The problem is that without mass testing, R remains uncertain or "Bayesian." The results so far are "estimates" that will be revised as testing progresses.
Marginal Revolution
Alex Tabarrok | Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and a research fellow with the Mercatus Center
7 comments:
Should've taken our lumps as Sweden did, and not have to worry about a 2nd wave.
Social democratic Sweden displaying more competence than 'free market' USA.
I'd be a bit cautious about sweden. It may turn out ok, but they're still growing at pretty much an exponential rate without much evidence of slowing down. It's a slower exponential rate than other places but exponential nevertheless.. also, it's hard to imagine if everyone did that the situation in many places wouldn't have spiraled out of control.
Sweden is not alone in its approach. And in the 3rd world, they don't have the luxury of a halfway functional health care system.
A flattened pandemic curve has the same area beneath it. A minimum number of deaths is unavoidable. Fortunately, this flu isn't as deadly as initially feared.
Stretching out a pandemic reduces stress on hospitals, and increases the risk of virus mutation. A pandemic ends when it runs out of hosts, or when there is sufficient immunity among the population to halt its spread. The latter is akin to a statistical death.
"Fortunately, this flu isn't as deadly as initially feared." Yes and no. The death stats in Spain and Italy are 3 to 4x higher than the official counts (the excess mortality recording actual deaths show massive increases above normal, the don't test dead bodies). NYC mortality data shows up to 70% more deaths than official counts.. now this happened in hard hit areas, counts in less hit areas are likely to be more accurate.
Sweden is a small country, 10 million or so. Different way of living than say Italy and Spain.
BTW the social democrats in Sweden are only called that on paper. They are as neoliberal as one can be.
And Nova Scotia is a small province, with just under 1 million people, and 4 deaths from the virus. But we must not lift the lockdown, oh no!
The Swedes are one of several control groups around the world. Did they roll the rice? Yes. But they did have numbers from China to help their decision.
Sweden use WHO a lot in their decision making. They have a head state virologist with a team under him who monitors the situation and propose what to do. Sweden also have super control on who dies due to their system of personal number.
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