But let's try to imagine the point of view of someone who thinks otherwise. Let's start with the no-lockdown policy.
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One argument in favour of that is that the policy has a straightforward MEDICAL justification:https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/29/delaying-herd-immunity-is-costing-lives/ …
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Replying to @HenryTarquin @kimmaicutler
Yes This justification, which I think is extremely flimsy even for Sweden, is dependent on the idea of a stable and predictable growth curve of infections measured against a stable and predictable supply of hospital capacity
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This ONLY WORKS if you have a relatively healthy population that manages health risk "rationally" and utilizes the medical system as efficiently as possible, i.e. going to see a doctor as soon as they might be sick, staying home as soon as they know for sure they're infected
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If this isn't the case, and you face the possibility of a rapidly accelerating growth curve, then the math of this dubious "Let the young and healthy build their immunity over time" argument collapses You'll rapidly eat up all that hospital capacity you were saving for later
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Which is very likely to happen in a society where the poorest people in the jobs that put them at highest risk of infection have the strongest reason to deny being infected and keep on working to pay their bills until they can't
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And where, because they have crappy insurance or crappy primary care providers, they don't actually get appropriate testing and treatment until it's too late, ending up collapsing in the street and going to the ER in an ambulance instead
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This is the worst case scenario for uncontained growth - rapidly accelerating growth among the underclass where they just keep on infecting people until they hit critical condition - and it's exactly the pattern we see in US hotspots It's why slaughterhouses are shutting down
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Maybe everything will go perfectly for Sweden - a slow wave of young people getting sick and getting better so that when the wave inevitably hits the "most vulnerable populations" of the elderly, the hospitals are empty and all the young people are still working
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I don't see any chance in hell this happens in a country like the US with its lack of safety net and insurance system that punishes you for going to the doctor Much more likely the wave becomes an accelerating tsunami and we hit the worst case scenario like Italy
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I.e. the hospitals are *full* and *already overwhelmed" when the peak hits, the bodies are piling up *while* the ranks of the frontline workers are decimated by absence due to illness and fear of illness, and we jump straight to death panels ("No treatment for anyone over 70")
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