Republicans navigating in populist waters

I have no clue of how "ilileralism" and "populism" is measured, but the graph seems credible and scary. 

It is clear that iliberalism will be an important part of occidental democracy in the future.

That means that the occidental democracy already contains and feeds what, very possibly, could also be the end of the occidental democracy as we know it (liberal). 

COVID (again) Body count vs mortality

There is a lot of "body counts" in the media... but very little context. Below it can be seen the actual impact of COVID compared with "normal" years. (Sweden vs 5y average, Spain vs 2019).

Sweden worst in Digital Government?

Until now I normally trusted OECD as a good source, but seriously....??

In a study comparing 33 countries, including Uruguay, Argentina, Braazil, Slovenia, etc.... Sweden comes out as the least advanced country regarding "digital government". (Iceland second worst)

Colombia is the third best country.

Sweden is the least "digital per design", least "Data driven" and least "proactive" among the 33 contries.In "openness" and " "USerdriven" Sweden is on 32nd position.

Seriously...?

I might not be objective.. and maybe Sweden is not the best... but the worst...? in practically all categories?

Is there no "sanity check" before printing such BS? 

Is there an agenda behind or is it just incompetence?

 

 

OECD Digital Government Index (DGI): 2019

Doctors per habitant

 In these COVID times, the comparison beteen different countries health-systems is a trending topic.

The comparison is not easy as there is no easy KPI to measure.

For instance, the graph below compares number of doctors and nurses per habitant, but what good is a lot of doctors if they don't have the right infrastructure?

Possibly, life expectancy might be one of the best ways to measure the quality of the health in its broadest sense (also the prevention of deaths due to accidents etc..). 

Hopefully there also is some kind of correlation between life quality and life expectancy.

Spenditure on health system as part of GDP might also be an indicator of the importance the society gives to the healt system... but, in that number you cannot see if the money is spent efficiently.

Anyway, having said this, that there is no single KPI to use to measure the quality of different health systems, there are amany KPI's that each one tells a part of the complete picture.

In this case, as mentioned, I have found the number of doctors and nurses per capita in different countries.

Swedes, a traveling people

With the exception of Luxenburgers (who has to travel very little to be abroad) Swedes are the people who travel most in Europe. 2,5x more than the average European and 28% more than the Nethwerlands, which is the most eople on the continent.

Compared with Spain (my 2nd country), Swedes travel 5,5x more abroad.

Alcohol related deaths

I was not able to find good info from recent years, so here are some old data.

The ratio of Spanish women (15-64 y.o.) that dies by "alcohol attributed deaths" is (was) almost the double of that of Swedish women.

The same relation among men is (was) a little less... (about 80% higher rate in Spain).

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/160680/e96457.pdf

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/160680/e96457.pdf

COVID - mobility

So, to my surprise, it seems like many swedes would like to be forced to stay home rather than stay home voluntary.

The comparison normally is with Finland or Norway, stating how successful they have been in their fight aganst COVID (i.e., that they have less deths due to COVID19 at this point).

My opinion normally is that we will not know which is the "best strategy" until much later... having "better" numbers now does not mean that it will remain so.

Looking at the day by day numbers at this point is like deciding who is the winner in a marathon after 3 km.

If a country, to great economic cost, manages to delay the infection of its habitants... but at one point has to let the economy work again (reality is a bitch) then... what has been won? The virus is still out there. People will still get infected.
Only if there is a vaccine available after the lockdown (probably not) or a much improved treatment has been discovered (this is of course happening, but how much better will it be in one month? Maybe we will have to wait 3 months before the difference is really notable?) will this strategy be succesful

So, as far as I understand it, the Swedish strategy to...

• protect specific groups and...
• "control" the infection rate ("R") so that the hospitals never get overloaded (i.e., all sick persons shall be able to get the best treatment available)

... is not necessarily a bad strategy.

I am the first one to recognize that I can be wrong, but... as I said, I am a strong believer that we will not know that until after this has passed.

Still, a part from COVID-19 and its impact... I find it tremendously interesting (but scary) to see what happens with different countries based on their different strategies.

So, as a starter, I looked around to see if there was any manner to check the direct impact of the different strategies (mainly voluntary vs imposed by law in diferent degrees).

And, lucky me... Google has an excellent service to meassure the mobility in different areas.

Here are the "mobility" changes in "retail & recreation" areas in some countries.

As can be expected, the mobility in Sweden has decreased less than other countires. Among the compared countires, Finland is the second country with less mobility change.

• The three countries with strictest lockdown (Spain, Belgium) also happens to be the countries with most COVID19 detahs (but that's beside the note for this post)

What is striking is how second line from the top (Denmark) actually is not as different than Sweden (and still they consider Sweden as a watching a horror movie).

The third line from the top is Finland. This is the country that many people seems to consider the utter success in the COVID fight. Or, at least, a major success vs Sweden.

Though the COVID impact is not the focus in this post, it is still interesting to see that countries with much stricter lockdown (almost all of them) has higher death rate than Finland... This fact should make it clear that there is more, much more, to this than only "strict lockdown".

What I actually am curious (scared) to see, is which will the impact be in countries that closes down 90% of its activity during months? 

• How many companies will be forced to close? 
• How many people will get unemployed?
• How many divorces will there be?
• Will the family violence increase? Will there be deaths?
• ..... 

I am sure that this will be the input for many, many economic, sociologic, studies in the future. But, remember... you saw it here first 😉

//Roland

COVID19

Esto es una buena página para comparar número de prueba COVID19 que se ha hecho en diferentes paíes.

Additional read: COVID-19 deaths and cases: how do sources compare?