This quick video kind of explains why Sweden took the approach they did. More and more data and studies are showing they might have the best approach. I said might.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/david-katz-coronavirus-vaccine-herd-immunity

Things are looking good so far with public support for decisions. Volvo opening with 20k jobs this week.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective

Yep. According to their Chief Epidemiologist, they appear to have reached a plateau and are flattening their curve. Only ~1,500 dead in their entire country with many immune (assuming you can be immune to this virus). A ways to go to see a final verdict, but as long as they keep protecting the vulnerable, they're trending on the right side of history.

NASAg03 said:

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Things are looking good so far with public support for decisions. Volvo opening with 20k jobs this week.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective

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This is great to hear, but also mentions several key things that a lot of folks overlook when saying "be like Sweden and open things up!"

Quote:

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Pomeroy pointed to some Swedish characteristics that may be helping the country deal with the current crisis. More than half of Swedish households are single-person, making social distancing easier to carry out. More people work from home than anywhere else in Europe, and everyone has access to fast Internet, which helps large chunks of the workforce stay productive away from the office.

And while many other countries have introduced strict laws, including hefty fines if people are caught breaching newly minted social-distancing laws, Swedes appear to be following such guidelines without the need for legislation. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend, according to data from the country's largest mobile operator, Telia Company. And online service Citymapper's statistics indicate an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital.

Sweden also recently pushed back against the notion that there's little to no social distancing going on.

"We don't have a radically different view," Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in an interview with Radio Sweden. "The government has made a series of decisions that affect the whole society. It's a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden."

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fig96 said:

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NASAg03 said:

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Things are looking good so far with public support for decisions. Volvo opening with 20k jobs this week.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective

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This is great to hear, but also mentions several key things that a lot of folks overlook when saying "be like Sweden and open things up!"

Quote:

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Pomeroy pointed to some Swedish characteristics that may be helping the country deal with the current crisis. More than half of Swedish households are single-person, making social distancing easier to carry out. More people work from home than anywhere else in Europe, and everyone has access to fast Internet, which helps large chunks of the workforce stay productive away from the office.

And while many other countries have introduced strict laws, including hefty fines if people are caught breaching newly minted social-distancing laws, Swedes appear to be following such guidelines without the need for legislation. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend, according to data from the country's largest mobile operator, Telia Company. And online service Citymapper's statistics indicate an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital

Sweden also recently pushed back against the notion that there's little to no social distancing going on.

"We don't have a radically different view," Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in an interview with Radio Sweden. "The government has made a series of decisions that affect the whole society. It's a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden."

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I think that's why we saw increasingly incremental stricter policies here..... because in general, a large percentage of our society isn't responsible enough to do many things unless told to. If more of our society was able to just exhibit a little common sense like the Swedes, we may not have had gradually stricter policies here.

Probably helped by the fact their national population is something like 40% larger than Dallas but spread out over the geographic area of California.

A lot of things work in Sweden that are hard to implement elsewhere because of the simple fact that Sweden is full of Swedes. It's a much more monolithic culture--they all pretty much buy in to the way their society is set up (cradle-to-grave services, etc.). So you get much more "voluntary" compliance, etc.

fig96 said:

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NASAg03 said:

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Things are looking good so far with public support for decisions. Volvo opening with 20k jobs this week.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective

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This is great to hear, but also mentions several key things that a lot of folks overlook when saying "be like Sweden and open things up!"

Quote:

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Pomeroy pointed to some Swedish characteristics that may be helping the country deal with the current crisis. More than half of Swedish households are single-person, making social distancing easier to carry out. More people work from home than anywhere else in Europe, and everyone has access to fast Internet, which helps large chunks of the workforce stay productive away from the office.

And while many other countries have introduced strict laws, including hefty fines if people are caught breaching newly minted social-distancing laws, Swedes appear to be following such guidelines without the need for legislation. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend, according to data from the country's largest mobile operator, Telia Company. And online service Citymapper's statistics indicate an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital.

Sweden also recently pushed back against the notion that there's little to no social distancing going on.

"We don't have a radically different view," Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in an interview with Radio Sweden. "The government has made a series of decisions that affect the whole society. It's a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden."

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Interesting that the article fails to mention their awful 9.3% CFR as of today.

If USA had a 9.3% CFR that would be 226,057 deaths.

KidDoc said:

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fig96 said:

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NASAg03 said:

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Things are looking good so far with public support for decisions. Volvo opening with 20k jobs this week.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective

---

This is great to hear, but also mentions several key things that a lot of folks overlook when saying "be like Sweden and open things up!"

Quote:

---

Pomeroy pointed to some Swedish characteristics that may be helping the country deal with the current crisis. More than half of Swedish households are single-person, making social distancing easier to carry out. More people work from home than anywhere else in Europe, and everyone has access to fast Internet, which helps large chunks of the workforce stay productive away from the office.

And while many other countries have introduced strict laws, including hefty fines if people are caught breaching newly minted social-distancing laws, Swedes appear to be following such guidelines without the need for legislation. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend, according to data from the country's largest mobile operator, Telia Company. And online service Citymapper's statistics indicate an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital.

Sweden also recently pushed back against the notion that there's little to no social distancing going on.

"We don't have a radically different view," Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in an interview with Radio Sweden. "The government has made a series of decisions that affect the whole society. It's a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden."

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Interesting that the article fails to mention their awful 9.3% CFR as of today.

If USA had a 9.3% CFR that would be 226,057 deaths.

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From a previous article:

"For example, the number of deaths as a share of total cases is a useless statistic, since countries have completely different testing regimes. It is at best an indication of a country's testing capacity and how many people with more mild cases are being testedan area where Sweden has not impressed. "

They are also including deaths with covid-19 (not from) in their death count. As such, their CFR is going to be much higher. And if the virus spreads much easier with less measures, then initial death count should be higher.

Lots of people threw fits about the Houston Rodeo and SXSW being canceled. I'd imagine Houston and Austin would have been significantly worse off had those events gone off as usual. And crowds there would have been packed.

Player To Be Named Later said:

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Lots of people threw fits about the Houston Rodeo and SXSW being canceled. I'd imagine Houston and Austin would have been significantly worse off had those events gone off as usual. And crowds there would have been packed.

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no argument about those events.

thank God they were canceled - i've posted that before.

but both would have been packed due to early lack of understanding/awareness of threat. authorities did their jobs and canceled events early in the pandemic to protect an uninformed/underinformed public.

we are talking about the presumption that an informed US population in April or May would be ignoring this and acting recklessly.

Sweden saw Italy happen and understood the risks by the time their case load started to ramp. Swedes exercised good judgment.

i reject categorically statements by 'authority figures' that Americans are somehow unworthy of their roles as citizens and incapable of exercising good judgment when properly informed of risks.

dredging up early events when the entire world was unaware of the situation as evidence of our collective stupidity is not relevant to this point.

many of the most punitive restrictions on Americans have come in the past few weeks, long after the collective public awareness of risk has been known and people have been using good sense.

its a dangerous thought process when you decide the judgment of everyday Americans, upon which this country's entire system of governance is based, cannot be trusted.