In the USA the number actually infected is now estimated to have passed the 40 million mark. Proportionally I expect Sweden to be at least 4x that.
Why? What's the evidence? Just because you want it to be close to herd immunity?
(If my take on those numbers is right, that's still below 50% and thus well below estimated for what's needed for immunity.)
Quote:
Compared to places like Melbourne, that are as vulnerable to epidemic outbreaks today as they were January 1st.
And as for TX and FL, CA is every bit as bad and none of them are yet as bad per capita as NY or NJ, nor are they likely to be.
My prediction: CA has taken steps - they're going to get worse in terms of cases for another week or two and in terms of deaths for roughly a month, then start to recover. There are early signs that the curve is bending already. (Which is bad, right?)
Texas has shown some signs of sanity, they will at least slow, but they've still got a lot of damage baked in and they'll be much slower on the down slope of the peak. The governor may take further action.
Florida is rushing headlong to destruction and seems unlikely to stop soon. There's no reason for that to stop. They'll easily pass NY/NJ on a per capita level if they don't act.
We'll see who's right here in the next month or so.
Herd Immunity varies by type of disease. 50% exposure might just do it for the Coronavirus.
Sweden's doing great still, as expected. Certainly no worse than Belgium and better if you look at the Death Rate, and you should if you care about relevant facts.
Bjorn Lomborg just released a sensible book that will get no traction with policy makers. People that make sense are no longer valued it seems.
The UN's own analysis of climate policy last year noted that the difference in climate since 2005 is measurably no different than if global humanity had done nothing viz-a-viz climate change. Demonstrably, within the margins of error, policy has made no difference.
So what do we do? Why pursue much more of the same of course.
Mike Rowe making sense too , this topic not directly related except as another prime example of the stupidity of educated policy makers.
I'm not sure how fiction could ever be 'sensible'.
Quote:
The UN's own analysis of climate policy last year noted that the difference in climate since 2005 is measurably no different than if global humanity had done nothing viz-a-viz climate change. Demonstrably, within the margins of error, policy has made no difference.
This is sophist nonsense.
It is 'true' that the impact of policy actions since 2005 on the climate of 2020 is too small to measure... but that tells us nothing about the effectiveness of those policy actions.
Major climate feedback effects take more than 15 years to play out. Further, cycles of heat movement within the climate system can produce fluctuations over intervals longer than 15 years... making it difficult to differentiate 'signal from noise' over such a short period.
To demonstrate the absurdity: The average amount of time required to even find statistically significant warming within the global temperature record is SEVENTEEN years. Thus, stating that we are unable to find a statistically significant (i.e. outside the margin of error) change in the warming trend in just fifteen years is, again, 'true'... but tells us nothing.
It's just saying that, 'if we look at a time period too short to determine a trend then we get no useful information'... but then wording it in such a way as to imply that this means nothing has been achieved. Look at the impact of policy actions starting at an earlier point or extending into the future, i.e. over a period long enough to determine a trend, and there is clear evidence that we are reducing the impact of global warming.
In short, this is an argument purposefully constructed to deceive people. The work of a deliberate con artist.
That climate change has not gotten worse than it is, faster, looks to be from sandbagging governmental policies and miraculous changes in weather that prove to me that someone does not want the entire human race to end up in the spirit world for the next few thousand years.
You're right of course. TerraPower is run by a bunch of moronic rubes who know so much less than you. And don't even get me started on the other 4th generation labs - those people are off the bottom of the brainpower scale comparatively.
Nuclear simply has no legitimate part of a carbon free energy future and I can't imagine why Elon doesn't have you heading up the whole R&D operations at both Tesla and Space X... WTH is he thinking letting you waste your talent posting to this thread?
Life is sooo not fair.
</sarcasm>
Meanwhile, China continues to build coal fired power plants and global reduction of coal power (taking "promises" given at face value) is about 5%-8% of the rate it needs to be in order to meet even the tepid goals set in Paris - roughly a target of 25% of current capacity still in use by 2030. Yeah, that ain't gonna happen.
Your reference to 4th generation nuclear "labs" concedes my point about these being speculative technologies.
Maybe someday they amount to something. Or maybe space based solar or high altitude wind or some other tech that isn't actually viable yet gets there first. However, talking about any of them as part of planning to solve global warming, when they don't actually exist yet, is simply not rational.
As to coal... I don't see how you can look at the fact that global coal power production is now shrinking and still come away believing that it is a major issue. Your inability to grasp trends is truly baffling.
Just as global coal growth slowed and then reversed due to being replaced by natural gas, wind, and solar (in that order)... it will now quickly crater as the market forces which caused the reversal (i.e. those other power sources being cheaper than coal) continue to make it more and more obsolete. We have seen this play out in one country after another and have now reached the point where it is happening at the global level. Yet you continue to believe that coal will NOT crater... despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Of course coal is "shrinking". I said as much in my previous post. It is however (repeated here for the grammar challenged) reducing at a rate too slow to even meet the tepid Paris Agreement targeted CO2 emissions goals/promises/hopes/...er, whatever.
Your prognostic abilities remind me of others on these forums. For example:
thejeff wrote:
Florida is rushing headlong to destruction and seems unlikely to stop soon. There's no reason for that to stop. They'll easily pass NY/NJ on a per capita level if they don't act.
Except they haven't. FL looks pretty OK re the Death Rate compared to NY or NJ.
Even Sweden is doing good. As predicted by moi right here in this very thread.
:D
They're doing what they've done from the beginning and will have functional herd immunity any week now.
Of course coal is "shrinking". I said as much in my previous post. It is however (repeated here for the grammar challenged) reducing at a rate too slow to even meet the tepid Paris Agreement targeted CO2 emissions goals/promises/hopes/...er, whatever.
Over just the past ten years we've gone from the peak of the annual world coal power growth rate to coal power shrinking slightly. You look at just the most recent year and say, 'the rate of reduction this year is too small to solve the problem'. Rational people look at the trend and know that the rate of reduction will rapidly increase.
Quark Blast wrote:
Even Sweden is doing good.
They're doing what they've done from the beginning and will have functional herd immunity any week now.
Actually, they aren't 'doing what they've done from the beginning'. Sweden now has more restrictive policies in place than many other countries (e.g. France, Austria, Croatia, Norway, Finland).
Like many states in the US that initially tried to do as little as possible, Sweden had a resurgence of the virus and was forced to put some additional restrictions in place.
Just checked the numbers and Sweden is doing fine.
Way better than France! Talk about a resurgence - yikes!
We need to have no coal use by 2030 to even have a whisper of a hope to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Ain't happening with any reasonable trend in declining coal usage.
But you keep smoking the herb of your choice because it seems like it's making you a more positive person and I'd never gainsay that.
:D
Yes, nothing really new there. The main difference is that they're looking at directional transmission (i.e. a beam) to maximize efficiency. That means it is limited to line of sight and potentially disrupted by atmospheric conditions.
Worth studying, but I think the jury is still out on how financially viable it will actually be. Copper wire isn't particularly expensive after all.
Broadcast power will be a thing shortly after room temperature superconductors for so-called microelectronics are a thing cheaply and reliably built; except then harnessing ambient electromagnetic energy may be easier for most applications.
Sweden is still doing awesome all things considered, as predicted by moi.
Florida still not imploding and considering how many old people they have there they must be doing something right.
CA is still handily out front of the other states - and that's not good if entirely unsurprising. Same goes for the rolling blackouts - they should've invested less in wind and more in natural gas power generation. Ah well.... live and learn, or probability not in the case of the deciders in CA.
:D
CO2 emissions down a little. Now if we can keep this up another 30 years straight we can make those Paris Agreement targets.
Same goes for the rolling blackouts - they should've invested less in wind and more in natural gas power generation.
What nonsense.
Rolling blackouts in California during heatwaves are not some new phenomena. That has nothing to do with their sources of electricity and everything to do with not having enough extra capacity to meet the huge demand spikes when everyone is running their air conditioners.
The problem is that extreme usage peaks like this don't happen often enough for it to make economic sense to build sufficient capacity to deal with them.
That said, the sunny days which produce high temperatures also have high solar power generation... meaning that having a high percentage of solar power actually helps mitigate this problem. Increasing energy storage, especially long term storage, will also help... as could a larger 'smart' grid.
Same goes for the rolling blackouts - they should've invested less in wind and more in natural gas power generation.
What nonsense.
Rolling blackouts in California during heatwaves are not some new phenomena. That has nothing to do with their sources of electricity and everything to do with not having enough extra capacity to meet the huge demand spikes when everyone is running their air conditioners.
The problem is that extreme usage peaks like this don't happen often enough for it to make economic sense to build sufficient capacity to deal with them.
"Economic sense" has already passed them by what with all the wind power that 'blows' when the wind isn't blowing - which it doesn't significantly during heat waves. Duh-o!
CBDunkerson wrote:
That said, the sunny days which produce high temperatures also have high solar power generation... meaning that having a high percentage of solar power actually helps mitigate this problem. Increasing energy storage, especially long term storage, will also help... as could a larger 'smart' grid.
Riiight, because once the sun sets nighttime temperatures are virtually arctic.
They've always needed battery storage at scale to make economic sense of the headlong rush to 'green' solutions. Alas, "someday" battery storage isn't today storage and the problem is a today problem and will be for years to come.
CA has fallen to the same fallacy that Germany did, is paying the price for it, and will continue to do so for years to come.
.
In other news, Sweden continues apace with their scientific approach to beating the Coronavirus. France is still sucking. CA still leads the USA in "oops, this is not how to handle the virus." And FL still hasn't blown up.
In other news, Sweden continues apace with their scientific approach to beating the Coronavirus. France is still sucking. CA still leads the USA in "oops, this is not how to handle the virus." And FL still hasn't blown up.
CA has more total cases because it's a huge state. It's far behind FL and GA in cases per capita.
But of course, by your theory, you actually want more cases to rush to herd immunity.
In other news, Sweden continues apace with their scientific approach to beating the Coronavirus. France is still sucking. CA still leads the USA in "oops, this is not how to handle the virus." And FL still hasn't blown up.
CA has more total cases because it's a huge state. It's far behind FL and GA in cases per capita.
But of course, by your theory, you actually want more cases to rush to herd immunity.
But the important metric is the Death Rate. And you know that.
FL & GA are at about 48/100k.
NY 169.
NJ 180.
CA 31, and growing.
TX 40.
But all the news is blah blah blah TX! OMG FL! Etc. And the CA numbers are especially bad since that state was an early mover on lockdown (though obviously not early enough) and doesn't have any of the <forbidden topic> hangups the other states you mentioned do.
Looking at Sweden, once they got properly serious about protecting old folks, their Death Rate is amazing compared to, say, France.
At this point I'm just going to ignore your delusional covid-19 statements as they are off-topic.
As to California energy... again, blackouts during heatwaves have nothing to do with renewable energy. The only way to deal with demand spikes is to build excess capacity. The bigger the spike the more excess capacity required. In this case the spike has been larger than it would have made economic sense to build excess power (of any kind) for. A large portion of the state's capacity being taken offline for maintenance and the like just before the demand spiked certainly didn't help either.
Meanwhile, California has been able to virtually eliminate coal and relegate natural gas to minority status... they get most of their electricity from zero-emission sources (something you have claimed to be impossible). Yes, like Germany, they have also been eliminating nuclear and could have been even further along if they had waited to do so, but, also like Germany, they are well ahead of most economies on the clean power transition.
I'd say the biggest issue with California power is actually their obsession with energy efficiency. They've managed to become the state with the second lowest (after Hawaii) per capita energy usage by setting strict efficiency standards... but driven up prices in the process. Still, their rates aren't that out of line with neighboring states... largely because cheap wind and solar projects have helped offset things.
In other news, just ten years ago (2011), Exxon was the most prosperous company in the world. Yesterday, they were booted out of the DJIA due to collapsing value. The current transportation slowdown pushed them over the edge, but the trend had been building for years. Nearly all investors have seen the writing on the wall and know that oil's days are numbered... a fact which will only speed along that collapse.
At this point I'm just going to ignore your delusional covid-19 statements as they are off-topic.
Delusional?
Why thanks Dr. CB, your unsolicited and carefully considered medical diagnosis is much appreciated.
:D
.
Off-topic?
Oh no, 'fraid not.
We can get rid of the virus by intentionally cratering our economy 20% or more in perpetuity (like NZ), or we can flatten the curve (by keeping the infection rate below hospital capacity, as we have most places and certainly in the USA (though NY/NJ were pushing that)) and hope natural and/or artificial herd immunity are a thing by this time next year.
A continued double-digit global economic reduction will most certainly have a long-term global climate effect.
A continued double-digit global economic reduction will most certainly have a long-term global climate effect.
...which will be too small to differentiate from what the long-term global climate would have been like without it.
I already walked you through the (very simple) math on that, but here you are still insisting on the same blatantly false position. Why?
If that were true then why even try for anything like the Paris Agreement?
As for the Coronavirus:
I suspect we may be close to herd immunity measured globally.
All the areas having the pseudo 2nd wave are areas that, for whatever reason, were spared an initial onslaught. Areas that really got whammy'd the first time (plus Sweden) seem to be bypassing the pseudo 2nd wave.
That plus effective vaccine(s) could very well make Coronavirus a CO2 blip.
We may simply end up with yet another flu bug that's a little more deadly than the seasonal ones we've already got.
If OTOH the Coronavirus stays deadly, even for just older and medical precondition folk, there will be a measurable and significant crimp in global CO2 (and the global economy) for the foreseeable future.
If that were true then why even try for anything like the Paris Agreement?
...because the Paris Agreement calls for larger, and longer sustained, reductions in GHG emissions than the economic slowdown could ever produce.
Again, if the current slowdown were to last for five years, at the same level of reduced emissions seen thus far, it would result in approximately a 0.5 ppm reduction in long term atmospheric GHG levels. The goals of the Paris Agreement require reducing the current slightly over 2 ppm per year emissions down to near zero.
There are about 45 ppm between our current atmospheric GHG levels and levels high enough to cause ~2 degrees Celsius warming by 2100... and then another 115 ppm to cause ~3 degrees Celsius warming. Thus, the Paris Agreement seeks to reduce long term atmospheric GHG levels by 115 ppm, or more. As opposed to less than a 0.5 ppm possible reduction from the economic slowdown.
We need to sustain the equivalent of the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints to have a chance at making the Paris Agreement targets. Which is to say, we have no chance.
We need to sustain the equivalent of the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints to have a chance at making the Paris Agreement targets. Which is to say, we have no chance.
Glad you've finally come around there CB
:D.
If your only idea for how to reduce emissions is to slow the economy, that's true.
We need to sustain the equivalent of the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints to have a chance at making the Paris Agreement targets. Which is to say, we have no chance.
Glad you've finally come around there CB
:D.
If your only idea for how to reduce emissions is to slow the economy, that's true.
That's not what I said.
And you know it.
Don't be that type of forumite. Humbly, it's not a great look for you.
The scale of effort needed to meet the Paris Agreement targets is also equivalent to 6x or 7x the effort the USA put into defeating the Third Reich and Imperial Japan. Only the other ~200 countries will have to join us in that level of commitment.
Which is to say, we have no chance to meet the Paris Agreement targets.
We need to sustain the equivalent of the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints to have a chance at making the Paris Agreement targets. Which is to say, we have no chance.
Glad you've finally come around there CB
:D.
If your only idea for how to reduce emissions is to slow the economy, that's true.
That's not what I said.
And you know it.
I don't know it. It seems to be what you said, but you're routinely unclear, so it's quite possible you meant something else.
We need to sustain the equivalent of the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints to have a chance at making the Paris Agreement targets. Which is to say, we have no chance.
Glad you've finally come around there CB
:D.
If your only idea for how to reduce emissions is to slow the economy, that's true.
That's not what I said.
And you know it.
I don't know it. It seems to be what you said, but you're routinely unclear, so it's quite possible you meant something else.
Ha! You're doing it again.
You literally quoted my post in sufficient context to not go down this path of "argumentation".
In particular the words, "We need to sustain the equivalent of..."
Emphasis added to help you with comprehension.
We certainly don't have to tank the economy in order to meet the Paris Agreement targets but we (global humanity) have to do something totally unprecedented in scale - both the scale of sustained effort and scale of international, indeed truly global, cooperation.
So by "sustain the equivalent of the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints", you actually mean "do something that has the effect of sustaining the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints".
Which isn't the same thing at all, since the first involves sustaining the "equivalent" for that period, while the second is simply an estimate of scale - which can be reached by cumulative efforts building on themselves rather than by doing the same thing for decades.
For example, if rather than just slow down the economy for 6 months to get carbon savings, we replaced enough fossil fuels every six months to get the same savings, it would take less than 6 years to reach the same goal as "sustaining the Coronavirus slowdown for another 59 continuous 6-month stints". And it wouldn't stop there, but keep paying off.
It's still a huge scale effort, but doesn't fit at all with what you said.
Assuming I've understood you correctly this time, of course.
It's still a huge scale effort, but doesn't fit at all with what you said.
Assuming I've understood you correctly this time, of course.
Nope.
Quoting me again for your sake:
The scale of effort needed to meet the Paris Agreement targets is also equivalent to 6x or 7x the effort the USA put into defeating the Third Reich and Imperial Japan. Only the other ~200 countries will have to join us in that level of commitment.
It's the scale of effort.
A 30 year Coronavirus "lockdown" is of roughly equivalent scale. The scale of effort needed to fix the global climate.
I'll just return to the math. As previously stated, we have about 45 ppm of atmospheric CO2 remaining before we'd exceed the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Given that we are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels by a little over 2 ppm per year, it works out to about 20 years before we exceed the limit at the current rate. Of course, if we can reduce the rate of growth then we'd have longer to resolve the problem.
Over the past few years we have finally slowed and stopped the atmospheric CO2 growth rate. I believe we have turned the corner and will see a decreasing atmospheric growth trend going forward.
So, as has been said many many times in this thread... if you look at current rates of emissions and/or atmospheric growth then we are nowhere near fixing the problem. However, if you look at the trends of emissions and atmospheric growth then we are well on our way.
Ten years ago it was looking like we would hit 4 or 5 degrees Celsius warming by 2100. Now we have stabilized atmospheric growth at about 2 ppm per year... times 80 years = 160 ppm + 400 ppm current = 560 ppm by 2100 assuming no further reductions. Since we wouldn't even be getting to 560 ppm, the level needed for ~3 degrees warming, until 2100 and there is a decadal lag in warming, 3 degrees by 2100 is now looking like an upper limit... based on the current atmospheric growth rate.
However, as noted, the rate has been changing. It has stopped growing and will almost certainly fall this year and very likely most of the coming ten years. If we make as much progress over the next ten years as we did over the prior ten years we will be in ok shape. If the trend towards clean power instead continues to accelerate (as I believe it will) then the 2 degrees Paris Agreement goal starts to become a real possibility.
No 'scale of effort' required. Just a natural transition from expensive, unhealthy, environmentally damaging fossil fuels to 'clean' power options.
Read this the other day. I haven't delved too deep into it yet (60+ hr week job, wife and kids, dogs, & hobbies) but figured I'd add it to the conversation.
Mills is another professional fraudster. Consider this gem;
"The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil."
Setting aside the false/inflated assumptions used to arrive at that 100 barrels figure... yes, the battery can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil... thousands of times.
I'll just return to the math. As previously stated, we have about 45 ppm of atmospheric CO2 remaining before we'd exceed the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Given that we are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels by a little over 2 ppm per year, it works out to about 20 years before we exceed the limit at the current rate....
Ah yes, the math. The math where you magically assume a complex and chaotic system can be modeled accurately with mere assumptions and a little algebra.
Because you know, for instance, the Amazon rainforest denudation won't have any effect on global climate over the next 80 years.
CBDunkerson wrote:
So, as has been said many many times in this thread... if you look at current rates of emissions and/or atmospheric growth then we are nowhere near fixing the problem. However, if you look at the trends of emissions and atmospheric growth then we are well on our way....
Indeed, many times.
Despite the best minds in climate science agreeing we need CC&S at scale to even have a hope of meeting a +2.5°C year 2100, you ignore it away with a perfunctory wave.
Nuclear is also a key segment of our energy future. Something with nearly as much academic support as CC&S but equally disregarded by you.
Like your thoroughly unqualified medical advice, your energy infrastructure recommendations and prognostications are laudable in their limited vision - a veritable what-not-to-do when considering the topic of AGW.
CBDunkerson wrote:
No 'scale of effort' required. Just a natural transition from expensive, unhealthy, environmentally damaging fossil fuels to...
You waste a lot of verbiage on a problem that requires 'no effort' to solve.
I shudder to imagine who you believe the 'best minds in climate science' are.
Quark Blast wrote:
...agreeing we need CC&S at scale to even have a hope of meeting a +2.5°C year 2100, you ignore it away with a perfunctory wave.
Ignore it? Not at all.
Rather, I'd point out that no viable method of mass carbon capture and storage even exists.
Any 'best minds' advocating for it are therefor in the realm of science fiction rather than climate science.
Quark Blast wrote:
Nuclear is also a key segment of our energy future. Something with nearly as much academic support as CC&S but equally disregarded by you.
In my estimation, nuclear energy has far more support. Which makes sense, given that it actually exists. It just is no longer plausible that it will be a significant part of the solution given that other options are cheaper, faster, and safer.
Nuclear as a "key segment of our energy future" is belied by the complete collapse of nuclear power development in our energy present.
Sweden continues apace with its better approach to the Coronavirus.
France is sucking worse now than it did in the initial outbreak and is robbing Italy of it's lead in the European race of what-not-to-do for the Coronavirus pandemic.
I'd say another 4 months and we'll know how the impact to global CO2 emissions will go.
First, although improving efficiency through innovation is a hallmark of efforts to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, efficiency has the side effect of making it easier for civilization to grow and consume more.
Second, that the current rates of world population growth may not be the cause of rising rates of energy consumption, but a symptom of past efficiency gains.
"Advocates of energy efficiency for climate change mitigation may seem to have a reasonable point," Garrett says, "but their argument only works if civilization maintains a fixed size, which it doesn't.
Instead, an efficient civilization is able to grow faster. It can more effectively use available energy resources to make more of everything, including people. Expansion of civilization accelerates rather than declines, and so do its energy demands and CO2 emissions."
Ah yes, the Law of Unintended Consequences
:D
SD wrote:
"At current rates of growth, just to maintain carbon dioxide emissions at their current level will require rapidly constructing renewable and nuclear facilities, about one large power plant a day. And somehow it will have to be done without inadvertently supporting economic production as well, in such a way that fossil fuel demands also increase."
It's a "peculiar dance," he says, between eliminating the prior fossil-based innovations that accelerated civilization expansion, while innovating new non-fossil fuel technologies. Even if this steady-state economy were to be implemented immediately, stabilizing CO2 emissions, the pace of global warming would be slowed -- not eliminated. Atmospheric levels of CO2 would still reach double their pre-industrial level before equilibrating, the research found.
So this research runs counter to a wild, or even a mild, implementation of a 'Green New Deal' (nor should the stupidity of such a 'green' course surprise the scientifically literate).
It does however run counter to my hope that the Coronavirus will set us on a +2.0°C year 2100 (or better). I'm thinking though that the global economic house of cards is mighty precarious in the current state and a global collapse is a non-zero-integer possibility. Maybe even low double digits.
I'd rather civilization not burn to the ground (figuratively! <--for those who are incurable in their pedantic literalness) in order to save the planet because the planet will survive either way and I may not, or at least wish I hadn't.
This has implications for the global economic recovery. Economists are all over the map as to the shape of the recovery ("V", "U", "W", "K", etc) but with Europe still down 12+% and Sweden down <9%, expanded to a global scale that could add up.
OTOH I've got anecdotal evidence that the downward slide is still happening. Lots of local small and medium sized businesses calling it quits around these parts over the last month. And I don't mean just restaurants, though there's plenty of those too.
There's some chatter that China's house 'O cards is shaking. But as above I think we'll have to wait until the holiday buying season is over before a solid estimate can be made.
So Sweden's deaths per million is at 573.3. I won't claim to be any kind of stats guy but as I understand the definition of the term, that means that for every 1,000,000 folks living in Sweden, 573.3 have died to present from Covid-19.
Currently in the USA we're at 578.18, only slightly higher than Sweden. However, the USA is approximately 32 times bigger than Sweden. That means, if we followed the Sweden model from the beginning AND everything had happened exactly the same between our 2 countries, a little over 186 thousand people would've died here versus the 189 thousand we're now recording.
Had we followed France's example, our US deaths would be approximately 149.5 thousand. France supposedly flattened their curve back in the end of May/beginning of June, but recently new cases have spiked making folks wonder if this is a continuation of the first wave of Covid or a second wave.
The reality is though: we're neither of those countries. We're America, with a capital "A." We neither seriously locked down everything a la France, nor did we opt from the very beginning for Herd Immunity like Sweden. There are no guarantees that either plan would've worked perfectly.
Our hospital system is vastly different than both of those countries; population densities aren't the same; interstate travel here is easier than inter-country travel there, and so on.
We need an American plan. We need something that encompasses us ALL, the same way the disease does. If a foreign nation threatened all of the US, our government would protect every single one of us from that nation. Now that a single disease threatens us all, we need ONE unified defense we all participate in.
Right or wrong, politics aside, we don't have that. As a result, we're not doing too well.
I'm pretty sure this is all a wasted folly to say. The Punky QB upthread is going to argue with anything that doesn't reaffirm their views. Other folks who might already agree with these statements similarly won't be affected.
I guess I'm writing all of this for my own peace of mind. Its just frustrating that we can't model our government, healthcare, school system or anything else on Sweden, but for some people we can use them as the model for what our Coronavirus response should be. That is... frustrating.
I'm pretty sure this is all a wasted folly to say. The Punky QB upthread is going to argue with anything that doesn't reaffirm their views. Other folks who might already agree with these statements similarly won't be affected.
I guess I'm writing all of this for my own peace of mind. Its just frustrating that we can't model our government, healthcare, school system or anything else on Sweden, but for some people we can use them as the model for what our Coronavirus response should be. That is... frustrating.
Our approach has been at best incompetent and at worst malevolent - there were some revelations on that earlier today.
Nonetheless part of the reason for Sweden's apparent successes is that, while they didn't lock down as hard as some other nations, they have taken a lot of more voluntary measures, often with more compliance than our mandates. And that is more responsible for the drops there than any success of their approach.
As far as I can tell, the idea that Sweden is anywhere near herd immunity is unfounded. I don't know of any broad testing for antibodies that indicates that a nearly sufficient part of the population has been exposed. All I can find is some studies back in July that showed ~14% of people choosing to get antibody tests were positive (not a random sample), after the government was suggesting they were already to 40% exposure.
Basically, I don't think even Sweden is using Sweden's model.
I'll also reiterate that I don't think there's any real reason to think of this in terms of waves: There's no natural seasonal pattern to this disease, or at least no apparent one. "Waves" come and go regionally based on behavior in that region and will likely do so until we've got an effective vaccine.
By vaccine do you mean "November surprise?" To the central theme of this thread, I can't see how success or failure with Coronavirus policy will impact the slow of man-made climate change. This pandemic is a tiny blip in the long history of emissions and other influencers.
** spoiler omitted **... I'm pretty sure this is all a wasted folly to say. The Punky QB upthread is going to argue with anything that doesn't reaffirm their views. Other folks who might already agree with these statements similarly won't be affected.
I guess I'm writing all of this for my own peace of mind. Its just frustrating that we can't model our government, healthcare, school system or anything else on Sweden, but for some people we can use them as the model for what our Coronavirus response should be. That is... frustrating.
Actually I largely agree. Sweden said their death rate was too high even before the "news" media glommed on to the dirty laundry of failed elderly protection.
Finland! That's who we should be modeling our K-12 education system after. No sane person could argue otherwise. Healthcare system? Taiwan is best.
As for herd immunity. Sweden is there or will be by month's end. You have to add in T-cell immunity and also functional immunity for children and they are well past 50% and likely closer to 70% immune right now, and thus effectively herd immune*.
CO2 decline needed to start a downward trend 20 years ago, but the sooner the better for conditions in the year 2100. If this turns into a long-U recovery, then we might well see an earlier and sharper bend in the curve than otherwise possible. Should have an answer by year's end.
*As always, I'm assuming herd immunity is actually possible for the Coronavirus. It's also possible that vaccine response for the elderly will remain grossly inadequate and so total herd immunity, even with a vaccine, may not be doable.
** spoiler omitted **... I'm pretty sure this is all a wasted folly to say. The Punky QB upthread is going to argue with anything that doesn't reaffirm their views. Other folks who might already agree with these statements similarly won't be affected.
I guess I'm writing all of this for my own peace of mind. Its just frustrating that we can't model our government, healthcare, school system or anything else on Sweden, but for some people we can use them as the model for what our Coronavirus response should be. That is... frustrating.
Actually I largely agree. Sweden said their death rate was too high even before the "news" media glommed on to the dirty laundry of failed elderly protection.
Finland! That's who we should be modeling our K-12 education system after. No sane person could argue otherwise. Healthcare system? Taiwan is best.
As for herd immunity. Sweden is there or will be by month's end. You have to add in T-cell immunity and also functional immunity for children and they are well past 50% and likely closer to 70% immune right now, and thus effectively herd immune*.
CO2 decline needed to start a downward trend 20 years ago, but the sooner the better for conditions in the year 2100. If this turns into a long-U recovery, then we might well see an earlier and sharper bend in the curve than otherwise possible. Should have an answer by year's end.
*As always, I'm assuming herd immunity is actually possible for the Coronavirus. It's also possible that vaccine response for the elderly will remain grossly inadequate and so total herd immunity, even with a vaccine, may not be doable.
What "functional immunity" for children? Looks around at school openings.
If you mean they tend to get milder cases, that doesn't help with herd immunity, since they can still pass it along - which is the entire point of herd immunity.
And I'd like to see any actual evidence of this herd immunity, rather than just your speculation.
