The Swedish Model (again)
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https://mises.org/wire/why-americans-should-adopt-sweden-model-covid-19
Figure 1 illustrates the daily mortality attributed to covid-19 in Sweden, New York, Illinois, and Texas. The figure plots the daily number of deaths per million population. This figure illustrates the rise and fall of deaths from covid-19 in four different policy environments. The data were obtained from Worldometer.
The data suggest that lockdowns have not prevented any deaths from covid-19. At best, lockdowns have deferred death for a short time, but they cannot possibly be continued for the long term. It seems likely that one will not have to even compare economic deprivation with loss of life, as the final death toll following authoritarian lockdowns will most likely exceed the deaths from letting people choose how to manage their own risk. After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation. Covid-19 is not going to be defeated; we will have to learn how to coexist with it. The only way we can learn how best to cope with covid-19 is to let individuals manage their own risk, observe the outcomes, and learn from mistakes. The world owes a great debt to Sweden for setting an example that the rest of us can follow.
Not sure if all those comparisons are valid, considering population density, etc...
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@George-K said in The Swedish Model (again):
After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation.
Given how our current culture is judging its history, I would not place much faith in future people looking back on us with cool, detached reason.
I used to think "history will judge" meant that with time, judgments of what one lives through will become more objective. Nowadays I think that time will only bring a different culture, which will judge recorded history through whatever messaging lens best serves the ruling class.
Which is to say if you want to know how objective people judge our current times, you might want to ask objective people right now. Like me, and definitely not jon.
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History would be able to judge this situation objectively if either approach was a smashing success or an utter failure. Neither is true. Most of the decisions made and actions taken have been at the state, local and individual level, and they vary greatly in terms of implementation.
You can toss numbers at this until the cows come home and still not be able to finely discern success or failure, just a lot of gray area.
As far as I can tell the economy is largely up and running, albeit not at full steam. People are going out to eat and shop. Entertainment is being hit badly as are restaurants. Travel is getting killed. A vaccine will fix these things but my sense of this is we are running enough to keep us out of a deep financial ditch.
What I am more interested in right now is lessons learned... what do we need to do to be better prepared for the next one, which will certainly come in this interconnected world.
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Swedish model
http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2012-08/02/content_26100819_4.htm
How the heck do I make it show the picture?
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Larry's flattening the curve again.