KB - running out of room, if you reply to this maybe go to a parent comment :)
1) To your question "what made you bring up Sweden"... it was you who brought them up when you quoted: "Lars Jonung, PhD, professor emeritus of economics at Lund University in Sweden -- a country that famously opted out of lockdowns and only recommended masks i…
KB - running out of room, if you reply to this maybe go to a parent comment :)
1) To your question "what made you bring up Sweden"... it was you who brought them up when you quoted: "Lars Jonung, PhD, professor emeritus of economics at Lund University in Sweden -- a country that famously opted out of lockdowns and only recommended masks in public". - I was merely pointing out that apparently didn't matter after all.
2) I'm unclear why you are citing papers from August 2021 when we have data current up through mid February 2022. Much has changed since then. In the link you shared it marveled that Denmark only had 334K cases compared to Swedens 1.1 million. Since that article was published Denmark exploded to 2.79 million and Sweden is now at 2.44 million, despite having double the population.
3) The excess mortality - the best measure of response - demonstrates that Sweden had a better outcome than every country except Norway (and even Norway sent kids back to school throughout pandemic without masks, so I'm not sure what point is proved by citing Norway). You can check my math, I gave you the links above. Maybe this changes in the future?
4) The paper you shared from Statista drives home my point earlier - notice how Sweden was only ever compared to places which did better than Sweden (of which there are very few). If we can compare Florida to California, or Vermont to Missouri, we should be able to compare Sweden to Germany, France, or Israel. Of course, now that we have two full years of pandemic data and Sweden has emerged with the 2nd lowest excess death rate in Europe, it really doesn't matter restricting comparisons to her direct neighbors, the data shows the approach didn't incur the cataclysm predicted.
KB - running out of room, if you reply to this maybe go to a parent comment :)
1) To your question "what made you bring up Sweden"... it was you who brought them up when you quoted: "Lars Jonung, PhD, professor emeritus of economics at Lund University in Sweden -- a country that famously opted out of lockdowns and only recommended masks in public". - I was merely pointing out that apparently didn't matter after all.
2) I'm unclear why you are citing papers from August 2021 when we have data current up through mid February 2022. Much has changed since then. In the link you shared it marveled that Denmark only had 334K cases compared to Swedens 1.1 million. Since that article was published Denmark exploded to 2.79 million and Sweden is now at 2.44 million, despite having double the population.
3) The excess mortality - the best measure of response - demonstrates that Sweden had a better outcome than every country except Norway (and even Norway sent kids back to school throughout pandemic without masks, so I'm not sure what point is proved by citing Norway). You can check my math, I gave you the links above. Maybe this changes in the future?
4) The paper you shared from Statista drives home my point earlier - notice how Sweden was only ever compared to places which did better than Sweden (of which there are very few). If we can compare Florida to California, or Vermont to Missouri, we should be able to compare Sweden to Germany, France, or Israel. Of course, now that we have two full years of pandemic data and Sweden has emerged with the 2nd lowest excess death rate in Europe, it really doesn't matter restricting comparisons to her direct neighbors, the data shows the approach didn't incur the cataclysm predicted.