I can only imagine what the music's like. — csalisbury

Oh nonno, this is peak Aussie humor-music:



Legit don't know if it translates to anyone not from here though lol.

Ah. it's about parodying 2007 american music?

RIGHT PAST YOU.

If Peak Aussie humor has to nest itself in an explicit Rihanna Parody, using american music video tropes, i guess its hard to see the homegrown thing.

You would think that.

i might be wrong, maybe there was a parallel discovery of the rihanna song, independent of rihanna.

@StreetlightX Courtney Barnett is great. She's one of the best of the last decade. But, moving beyond music - as always, australian bluster compensates for this that and the other.

A wise man in Australia is called a Nostradamus, In Aussie it translates as knows his Shielas

Nostra = nose
damus = shielas

P.s. Love Courtney Barnett

The Enz are from across the ditch.
(New Zealand)

So what's the deal with Sweden? By all accounts, the shit should've hit the fan by now, but that doesn't seem to be happening. In terms of overall infection and death rate, they are doing worse than some (their immediate neighbors), much better than others (Italy, Spain, France, NY), and about as well as Ireland, which has been praised for its active measures to suppress the epidemic, while Sweden has done almost nothing. Its elderly have been hit hard, but that is also happening elsewhere. On the other hand its health system hasn't been overwhelmed. — SophistiCat

My take is that since outbreaks started later in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries than in the rest of Europe and the US, they have had time to learn from those experiences and modify their behavior. So plausibly the Swedes were doing more voluntary social distancing and other measures than they would have otherwise done in the early stages of the outbreak.

Lockdown would have been more effective still based on a comparison with their Scandinavian neighbors. But, of course, they are only aiming at mitigation, not suppression/eradication.

It's also interesting that other places of concern such as India, South Africa, and Florida haven't had their health systems collapse (so far, at least). Plausibly again, the knowledge gained from other regions' experiences makes a difference to voluntary behavior early in a region's epidemic (and to lockdown timing as well).

Also, I don't think Sweden has done as well as Ireland. Ireland has had half the number of deaths over the same period (March 12 - May 2). They have about the same confirmed cases count but that's because Ireland have done more testing than Sweden.

Confirmed deaths and cases graphs for Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Finland and Norway below.

Total confirmed COVID-19 deaths:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-covid-19?time=2020-03-12..2020-05-02&country=DNK+FIN+IRL+NOR+SWE

Total confirmed COVID-19 cases:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cases-covid-19?time=2020-01-30..2020-05-02&country=DNK+FIN+IRL+NOR+SWE

Also, I don't think Sweden has done as well as Ireland. Ireland has had half the number of deaths over the same period (March 12 - May 2). They have about the same confirmed cases count but that's because Ireland have done more testing than Sweden. — Andrew M

Sweden has more than twice the number of people than Ireland, so per capita they are about even. (It's arguable though whether per capita numbers are more indicative than absolute in this case. Per capita metrics make sense in a uniform, pseudo-static setup, which is not a good match for an infectious disease that is not already endemic in a population.)

I think population density is an important factor where the rate of infection is concerned. All things being equal though total population numbers only become relevant once herd immunity effects start to kick in.

When we Irish were asked to voluntarily social distance, we threw coronavirus parties in pubs and the streets of Dublin were crowded with shoppers. The Swedes did what they were told. It's partly cultural. So, comparing like with like, it makes more sense to put Sweden up against other Nordic countries. They've got ten times as many deaths as Norway, for example, with just under twice the population.

So, comparing like with like, it makes more sense to put Sweden up against other Nordic countries. They've got ten times as many deaths as Norway, for example, with just under twice the population. — Baden

That doesn't follow. If the reason why Ireland has similar per capita cases to Sweden (despite different lockdown strategies) is because the Swedish essentially locked themselves down, then their different lockdown strategy can't also be to blame for the differences between them and other Nordic countries.

Either the Swedish had an effective lockdown or they didn't. If they didn't, then the fact that they have nonetheless managed the same caseload as Ireland is surprising. If they did, then the fact that they have a higher caseload than other Nordic countries becomes surprising. It can't explain both.

I think population density is an important factor where the rate of infection is concerned. — Benkei

UK population density 274/km2.
Netherlands population density 419/km2.
France 123/km2.


UK 2685 cases/million.
Netherlands 2368 cases /million.
France 2580 cases/million.

It doesn't seem to have made any difference here. A near doubling of population density in each, with no noticeable change in case rates.

Ireland's behaviour pre-lockdown affects their caseload now. I'm hypothesizing that if they had had better behaviour pre-lockdown they'd be more like Norway now. I'm also hypothesizing that if Sweden had locked down (having had good pre-lockdown behaviour), they'd be more like with Norway now. No contradiction there, just two timeframes, a delayed effect, and a cultural variable. (This also implies that if Ireland hadn't locked-down, they'd be worse than Sweden now.)

'm hypothesizing that if they had had better behaviour pre-lockdown they'd be more like Norway now. I'm also hypothesizing that if Sweden had locked down after (having had good pre-lockdown behaviour), they'd be more like with Norway now. — Baden

OK. I understand what you're saying now, but I'm not sure what you're basing it on. If we're trying to establish the effectiveness of lockdowns we can't assume the effectiveness of lockdowns as part of our hypothesis. You'd need to control for the other factors, which, if you have done so, I haven't picked up on in the way you've presented your theory.

Edit - just to be clear, I mean effectiveness of types of lockdown. There's so much conspiratorial garbage being spouted I thought I might need to make that clear. The effectiveness of some kind of lockdown is, I think, beyond question. I just think it's very important for next time (and there will be a next time) that we properly learn from the experience rather than just justify post hoc whatever it was we advocated most strongly for at the outset.

UK population density 274/km2.
Netherlands population density 419/km2.
France 123/km2. — Isaac

It's crude measure. Consider that the highlands of Scotland Mid Wales, and the Pennine hills have a density of maybe 1/km2. And France has the Alps, the MassifCentral and the Pyrenees. What one wants is a sort of mean distance between habitations... If everyone lives in big blocks of flats and most of the country is empty, the effective density might be high, though the averaged density is low. Whereas in the Netherlands, everyone lives exactly one windmill apart, with no empty spaces.

It's crude measure. Consider that the highlands of Scotland Mid Wales, and the Pennine hills have a density of maybe 1/km2. And France has the Alps, the MassifCentral and the Pyrenees. What one wants is a sort of mean distance between habitations — unenlightened

Absolutely.

Voronoi triangle sizes, or Katz centrality measure for each conurbation is what we need. I didn't have those figures to hand.

Death animation

As I can imagine you've been on the edge of your seat waiting for the actual data...

Anthropogenic landscape fragmentation based on voronoi mesh density (meshes per 1000km2) - a measure of how dense network meshes are created by roads, railways and urban sprawl.

UK 2 - 4 (which really surprises me)
Netherlands 35 - 75
France 20 - 35

Still very different between countries. Still doesn't seem to have an effect on case numbers.

Incidentally Sweden's is less than 1, same as Finland. Both more than Norway at lower than 0.1 (they basically don't seem to have any roads at all in Norway!)

Nice.

They're not comparable due to different moments of starting measures and different types of measures. Population density has an obvious effect on R0 because it increases the number of contacts an average person is likely to have, which creates an opportunity for the virus to infect another. See also : https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI9929469/

The conversion to deaths per capita is meaningless.

Imagine two completely identical societies implementing equal measures, except one has 10 million and another 20 million citizens. Before herd immunity kicks in, the virus will spread at exactly the same speed but the second country will have half the deaths per million as the other.

The average number of voronoi cells per 1000km2 would probably track the amount of unpopulated/uninhabited/unconnected areas too. Those areas would have huge cells in them, that would massively pull down the average over the landmass area compared to what it would be if constrained to population centers.



So the population density in population centers is likely to scale with the R0 in those areas.

Whereas population density over a country itself cares a lot more about uninhabited land, that the dynamics of the virus don't care about as much; infection rate cares about connectivity in population centers and connectivity between population centers, averaging population over land area or the voronoi cell thing gets really effected by uninhabited land.

Well, I'm certainly not talking about population density as the average for an entire country if that was the impression I gave.

Aye. I didn't have that impression. I imagined you were imagining population density in populated areas. The measure @Isaac cited looks to care about the unpopulated areas too ,

Edit: so the overall story is that the average population density of a country doesn't seem as informative about infection rates in that country as the population density of its populated areas.

They're not comparable due to different moments of starting measures and different types of measures. — Benkei

Yes, that's rather the point I was trying to make. It's not possible to tell if population density has an effect because we cannot control for those other factors. All we can see is that there's no noticeable effect to be explained.

The conversion to deaths per capita is meaningless. — Benkei

I agree. I was only using the figures that were being discussed, for consistency. The raw case numbers show no meaningful trend with population density either. Cases per capita is still a useful measure though. If local population density is relevant, then comparing raw case numbers (for the sake of assessing the effectiveness of responses) is not going to be accurate without some reference to the population. Consider the raw case numbers for New York compared to Eritrea. Cases per capita is flawed, but no less so than raw cases. It depends on what you're trying to get the data to tell you.

Population density has an obvious effect on R0 because it increases the number of contacts an average person is likely to have, which creates an opportunity for the virus to infect another. — Benkei

As your cited study makes clear, this is only relevant on a local scale. The degree of connectivity between relatively closed networks will be far more important on a national scale, which is the scale the figures are being compared on.

The average number of voronoi cells per 1000km2 would probably track the amount of unpopulated/uninhabited/unconnected areas too. Those areas would have huge cells in them, that would massively pull down the average over the landmass area compared to what it would be if constrained to population centers. — fdrake

Agreed, but what I was trying to quantify was connectedness, but in a manner which included urban sprawl (so hub distances or connectivity measures wouldn't quite capture it). Voronoi meshes will take into account the open spaces, but it will do so in a way which biases in favour of accounting for network links (roads and railway). A single road connecting two urban areas will double the number of meshes relative to the same area without a road. I'm sure there are better ways of doing it, but I think the impact of a single road captures connectivity in a way which outweighs the bias toward open space. If it didn't, then France (good network but low population density) would come out lower than UK (higher population density but crap networks).

Although... As I said, I'm very surprised by just how much lower the UK was, so I might have to check my figures again.

Have you got any ideas as to how we might better capture the degree of connectedness?

As I can imagine you've been on the edge of your seat waiting for the actual data... — Isaac

Imagination is a wonderful thing. I'll back out now I've got the social scientists and statisticians bickering.