Social distancing is NOT directly intended to stop deaths, bur rather to slow them down so that the hospitals don't get overwhelmed. Sweden IS practicing social distancing, but moderately, and indeed hospitals aren't overwhelmed there. If they become overwhelmed, then Sweden will.have to tighten up. Meanwhile, the countries with lockdown will eventually unlock, and then what? They'll immediately have to lockdown again and again and again. Meanwhile, they are being economically destroyed.WorldTraveler wrote: ↑April 18th, 2020, 8:10 pm. Without social distancing there would have been many more deaths. A month and a half is not that long to save many lives. I also believe Sweden had a much worse outcome than their neighbors who implemented social distancing. So far, Sweden lost 1511, where Finland lost 90 and Norway 64.
Note that Finland and Norway are smaller than Sweden, so death rate per 100,000 is the correct measure. Those neighbors will eventually catch up by that measure, unless some miracle anti-viral is discovered, but there has never been an anti-viral for flu so don't hold your breath. Personally, I'd be much more frightened myself of treatment by an untested anti-viral than covid-19 itself. A vaccine is just a weakened version of covid19, and so no better or worse than covid19 itself to strong patients. A vaccine would be very helpful for the elderly.
Most people, including all frequent travelers, will eventually get covid-19. If you are weak when you get it, you will die. That's the bottom line. Scientists who advised social distancing and "flattening the curve" knew that all along, but somehow stupid people got the idea that social distancing makes covid19 disappear permanently.
To reiterate, social distancing spreads out the unavoidable deaths of weaklings, so that hospitals have capacity to treat stronger patients and thus reduce avoidable deaths. In fact, given that hospitals in most places (other than NYC) are empty, your best bet would be to volunteer to get infected now, just in case you need medical care. I would do that personally if my local hospital were empty and they were offering infection to volunteers.