Did Sweden end up taking the best approach?
264,809 Views | 1675 Replies
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DadHammer
5:45p, 9/15/20
https://spectator.us/dangerous-covid-swedish-doctor-perspective/

Good read.
Fitch
5:53p, 9/15/20
In reply to HowdyTexasAggies
That's the obesity rate, not covid fatality rate.
cone
6:26p, 9/15/20
In reply to BiochemAg97
poor care?

or poor diet and lifestyle?
Tony Franklins Other Shoe
6:36p, 9/15/20
In reply to HowdyTexasAggies
HowdyTexasAggies said:

Do you really believe the 36%? I don't at all. There is no doubt those numbers are manipulated significantly. Pretty sure I have seen those percentage re-run pulling out NY and the US % drops down. NY % by themselves top the entire world by a a far amount if I recall correctly.
Seems a bit high since there are tons of sources with slightly different data. But I live in SA so I also don't doubt the numbers too much from what I see. NY numbers don't really phase me, it was Cuomo that had the big impact in that state, not health related.

Here's a look at the 10 most obese states in the U.S. and the percentage of obese adults living in that location, per Consumer Protect.
[ol]
  • West Virginia (38.1 percent)
  • Mississippi (37.3 percent)
  • Oklahoma (36.5 percent)
  • Iowa (36.4 percent)
  • Alabama (36.3 percent)
  • Louisiana (36.2 percent)
  • Arkansas (35 percent)
  • Kentucky (34.3 percent)
  • Alaska (34.2 percent)
  • South Carolina (34.1 percent)
  • [/ol]
    https://www.foxnews.com/health/most-obese-states-in-us

    The States with the Highest Obesity Rates in the United States
      • Mississipi and West Virginia are tied for the most obese population in the US at 39.5%
      • Arkansas
      • Louisiana
      • Kentucky
      • Alabama
      • Iowa
      • North Dakota
      • Missouri
      • Oklahoma and Texas take tenth place with 34.8%

    https://hashimashi.com/most-obese-states/


    Edit: I see Fitch may have caught the glitch. Fitch fixed the glitch.
    HowdyTexasAggies
    9:02p, 9/15/20
    In reply to Fitch
    Ah, my bad. I definitely believe that we are the fatest country. Its great to be fat, social media and tv told us so.
    BiochemAg97
    10:23p, 9/15/20
    In reply to cone
    cone said:

    poor care?

    or poor diet and lifestyle?
    A bit of both,

    Lots of people who make poor health decisions.

    Lots of counties in Texas without a hospital, a few dozen Texas counties don't even have a physician.
    DadHammer
    11:57a, 9/22/20
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

    There is no denying it, Sweden has crushed the rest of the world with how they handled covid.
    goodAg80
    2:49p, 9/22/20
    One could argue that others have done better. Compared to the US, Sweden has done better.

    beerad12man
    3:00p, 9/22/20
    In reply to goodAg80
    Are the others done with it? Back to basically 99% normal outside of having 100k at sporting venues?
    WoMD
    3:05p, 9/22/20
    In reply to goodAg80
    goodAg80 said:

    One could argue that others have done better. Compared to the US, Sweden has done better.



    Based on the link Sweden's deaths have dropped to almost zero. They've frontloaded deaths, so the real question is how long until the rest of the world catches up on that front? Everyone else has slowed it down, allowing things to limp along and stretch out the economic pain and suffering (and mental suffering). Our deaths continue to go up, and will get closer and closer to theirs as time goes on, in essence we will catch up to them eventually. But is that really better...? On paper, it might take some time to prove that our numbers surpass Sweden's. But on an overall assessment, it is easy to argue against the claim that we've done better in terms of how this will play out going forward.
    goodAg80
    3:13p, 9/22/20
    Germany has fewer deaths/M and very few deaths now. Similar economic situation to Sweden.

    WoMD
    3:18p, 9/22/20
    In reply to goodAg80
    goodAg80 said:

    Germany has fewer deaths/M and very few deaths now. Similar economic situation to Sweden.



    What did they do different? Something between us and Sweden?
    Keegan99
    3:20p, 9/22/20
    In reply to WoMD
    I seem to remember reading that Germany has a stricter definition of a "case" and a fatality than most other nations.
    WoMD
    3:28p, 9/22/20
    In reply to Keegan99
    Keegan99 said:

    I seem to remember reading that Germany has a stricter definition of a "case" and a fatality than most other nations.

    Gotcha, so the numbers aren't comparable as an apples to apples analysis. Meaning, everything should be taken with a grain of salt? Or somehow use an adjustment multiplier to compensate? Like, to compare Germany to US you have to multiply Germany's numbers by X. Using this concept, wouldn't that make all these charts and numbers essentially useless?
    Keegan99
    3:32p, 9/22/20
    In reply to WoMD
    WoMD said:

    Keegan99 said:

    I seem to remember reading that Germany has a stricter definition of a "case" and a fatality than most other nations.

    Gotcha, so the numbers aren't comparable as an apples to apples analysis. Meaning, everything should be taken with a grain of salt? Or somehow use an adjustment multiplier to compensate? Like, to compare Germany to US you have to multiply Germany's numbers by X. Using this concept, wouldn't that make all these charts and numbers essentially useless?


    The only semi-legitimate metric to compare is excess mortality, but even that is confounded by fatalities caused by policy.
    goodAg80
    3:34p, 9/22/20
    In reply to WoMD
    Quote:

    Using this concept, wouldn't that make all these charts and numbers essentially useless?
    It would. It's hard to get any single view from all countries let alone all states that is truly apples-to-apples.

    I think you have to assume that this is close and know that it isn't perfect. JMO.
    ORAggieFan
    3:47p, 9/22/20
    Germany has done great, no question. But, I don't think we know why. Should they really be that different than Belgium, one of the absolute worst? They didn't have strict lockdowns from what I know. So much at play and so many differences it is hard to compare.
    GAC06
    4:20p, 9/22/20
    In reply to ORAggieFan
    I'd like to know what the deal is with Germany. They have a similar number of reported cases as Italy but a quarter the reported deaths. My first thought is that they are counting deaths differently.
    HotardAg07
    4:59p, 9/22/20
    In reply to GAC06
    More aggressive testing and tracing program.
    Squadron7
    5:02p, 9/22/20
    ORAggieFan
    5:17p, 9/22/20
    In reply to HotardAg07
    HotardAg07 said:

    More aggressive testing and tracing program.
    Neither of these are reasons why they'd necessarily be better, especially with no data or dates to back it.
    GAC06
    5:40p, 9/22/20
    In reply to HotardAg07
    HotardAg07 said:

    More aggressive testing and tracing program.


    That would result in fewer cases (in theory). With a similar number of cases, why 25% the deaths of Italy?
    AgResearch
    5:44p, 9/22/20
    In reply to GAC06
    AgDev01
    5:49p, 9/22/20
    In reply to GAC06
    Age of those who were infected?
    Cepe
    5:51p, 9/22/20
    In reply to GAC06
    GAC06 said:

    HotardAg07 said:

    More aggressive testing and tracing program.


    That would result in fewer cases (in theory). With a similar number of cases, why 25% the deaths of Italy?
    Healthier, younger population? I seem to recall Italy has an exceptionally large elderly population. . .
    GAC06
    6:07p, 9/22/20
    In reply to AgDev01
    Sure but as you approach 300,000 cases that shouldn't be skewed too far one way or the other
    GAC06
    6:08p, 9/22/20
    In reply to Cepe
    A quick google search says that the average age in Germany is slightly higher than Italy, but basically the same
    HotardAg07
    8:34p, 9/22/20
    In reply to GAC06
    GAC06 said:

    HotardAg07 said:

    More aggressive testing and tracing program.


    That would result in fewer cases (in theory). With a similar number of cases, why 25% the deaths of Italy?
    You're thinking about cases incorrectly.

    A case is when we test someone positively, not necessarily how many people have gotten the virus. In the early stages in the US, there were 10-20x more infections than recorded cases, due to the rationing of cases and number of mild/asymptomatic patients. With increased testing capacity, that number is now closer to 5-6x, so we're catching more marginal/mild/asymptomatic cases.

    In a situation with growing testing capacity, case fatality rate can appear to go down, even as infection fatality rate is flat, since you are catching a higher percentage of cases.

    Germany is catching more cases than Italy due to a more aggressive testing and tracing system that allows them to catch more mild/asymptomatic patients. They are purposefully looking for contacts and testing people who have shown no symptoms.

    Models are the best way of estimating the number of infections, rather than cases. This is the one I follow: https://covid19-projections.com/

    In that, you can see how he uses test positivity rate in order to estimate total infections from cases data. The theory is that, largely, the ratio of cases to infections is correlated to the test positivity rate. If an area is at 0.1% positivity test rate, that means they are testing a lot of asymptomatic people and catching increasingly marginal cases. If an area is at 20% positivity test rate, that means they're probably rationing tests or their system is too overwhelmed to do proper tracing.

    https://covid19-projections.com/estimating-true-infections/

    So, to wrap this all back up, Germany is among the best in the world at handling the virus, with a very aggressive testing and tracing system. They have found more cases than their European peers by testing more people, and that aggressive testing plan has resulted in less deaths. Due to their success, they were able to do things like resume sports (Bundisliga) and in-person schooling while also minimizing deaths by some orders of magnitude lower than their peer (4x lower than Sweden)
    GAC06
    10:05p, 9/22/20
    In reply to HotardAg07
    I'd be interested in seeing a comparison of how deaths are counted
    ORAggieFan
    10:46p, 9/22/20
    In reply to HotardAg07
    COVID-19 Projections recently said we'd be at over 500k deaths by now due to the South. Not really a model that's been successful. Also, tracing and testing of asymptomatic has been mostly worthless. If anything, it's focused resources away from where they should focus.
    tysker
    7:05a, 9/23/20
    In reply to ORAggieFan
    ORAggieFan said:

    COVID-19 Projections recently said we'd be at over 500k deaths by now due to the South. Not really a model that's been successful. Also, tracing and testing of asymptomatic has been mostly worthless. If anything, it's focused resources away from where they should focus.
    The American response has been backwards. This has been the argument some of us have been making since April/May.
    HotardAg07
    9:32p, 9/23/20
    In reply to ORAggieFan
    ORAggieFan said:

    COVID-19 Projections recently said we'd be at over 500k deaths by now due to the South. Not really a model that's been successful. Also, tracing and testing of asymptomatic has been mostly worthless. If anything, it's focused resources away from where they should focus.
    No it didn't. It never said that once. All of the past predictions are in a github. You will not find one that predicted 500k deaths by today. I would donate $1,000 to a charity of your choice if you could find one prediction where he forecasted 500,000 deaths by today.
    https://github.com/youyanggu/covid19_projections/tree/master/projections

    On May 4, I made this post on the politics board.
    https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3110428/replies/56495727

    At the time, 3 months out, his model predicted 160,000 deaths by Aug 1. On Aug 1 there were 156,000 deaths.

    He's been accurate, you may be confusing with IMHE or another model.
    goodAg80
    9:46p, 9/23/20
    In reply to HotardAg07
    HotardAg07 said:

    GAC06 said:

    HotardAg07 said:

    More aggressive testing and tracing program.


    That would result in fewer cases (in theory). With a similar number of cases, why 25% the deaths of Italy?
    You're thinking about cases incorrectly.

    A case is when we test someone positively, not necessarily how many people have gotten the virus. In the early stages in the US, there were 10-20x more infections than recorded cases, due to the rationing of cases and number of mild/asymptomatic patients. With increased testing capacity, that number is now closer to 5-6x, so we're catching more marginal/mild/asymptomatic cases.

    In a situation with growing testing capacity, case fatality rate can appear to go down, even as infection fatality rate is flat, since you are catching a higher percentage of cases.

    Germany is catching more cases than Italy due to a more aggressive testing and tracing system that allows them to catch more mild/asymptomatic patients. They are purposefully looking for contacts and testing people who have shown no symptoms.

    Models are the best way of estimating the number of infections, rather than cases. This is the one I follow: https://covid19-projections.com/

    In that, you can see how he uses test positivity rate in order to estimate total infections from cases data. The theory is that, largely, the ratio of cases to infections is correlated to the test positivity rate. If an area is at 0.1% positivity test rate, that means they are testing a lot of asymptomatic people and catching increasingly marginal cases. If an area is at 20% positivity test rate, that means they're probably rationing tests or their system is too overwhelmed to do proper tracing.

    https://covid19-projections.com/estimating-true-infections/

    So, to wrap this all back up, Germany is among the best in the world at handling the virus, with a very aggressive testing and tracing system. They have found more cases than their European peers by testing more people, and that aggressive testing plan has resulted in less deaths. Due to their success, they were able to do things like resume sports (Bundisliga) and in-person schooling while also minimizing deaths by some orders of magnitude lower than their peer (4x lower than Sweden)


    I like the website. When looking at WorldOMeter is certain they are not predicting the number who have been infected. They only record the cases reported.



    Using the prediction above the US is at nearly 20% infected (>60M). Whereas WOM only reports 4.4M cases. WOM is not representing that cases=infected, but cases on its own isn't very helpful.

    I have bookmarked the website.
    beerad12man
    9:47p, 9/23/20
    Would still take Sweden's approach in a heartbeat
    ORAggieFan
    9:52p, 9/23/20
    In reply to HotardAg07
    HotardAg07 said:

    ORAggieFan said:

    COVID-19 Projections recently said we'd be at over 500k deaths by now due to the South. Not really a model that's been successful. Also, tracing and testing of asymptomatic has been mostly worthless. If anything, it's focused resources away from where they should focus.
    No it didn't. It never said that once. All of the past predictions are in a github. You will not find one that predicted 500k deaths by today. I would donate $1,000 to a charity of your choice if you could find one prediction where he forecasted 500,000 deaths by today.
    https://github.com/youyanggu/covid19_projections/tree/master/projections

    On May 4, I made this post on the politics board.
    https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3110428/replies/56495727

    At the time, 3 months out, his model predicted 160,000 deaths by Aug 1. On Aug 1 there were 156,000 deaths.

    He's been accurate, you may be confusing with IMHE or another model.
    You're right. I wasn't confusing it with IHME but I was with another (can't remember which, too many). They are the most accurate and I've actually even DM Tweeted with Youyang Gu about it versus IHME. Apologies for the mistake on that one and thanks for the correction.
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