Contrary to the claim in the first para, NB was not joined by 7 other Sweden-based researchers.
And while there were plenty of issues related to Sweden's Covid-response, this study and its publication is a good example of: 1) politicisation of science, 2) inadequacies of peer review/scholarly publishing - topics THB purportedly focuses on hence it is strange to read your our own uncritical post (as it was to read a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist's write-up at the time in LA Times).
Understandable responses, given the ample research body on science communications in polarizing topics, though I had expected more from you when signing up recently.
Thanks for the comment. My goal at THB is not to have every reader agree with everything that is written here. If we together achieve communication, which often includes disagreement, that’s great. I don’t expect I’ll agree with every critique either, but I will read and think about them all 👍🙏
What the study shows - along with other analysis provided by excess death rate comparisons - is that people can manage their choices better without guidance from experts who may be more concerned with their own careers and other influences than people's welfare. Freedom of choice has value even in a pandemic.
Im a fan of your climate science approach but let me try to contribute for this one: Portugal has the same population as Sweden (we are worlds apart culturally and socioeconomically speaking, I knoooow) but, here:
- Portugal 3.604.114 cases; 21.693 deaths- 2.138 deaths/million (40.188,779 tests)
Portugal had more cases because we tested, sure. The death rate is still pretty high because... more testing? Not all deaths atributted to CV are caused by CV, I accept; we should correct it then. How bout excess death? Here's another exquisite example: in November 2021, Portugal had the fifht lowest excess rate in Europe (14%), only worse then, lets see, Denmark (13,9%), France (4,9%), Italy (3,9%) and... Sweden (-0,5%). That's right, minus zero point five per cent. Sweden had THE CONTRARY OF EXCESS DEATH in 2021, maybe that's why the study does not like their approach. "I don't know, I just guess" is my motto nowadays (Grace Helbig memorabilia).
Sweden has not focused on minimising COVID-related cases (or deaths), but rather minimising the overall negative impact on the society. With very light measures, no school closures, no masks, no lockdowns it achieved some of the lowest excess deaths in Europe and only slightly more than Denmark and Norway with their much stricter measures that damaged the societies much deeper.
Quickly eyeballing the deaths per million residents, it looks as though Sweden was 9th among EU nations in deaths/ million, essentially tied with Austria. Only a handful of major EU nations performed better (Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland).
Sweden performed considerably better than France, US, UK, Portugal, Spain Italy, inter alia.
So the big complaint is that Sweden didn't defer to "experts"; but did better than many countries that did and performed far worse than Sweden. Just sayin'
But why single out Sweden with cherry picked comparison just to just those two countries? A more comprehensive comparison to all the countries on the Baltic and North Sea demonstrates that that the primary metric (deaths) for Sweden was near the average for those countries and challenges the assumption that NPIs (excluding locking people in their homes) provided significant benefit
It’s an interesting concept. Whereas in the US there was a very structured response that I would- studies would- and many would say…. Got it totally wrong because they censored views and cancelled people.
Since vaccinations don’t protect people from being infected, they are at risk of long COVID. Since ultimately getting infected is the best immunity and people under 50 were broadly not at risk, a strategy of high mixing of young people would have been better.
And at the end of the day, the numbers include so many with and of COVID deaths, it’s impossible to normalize the dishonesty.
In the us - more people 16-64 died of alcohol than COVID in 2020. The lack of desire to shut down liquor stores while saving people over 65 from COVID shows just how myopic our approach was … expert advisors or not.
Contrary to the claim in the first para, NB was not joined by 7 other Sweden-based researchers.
And while there were plenty of issues related to Sweden's Covid-response, this study and its publication is a good example of: 1) politicisation of science, 2) inadequacies of peer review/scholarly publishing - topics THB purportedly focuses on hence it is strange to read your our own uncritical post (as it was to read a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist's write-up at the time in LA Times).
Understandable responses, given the ample research body on science communications in polarizing topics, though I had expected more from you when signing up recently.
Thanks for the comment. My goal at THB is not to have every reader agree with everything that is written here. If we together achieve communication, which often includes disagreement, that’s great. I don’t expect I’ll agree with every critique either, but I will read and think about them all 👍🙏
What the study shows - along with other analysis provided by excess death rate comparisons - is that people can manage their choices better without guidance from experts who may be more concerned with their own careers and other influences than people's welfare. Freedom of choice has value even in a pandemic.
Im a fan of your climate science approach but let me try to contribute for this one: Portugal has the same population as Sweden (we are worlds apart culturally and socioeconomically speaking, I knoooow) but, here:
- Portugal 3.604.114 cases; 21.693 deaths- 2.138 deaths/million (40.188,779 tests)
- Sweden: 2.487.852 cades; 18.331 deaths- 1795 deaths/million (18.417.916 tests).
Portugal had more cases because we tested, sure. The death rate is still pretty high because... more testing? Not all deaths atributted to CV are caused by CV, I accept; we should correct it then. How bout excess death? Here's another exquisite example: in November 2021, Portugal had the fifht lowest excess rate in Europe (14%), only worse then, lets see, Denmark (13,9%), France (4,9%), Italy (3,9%) and... Sweden (-0,5%). That's right, minus zero point five per cent. Sweden had THE CONTRARY OF EXCESS DEATH in 2021, maybe that's why the study does not like their approach. "I don't know, I just guess" is my motto nowadays (Grace Helbig memorabilia).
Sweden has not focused on minimising COVID-related cases (or deaths), but rather minimising the overall negative impact on the society. With very light measures, no school closures, no masks, no lockdowns it achieved some of the lowest excess deaths in Europe and only slightly more than Denmark and Norway with their much stricter measures that damaged the societies much deeper.
Long covid*, mask efficacy*, child infection, transmission, death*, waning natural immunity *, just rehashed, repackaged drive for rigid societal controls.
*myth, false, lies, wrong, dishonest.
Quickly eyeballing the deaths per million residents, it looks as though Sweden was 9th among EU nations in deaths/ million, essentially tied with Austria. Only a handful of major EU nations performed better (Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland).
Sweden performed considerably better than France, US, UK, Portugal, Spain Italy, inter alia.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/
So the big complaint is that Sweden didn't defer to "experts"; but did better than many countries that did and performed far worse than Sweden. Just sayin'
But why single out Sweden with cherry picked comparison just to just those two countries? A more comprehensive comparison to all the countries on the Baltic and North Sea demonstrates that that the primary metric (deaths) for Sweden was near the average for those countries and challenges the assumption that NPIs (excluding locking people in their homes) provided significant benefit
No. https://fee.org/articles/sweden-once-mocked-for-its-covid-strategy-now-has-one-of-the-lowest-covid-mortality-rates-in-europe/
It’s an interesting concept. Whereas in the US there was a very structured response that I would- studies would- and many would say…. Got it totally wrong because they censored views and cancelled people.
Since vaccinations don’t protect people from being infected, they are at risk of long COVID. Since ultimately getting infected is the best immunity and people under 50 were broadly not at risk, a strategy of high mixing of young people would have been better.
And at the end of the day, the numbers include so many with and of COVID deaths, it’s impossible to normalize the dishonesty.
In the us - more people 16-64 died of alcohol than COVID in 2020. The lack of desire to shut down liquor stores while saving people over 65 from COVID shows just how myopic our approach was … expert advisors or not.