Denmark and Sweden are next door neighbors, and both recorded their first Covid-19 death a day apart (March 11/12). This is true apples to apples. Before you go down the density path, let’s point out that Denmark ranks 65th vs. Sweden’s 91st in world’s densest countries, so Denmark is more dense. I challenge you to find a better comparison, factoring in climate, location, political viewpoint, culture, etc.
There is only one gaping difference (that we know of today): their social distancing approach. Denmark was one of the the first in Europe to lock down, and one of the harshest, while Sweden was one of the last and is still not fully locked down. Let’s see how they compare.
Total corona deaths:
Denmark: 370
Sweden: 1,765
Note: the total deaths number is skewed, because Sweden has nearly double the total population of Denmark. Nevertheless, even after adjusting for population, Sweden is at nearly triple as you’ll see in the next stat. That’s aside from the jolting fact that Sweden’s deaths per day is still sharply on the rise while Denmark’s is nearly down to nothing.
Corona deaths per million:
Denmark: 64
Sweden: 175
New corona deaths on April 21:
Denmark 6
Sweden: 185
Total corona patients in the ICU:
Denmark: 81
Sweden: 515
Active corona cases that we know of:
Denmark: 2,625
Sweden: 13,007
Mind you, it’s not because Sweden is testing more- on the contrary, Denmark has conducted 6,000 more tests than Sweden, which after adjusting for population size is nearly double the tests per million.
As of today: Denmark is starting a gradual reopening of the economy, albeit ready to put the brakes on immediately should they see a sharp rise in infections. The reason? New infections and new deaths have been dramatically slowing down for more than 2 weeks already as of late April. Descent started in March.
As of today: Sweden has been putting consistently harsher measures in place. The reason? They see a consistent doubling of new infections and deaths, still sharply rising as of late April. In all likelihood this will continue for months.
I didn’t do this with California/NY, Israel/Italy, Taiwan/UK, Singapore/Spain, South Korea/France, etc. These two countries are really really similar and were hit in really similar fashions and at a similar time frame. The data is really hard to refute.
Again, we don’t know everything. But we do know that the suffocatingly overwhelming evidence points to extreme social distancing being really effective and the only proven solution to this virus thus far. The stricter and faster, the better.
Will there be a second wave? Will we discover a cure or vaccine? Will it go away “like a miracle”? Will the virus mutate and kill us all, leaving only those who acquired immunity? Alternatively, will the virus erupt in a worse form inside those of us who were already infected at another later date like in chickenpox (can erupt as shingles years later)? Only G-d knows the answers to these questions, for now. But if we’re focusing on today, on the 45,000+ deaths already in the US (still sharply rising, btw- over 2,800 deaths today!), on all of the lives (of people we know and love! Many deaths of people we know well!) we can be saving now as we ramp up testing, data on how and how fast transmission occurs, research on immunity potential, procurement of medicine and evidence of treatment protocols.. there is only one true hishtadlus. SAVING LIVES IN FRONT OF OUR EYES.
I might point out now that significantly more people have died of corona in the last 5 weeks in the U.S. than car accidents all year 2016 (which sported the highest number of car fatalities on record).
It’s also useful to point out that literally every single extra interaction during an outbreak greatly increases the likelihood of the actor and his/her close family and social circle getting and spreading the disease. Looking to others doesn’t matter: some people will always break rules, laws, etc. and unironically, those people will suffer from outbreaks disproportionately. It’s just math. I’m pretty sure Darwin has a theory about that.
I don’t want to be mekatreg on niftarim so I’ll keep this general- anecdotally, it’s highly likely that you’ll find a strong correlation between those who weren’t serious/didn’t follow the rules early or well enough and fatalities or serious illness later on in our communities. I will not point to specific examples but I have done a bit of research to the extent that I was able. You can use a rolling timeline of people falling ill/dying to see who was later in the cycle. Obviously this isn’t true of everyone, not close, but there is a strong correlation between late cycle illnesses and rule breakers.
There. I think I’ve provided some enlightening empirical evidence which begin to show the efficacy of social distancing.