Thread by @ritholtz

This was a month ago:

"“When you walk around, there is a total and utter absence of panic,” Fu says, who moved to Sweden from the United States last year. “The streets are just as busy as they would have been last spring.”

time.com/5817412/sweden…

1/

Immunologists were concerned this unscientific approach to herd immunity might backfire. Wishful thinking is rarely rewarded.

Sweden had a relatively high case fatality rate (7.68%) vs Norway (1.46%) + Denmark (3.85%) but some blamed lack of testing

2/

A month later? Sweden is even worse:

https://twitter.com/ritholtz/status/1257007849756033029

3/

Some asked "What about deaths per million?" (per 1m pop was unclear)

Well, glad you asked:

ritholtz.com/2020/05/sweden…

4/

Just in case you might have missed that chart of Deaths per Million people vs neighboring Finland + Norway + the world

5/

The source for that is a huge collection of Covi-19 related data from the always useful Our World in Data

ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

6/

And now, we here in the USA are trying a variety of approaches: Georgia, Florida, California, NY, Michigan.

Its going to be a real time experiment in how to come out of a Shelter in Place situation

7/

Those who ignored the social distancing rules and lockdown measures have already been seeing a spike in infections:

North Carolina

vice.com/en_us/article/…
8/

Michigan

channel3000.com/72-got-covid-1…

9/

Large gathering, including church services, are tailor made for an infectious agent

washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/…

10/

I agree with @biancoresearch who believes that even of everything was opened up on Monday, a substantial portion of the population would out of an excess of caution continue to shelter in place

ritholtz.com/2020/05/mib-ji…

11/

Those people not working jobs that threaten their lives for $12/hour? They are not lazy (as some have suggested). They simply do not want to die a useless, preventable death.

cnbc.com/2020/05/01/cor…

12/

Contact tracing, testing and ongoing social distancing will hopefully make this less safer than it might have otherwise been.

13/

Like Sweden, the USA is beginning a new experiment. In a month or so, the data will reveal how effective the re-opening will be.

END

Happy Mother's Day!

If you care about your mom, or parents & grandparents, or anyone one else at risk, you will listen to what your doctors and health care professionals say.

Be smart and stay safe!

And by "less safer" I mean "less dangerous"

The @nytimes is also on this now:

Sweden Stayed Open. A Deadly Month Shows the Risks. nytimes.com/interactive/20…