UnHerd
7 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2021
34:54 · 1.4M views · Apr 17, 2020
UnHerd interview with Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke, who explains why he thinks lockdowns are the wrong policy and describes Sweden's approach during the spring 2020 pandemic.
Commenters point to it for the Swedish insider perspective on lockdowns, with some later calling its statements prescient.
9 comments from Hacker News
There is a lengthier interview by UnHeard with Professor Johan Giesecke (another experienced epidemiologist) of Sweden on YouTube [0]. It’s worthwhile listening to their perspective. One of the comments he made was that no lockdown would work in democratic countries and the real test will be fatality rates between Sweden and others in 1 year. He believed it’ll be very little difference between those countries that have implement the lockdown and those that haven’t I had watched the simulation of covid19 infection by 1blue3brown[1] and some of his modeling appeared to me (maybe I misunderstood them) to confirm Swede’s point of view. Ultimately the same number of people got infected albeit in a “flatter” rate. However one counter point by Johan Giesecke was that these flattening the curve is motivated by the assumption of a static capacity of ER rooms to deal with this pandemic and he pointed out they have increased capacity. Overall I found listening to his side very informative, at least it gave me a different view of looking at from their view. [0] this video [1] [LINK]
I'm Swedish but I live in Scotland and I've been watching the Swedish approach to COVID with great interest. I remain fairly sceptical but I also thought this interview[0] with Johan Giesecke who was the previous state epidemiologist and is advising both WHO and the current state epidemiologist interesting. In particular it seems like Sweden messed up the response in elderly care which is something that everyone is admiting to. I do think it's too early to say whether Sweden's approach is as bad as it currently looks, likely this is not something that can be measured and compared to other nations for years. 0: this video
Sweden has a rather different welfare system, typical population density, income distribution, typical household demographic, urban planning and culture regarding social interactions, compared to many places that would use it as an example for what to do in this crisis. I think following the available evidence, interpreted by experts is the way to go. Ultimately the argument for Sweden's policy seems to be less based on cost saving than general wellbeing. A good bit of insight here: this video
Here's an interesting interview with a senior epidemiologist partly responsible for Sweden's unconventional strategy: this video TL;DW: Preventing transmission in the long term is impossible and the actual fatality rate is likely on the order of 0.1%, so general lockdowns are pointless and being driven mostly by political considerations (something must be done and this is something). Just protect the elderly and weak.
Here is an interview with Prof Johan Giesecke from April 2020. In hindsight one can call his statements prophetic. this video They had a clear plan, unlike other governments like Germany, who still do not have a plan how to get out of this mess.