=CHN+DNK+FIN+DEU+NOR+SWE+USA)

If the US had the same death rate, the total deaths would be closer to 80,000

~~~
piva00
Population size is only an upper bound limit for disease spread, it doesn't
tell anything else so using per capita inference to extrapolate is pretty
flawed.

------
Zenst
Interesting that the population of Sweden is comparable to the population of
London, England. Two ends of the population density factors.

Yet comparing the number of deaths, they do seem most comparable.

Not sure what to make from it though.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
How’s their economy?

~~~
burner831234
What are you attempting to say/equivocate?

~~~
davidw
Probably something along the lines of their economy suffering quite a bit just
the same.

