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No need to sign up Corn, the virus will get you eventually
But I don't want to be devilish.5thhorseman wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:28 pm That, or you get the vaccine and '666' tattooed on your forehead. It's the only way you'll be able to watch live sports in the future.
So what you're saying is that we've watched the leading societies on the planet run like lemmings over a cliff because of a virus that has now killed 0.00013% of the world's population over 9-10 months.
Uhmm... Yup. Except that just like the people on Fox you seem to don’t understand that when you talk about percent (meaning per hundred) you need to multiply the figure by 100. So you can talk about 0.00013 of the world population (one million / eight billion; NB, no percent sign) or 0.013 % of the world population. (Some people speculate that Fox does this on purpose, to make the numbers look smaller, but we don’t know for sure. It could also just be a sign of the deteriorating US school system leading to more and more people not grasping simple maths.) But I get what you mean, even if you were off by a factor of 100.Mëds wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:36 amSo what you're saying is that we've watched the leading societies on the planet run like lemmings over a cliff because of a virus that has now killed 0.00013% of the world's population over 9-10 months.
I love how rational we are as a species.
For the record the flu apparently kills 0.00006% of our global population each year.....although the numbers aren't super clear because if you have lung cancer and die with influenza they will probably say you died of cancer.
Yep. I forgot to multiply by 100.Per wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 1:53 amUhmm... Yup. Except that just like the people on Fox you seem to don’t understand that when you talk about percent (meaning per hundred) you need to multiply the figure by 100. So you can talk about 0.00013 of the world population (one million / eight billion; NB, no percent sign) or 0.013 % of the world population. (Some people speculate that Fox does this on purpose, to make the numbers look smaller, but we don’t know for sure. It could also just be a sign of the deteriorating US school system leading to more and more people not grasping simple maths.) But I get what you mean, even if you were off by a factor of 100.Mëds wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 12:36 amSo what you're saying is that we've watched the leading societies on the planet run like lemmings over a cliff because of a virus that has now killed 0.00013% of the world's population over 9-10 months.
I love how rational we are as a species.
For the record the flu apparently kills 0.00006% of our global population each year.....although the numbers aren't super clear because if you have lung cancer and die with influenza they will probably say you died of cancer.
Why do you think the number is at least 50% higher? Why couldn't it be $25% higher, or maybe 75%?Per wrote: Albeit, as I pointed out earlier, there seems to be severe underreporting from countries in the third world and those with authoritarian regimes, so the actual number is probably at least 50% higher than the official figure, so maybe closer to 0.02 %, and several countries are still not even past the first wave, so we still don’t know what the final count will be.
Well, the 75% case would qualify as "at least 50%", wouldn't it?
If you look above, I'd argue that Sweden's neighbours, Finland, Norway and Denmark have still not been hit by the pandemic. They had hard lockdowns early and very few cases and deaths. Assuming it will be another year before vaccines have been made available and distributed in the general population, I would not be surprised to see major outbreaks there at some point before that. They cannot stay in lockdown for forever.
Yeah... It's hard to define. I think you must almost look at individual states. The North East had a wave that passed already. Large parts of the South are in the middle of a wave right now, and parts of the middle have barely been affected yet. They are all in different parts of the cycle. There could be a second wave hitting the North East before the first wave has passed through the entire Midwest.
Yes. I think most Swedes support the Public Health Agency, even if there is also a rather loud minority that does not.
(1) Thinking about covid as preparing for a marathon instead of a 5K (or sprint) was smart....Per wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:16 am The main difference in Swden's approach compared to most other countries can be seen as threefold:
1) Measures should be sustainable over time (more specifically a two to three year period). This means a hard lockdown is out of the question.
2) Recommendations instead of legislation. There is a high level of trust in Sweden. We trust our government, and our government trusts us to make sensible decisions based on the information and recommendations we've been given. An Englishman who violates the lockdown rules can be fined 10,000 pounds. A Swede who disregards the covid recommendations may get a lecture from some angry official and frowns from his neighbours, but no other punishment. Yet social pressure and a sense of responsibility is often at least as effective as penal threats.
3) Different concerns for children compared to adults. Children barely get affected by this disease (well, some rare cases with a compromised immune system may, but they are always at risk, and should be considered a special case) but we have problems with child obesity and sedentary lifestyles. Thus it has been regarded as more important to keep schools and children's activities running than to try to isolate children from eachother. The long term health risks of closing schools far outweigh the risk of keeping them open.
The hard lockdown was designed to do a few things. One, instill fear in the general populace and keep people isolated so that their input was a media controlled message. It setup a few sectors to make killer financial gains. It also helped a few organizations solidify holds on power and influence (WHO for example).Per wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:16 am The main difference in Swden's approach compared to most other countries can be seen as threefold:
1) Measures should be sustainable over time (more specifically a two to three year period). This means a hard lockdown is out of the question.
2) Recommendations instead of legislation. There is a high level of trust in Sweden. We trust our government, and our government trusts us to make sensible decisions based on the information and recommendations we've been given. An Englishman who violates the lockdown rules can be fined 10,000 pounds. A Swede who disregards the covid recommendations may get a lecture from some angry official and frowns from his neighbours, but no other punishment. Yet social pressure and a sense of responsibility is often at least as effective as penal threats.
Yeah, the elderly is where Sweden failed.UWSaint wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 8:11 am
(3) Its not just children as compared with adults, its also the elderly + comorbidities compared with everyone else. Children rarely get the thing with any symptoms or serious symptoms; adults in the "everyone else" category rarely require hospitalization and death is rarer still. They might get knocked out for a week or two and we won't know how many of those people will suffer some kind of longer term effect, but I think it is very difficult to marshal an argument that health-health tradeoffs are likely to favor a stringent lockdown or prolonged isolation for this group as a whole (particularly in the marathon environment).
Well.... no.Mëds wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:36 pm
What you are describing is socialism as it should be. Not the deluded Marxist revolutionaries' vision of it south of us over here. But you've been operating under a more socialist system for a long time. The "free world" is all about "me first". Getting what you can get in "the pursuit of happiness" before someone else gets it first.
Libertarianism fits better, yes.Per wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:38 amWell.... no.Mëds wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:36 pm
What you are describing is socialism as it should be. Not the deluded Marxist revolutionaries' vision of it south of us over here. But you've been operating under a more socialist system for a long time. The "free world" is all about "me first". Getting what you can get in "the pursuit of happiness" before someone else gets it first.
First of all, socialism rarely leaves anything for the individual to decide. It's more of having the same rules for everyone. So the Swedish approach to the covid-19 pandemic is very far from socialism.
It is more of liberalism/libertarianism in that it only sets a framework with recommendations and then lets the individual be responsible for his/her decisions and actions.
So yeah, a long time.As for a socialist system... well... Sweden had social democrats in government from 1932-1976, 1982-91 and 1994-2006, but we've also had centre-right coallitions in government up till 1932, 1976-1982, 1991-1994 and 2006-14.
Since 2014 we have had a minority government formed by the social democrats and the green party, but dependent on support from the liberals and the centre party. Thus it could technically be seen as a centre-left coallition, but the liberal and centre parties have chosen to not be a formal part of the government. Thus there is a socialist component in the government, but the social democrats themselves only have like 28%.
I have heard of Avicii. Sad end to that story.Likewise, as most school children can learn to play an instrument for free (differs a bit between municipalities, some charge a fee for renting instruments, etc), there's a lot of Swedes trying their fortune in the music business. It is one of our major exports these days, but often flies under the radar. There are only two song writers (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) who have had more #1 hits in the USA than Max Martin (23 and counting), yet he prefers to stay out of the limelight and I'm sure you have no idea who Ludwig Göransson is, even though he has won two grammies for the song This Is America, an Oscar for the score to Black Panther and an Emmy for the music of the Mandalorian. You may have heard of Avicii though. But I digress.
Hence why I put "free world" in quotations.I was basically trying to say that we actually live in a free market system with some minor socialist components, just like virtually all of Western Europe, Australia, New Zeeland and Canada.
As for The Free World, we're part of that.
Well, at least as it is most commonly defined:
"Democracies not occupied by Germany or Japan"? Check!
"Countries not under communist rule"? Check!
"Western civilisation"? Check!
It's only under its early cold war definition "members of NATO" that we fall by the side, but we do at least have a cooperation treaty with Nato...
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52535.htm
I really don't think that there was a "failure" when it came to the elderly. At least not in the sense that so many people want to present it as a way to play the blame game. The fact is, and I don't say this coldly, but the elderly are generally on their way out. Death is a necessary part of life, it comes for us all. Why are we pointing the finger at Covid and pandemic responses for people dying when they have already lived for 70 years and came to a slightly earlier end because of an unforeseen new virus? Instead, why aren't we pointing a finger squarely at those in power for not dumping the same level of financial resources that they have into combatting Covid-19 into figuring out how to cure cancer?Per wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2020 6:23 amYeah, the elderly is where Sweden failed.UWSaint wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 8:11 am
(3) Its not just children as compared with adults, its also the elderly + comorbidities compared with everyone else. Children rarely get the thing with any symptoms or serious symptoms; adults in the "everyone else" category rarely require hospitalization and death is rarer still. They might get knocked out for a week or two and we won't know how many of those people will suffer some kind of longer term effect, but I think it is very difficult to marshal an argument that health-health tradeoffs are likely to favor a stringent lockdown or prolonged isolation for this group as a whole (particularly in the marathon environment).
Albeit the Public Health Agency did stress that it was important to protect them, and even though most nursing homes banned visitors from the premises early on, several homes were hit by the virus and at least 40% of Swedish covid deaths occurred at nursing homes.
One of the main problems was that people were not aware that many of those infected show no symptoms, and nursing home staff was not regularly tested, so quite logically, the very staff that the elderly depend on were the ones who infected them.
The problem was confounded by nursing homes not having medical staff, and thus lacked people with the proper training to identify the risks. Even if staff had gloves and masks, they would go from one room to the next, without changing them, etc.
A lot of staff at these facilities are temps, so they basically just jump in and work the hours they've been given, which also means they are less likely to call in sick than regular staff, as they fear they may not get called again... As mentioned before, they also lack medical training.
Voices are now being raised that nursing homes need to hire enough staff to get by without temps, and also train their staff better.
At the same time, people are careful not to blame the staff but those who are in charge of running the nursing homes. It is they who are responsible for hiring, training and equipping their staff properly, and making sure the facilities are safe for those who live there.
Some blame the privatization of the sector, which used to be wholly public but now is more or less 50-50 split between privately and publicly run places. While the cost cutting that has occurred in some places after privatization would seem a possible culprit, the fact is that the publicly run places have fared no better than the privately run ones. So it more likely seems to be that the whole sector needs to rethink how to minimize the risks for those they care for during a pandemic.
The bold and red is just for you Per.....you dirty raider.In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
C.S. Lewis — “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays
You make this sound like septuagenarians are expandable...Mëds wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2020 6:23 pm I really don't think that there was a "failure" when it came to the elderly. At least not in the sense that so many people want to present it as a way to play the blame game. The fact is, and I don't say this coldly, but the elderly are generally on their way out. Death is a necessary part of life, it comes for us all. Why are we pointing the finger at Covid and pandemic responses for people dying when they have already lived for 70 years and came to a slightly earlier end because of an unforeseen new virus?
Oh, but they do.Instead, why aren't we pointing a finger squarely at those in power for not dumping the same level of financial resources that they have into combatting Covid-19 into figuring out how to cure cancer?
The rich, high and mighty, powerful, individuals who want to vaccinate the planet (although many of them also sit on committees that want to see the earth depopulated) in favor of better health don't get as loud and vocal over cancer? Why?
