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