Harambe wrote:
energeticlotuseater wrote:
I get that after a year of this you are well past arguing in good faith but many European countries that locked down much harder than Sweden have higher COVID death counts than Sweden.
These countries include but are not limited to- France, Portugal, Spain, UK, Belgium, Poland and Italy. You will find in the USA that the states that lockdown hardest didn’t fair any better with their COVID death count than the states that chose to lockdown not at all.
I know you’ll then point out examples like New Zealand or Norway with lower COVID death counts. However, my point stands for every example of a lockdown success story I can give three of lockdowns that didn’t work. There is no firm evidence lockdowns or government imposed restrictions had any effect on stemming COVID.
Countries are different, shocker.
Comparing Sweden to similarly sized and located countries suggests it did much worse than ones who took a more aggressive mitigation approach.
Individual behavioral choices likely underlie much of the "shape of the curve" in most countries. For some, government regulations strongly drive individual behavior, for others, probably not (see: USA mobility data). There's a lot to sort out. Certainly some mitigation efforts were less effective than others.
What's clear is that the Swedish model, hailed as some sort of genius way to save your economy and not kill thousands, did neither.
The Finland and Norway arguments ignore large differences in density. If you want better analysis, check out this article:
https://spectator.com.au/2021/05/sweden-covid-and-lockdown-a-look-at-the-data/Less economic damage, no excess deaths among the under 65 crowd, etc. There is much to be said for Sweden's approach.