The Sweden Experiment with Limited Social Distancing...
It's certainly not "over" yet, but they're doing far worse than their similarly situated, similarly low population density Nordic neighbors, Norway and Finland, especially in deaths, which is what really matters; these neighbors are also doing much more testing per capita (and tracing) and practicing much more aggressive social distancing. Cases per 1MM are less different, likely because of far less testing. I threw Denmark, Iceland and Germany in, too, even though their densities are a bit different. And Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which are just a bit above Sweden in density are also doing much better than Sweden, with all of them below 40 deaths/1MM.
Sure Sweden is doing better than some of the much more densely populated countries, but on a density basis they're pretty much a very bad outlier. Ireland, though has about 3X the density as Sweden and has similar deaths/1MM and Spain at 4-5X the density of Sweden has 2X the death rate per 1MM as Sweden. Germany is an outlier in the other direction with 10X the density of Sweden (and is more dense than all the major EU countries other than the UK), but has a death rate of only 79/1MM - they've been the model country with regard to early/aggressive testing, tracing/isolating and social distancing (along with Denmark).
Country......Cases/1MM.......Deaths/1MM........Tests/1MM.....Density (per sq mi)
Sweden..........2088......................256.....................11K.....................56
Finland.............902.......................38.......................17K....................43
Norway............1427......................39.......................31K....................41
Iceland............5266......................29......................141K.....................8
Denmark.........1580......................78.......................33K...................345
Germany.........1945......................79.......................30K...................576
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
...and What It Might Mean for Sweden and the US (and more)
Some from Sweden also recently said they thought they'd be at "herd immunity" in several weeks. My guess is that's a pipe dream. Sweden has 1800 positive viral cases per 1MM, which is 0.18%, while NY has 15K cases per 1MM, which is 1.5% viral cases and NY's antibody sampling shows 15% actually with antibodies right now (were infected) or about 10X the level of cases. If Sweden had a similar ratio, they'd have 1.8% of their population with antibodies (10X 0.18%), which is almost nothing compared to herd immunity estimates of 54% if the transmission rate, R0, is 2.2 (as thought awhile back) or 82% if R0 is 5.7 (as more are thinking now).
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/04/22...immunity-in-weeks.html?recirc=taboolainternal
However, they're saying Stockholm has 11% with antibodies, although Stockholm is far more densely populated than the rest of the country, as the country, overall has 64 people per sq mi, (near last in Europe) vs. Stockholm's 13,000 per sq mi (200X more densely populated) - so maybe it's possible for both to be true, ie.., 11% antibodies in Stockholm (which has 22% of Sweden's population) and 1.8% of Sweden with antibodies, overall (11/1.8 = 6 and 100/22 = 4.5).
So, if Sweden, right now is only at 1.8% of the population infected with antibodies, they have a very long way to go to reach herd immunity, which looks to be 20-30X their current infection%, meaning that's theoretically 20-30X more hospitalized/dead than they have now, assuming no interventions or great treatments/cures before then. That's a worst case, as infections would slow down as an area nears herd immunity, plus very low density locations might simply not sustain infections through the population - which could also be true for swaths of middle America, although those hotspots in meatpacking plants and small town flare-ups should be scaring the crap out of Middle America, but they don't seem to be.
Same is possible in the US if we're not smart about how we reopen and are not ready to stamp out flareups as they occur (with aggressive testing/tracing/isolating). We might be at ~3% of the US that have been infected, I'd guess, just roughly based on comparison to NY's data, where 15% have antibodies and 1.5% have tested positive for the virus (10X ratio), so that the US with 0.3% tested positive for the virus (1MM of 330MM) would then be 3.0% with antibodies (10X).
So, if the US, right now is only at 3% of the population infected with antibodies, we also have a very long way to go to reach herd immunity, which looks to be 15-25X their current infection%, meaning that's theoretically 15-25X more hospitalized/dead than we have now, assuming no interventions or great treatments/cures before then. Infections should slow down quite a bit once above 30-40% infected (less targets and less infected), so I doubt we're talking truly 15-25X more hospitalized dead, but I think 10-15X more is definitely a risk. That's 10-15X the 60K deaths we've seen - over whatever time it would take to reach herd immunity if we're not practicing any interventions (probably 6+ months).
We better hope we get a spring/summer lull, like we do with the flu to give us more time to develop treatments/cures/vaccines by fall and to improve our infrastructure for massive testing/tracing and isolating, just in case the next wave is strong. If there's no seasonal lull, we're likely in for a very bad time in this country if we reopen too aggressively and without a good testing/tracing infrastructure in place. Our other hope is that maybe, somehow, our antibody tests are off and many more have been infected than we know (or are somehow immune) - but hope isn't a strategy.
