Sweden didn't shut down. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Cases have plateaued (opens in new tab)

And all it took was a few thousand unnecessary deaths. Vietnam and Taiwan temporarily shutdown, and the former had 0 deaths while the latter has had less than 10.

Sweden banned international flights from outside of Europe.

Sweden banned gathering of more than 50 people.

Sweden closed down the universities.

Sweden permanently closed down 5 restraunts this weekend for flouting social distancing rules.

And, most importantly, their cases are not plataueing, their deaths are not plataueing.

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6...

How’s their economy?

not sure they are a shining example, they are just over twice the population of NZ, they have had over 2000 deaths, we have had 19. Yesterday we had 1 new case.

Today in NZ is the first day out of our strictest level of lockdown and a large number of businesses are going back to work as long as they follow strict distancing, and safe interactions. Also public facing businesses can't open, if you are a shop, you need delivery options or contactless pickup / payment options.

Congrats to Sweden for "only" having 2,000 dead. Tell that to the over 56,000 dead Americans despite lockdown.

Also, Sweden is under de facto lockdown even if they don't want to call it that.

Cases have not really plateaued.

The large graph in the article is very misleading because it's a type of 'epi curve', the reporting is late on the data points making it always 'seem like' it's tilting down, even if it never actually is.

With an epicure - you don't know until some time after the flattening that it has happened.

Daily cases are here [1]

It's inconsistent largely due to the cyclical nature of testing and reporting, but it's softly trending upwards.

Note of course that it's not exploding, however.

It'll be at least a couple of weeks before we see if it's plateauing.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

One thing I think is important to point out is that Sweden has the highest percentage of people living alone of any country in the world, and it is much less common than, say, Italy to have older people living with younger people.

Similar to how NYC, the densest place in the US, has been hit so much harder than elsewhere, I think it does at least make a good argument that approaches should be regionally based.

'In contrast with other countries where political leaders have fronted the national response to the crisis, Dr Tegnell has led the majority of news conferences'

'chief state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is broadly popular in Sweden. An experienced scientist with more than 30 years in medicine, he is known for his relaxed demeanour and preference for pullovers.

"He's a low-key person. I think people see him as a strong leader but not a very loud person, careful in what he's saying," reflects Emma Frans, a Swedish epidemiologist and science writer. "I think that's very comforting for many."

She argues that many national and international media have been "searching for conflict" within the scientific community, whereas she believes there is a consensus that Anders Tegnell's approach is "quite positive", or at least "not worse than other strategies"

~

This seems a much better non partisan approach than the endless two party C19 press conference and criticism political warfare the US & UK have to endure

The title appears to break HN rules, as it doesn't match the title of the linked article. @dang?

Interesting that the population of Sweden is comparable to the population of London, England. Two ends of the population density factors.

Yet comparing the number of deaths, they do seem most comparable.

Not sure what to make from it though.