Sweden the only country with Correct Approach to CVD-19

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/03/us/coron ... index.html
NYC has had difficulty just keeping up with the people that have passed away.
This suggests a lack of infrastructure.

Makes one wonder about less obvious issues like medical supplies and equipment.

Uh, a dozen people at your care home are seriously ill. Uh, the line seems to be disconnected.
Too bad I didn't get the address of that care home... Sometimes there are communication issues in a crisis.

What it suggests is that the US has never invested enough in the public health system with it's reluctance to embrace free healthcare for all. NY is reaping that lack of infrastructure development in hospitals so there is a link.

Strangely enough, there are people who want to go back to work, rather than rely on welfare.

While some people are happy to sit at home having others provide for them while they can follow their dreams to be a writer, painter, etc., there are many more who would rather be able to work, and so not be a burden on their community. Additionally, a large number of those wanting to go back to work would be the extraverts, who "need" the social side of their work for their own mental health.

I also see very few billionaires owning small restaurants or stores, yet it is the people who work in these places who have been hit hardest by the shutdown, being unable to "work from home". During the shutdown, it is more likely that the people who work for the "Billionaires" have been able to continue working (either from home, in the case of office staff, or in the warehouses, shipping items), assisting them even more at the expence of the small, family owned businesses, who are being forced to close and don't have the funds/capacity to support their staff.

People like me aren’t sitting home because we prefer welfare. If that were the case we’d never work the 6-7 days a week we normally do in order to earn what we need & want. We’re staying home because we believe in science and want to ensure it’s safe to return to work before we do. We’re smart, not lazy.

Further to that, this couple months of unemployment insurance benefits is MY MONEY that I’ve paid into insurance for for years and almost never collected in my life.

Agree with this...

The problem is that, using Australia's system as an example of a "good" health system, it is the states who are responsible for hospitals, ambulance services, etc. with federal governemnt covering other aspects, whereas those who think the US should emulate the Australian healthcare system ignore/are unaware of this, and instead seek to have their national government take on both the state and federal roles from the Australian system.

It's no good saying that a nation "should" have something when their governemnt structure and laws are not designed to allow the implementation of it, and it is possible that the costs (financial, legal, etc.) involved in changing the laws (if possible) would far outweigh the benefits from the changes (I could be wrong, but I understand that the worst hit states already have much higher debt levels than those less impacted by this virus, so it is unlikely that they would have had the funds to be able to implement something like Australia's hospital system where it was needed anyway).

I accept the US is never going to adopt healthcare policy emulating either Australia or Sweden. A larger population with greater number of states means a stronger devolution of state powers and more obstacles to getting a unified approach.

Conversely Singapore and NZ are able to implement policies within their nation states that are admirable but not possible for Australia to emulate again because difference of scale/jurisdiction and central power.

However we are living under new global conditions that potentially may never be permanently resolved due to the root cause not being addressed (China is not going to listen to outsiders). Under these conditions the lack of public infrastructure spending on public hospitals to cope with swelling numbers of Covid-19 cases also needs to be addressed.

You need to strike a balance between competing agendas.

Aren't nearly all of us doing the herd thing anyway but no one wants to admit it, except the Swedes. It's out there and the only thing guvs can do at this point is slow it down to not overwhelm health services. We're beyond stopping it, that means that all areas will be covered sooner or later. If this was not accepted by governments then Italy would remain on lockdown and the UK would have gone into full lockdown (witch it hasn't done). Between Swedish standoffishness and Swedish health system and less population density they didn't feel they needed strict rules (there are some rules in Sweden) for Covid to cross Sweden at a speed they can manage.

As well as not wanting this to spread too quickly I believe governments are also calculating the problems of it spreading too slowly. It's easier to persuade the elderly ect. to stay indoors for months than years.

When it has passed through areas such as the UK what then for those nations that did stop it. How will travel between for example the UK and New Zealand be affected? Possibly the vax will make this question redundant but we need to address the lack of an organised integrated response to what has been a global problem before the next one.

The reason the USA doesn’t have Canadian UK or Australian style healthcare isn’t because it’s too difficult to administer. It’s because the health insurance industry makes ungodly amounts of money in the USA and they don’t want to give that pure profit middle man money up, pure and simple.

And of course there are savings to be had. The US healthcare system costs 4x as much to administer per capita than Canada’s: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2 ... yer-system

It has nothing to do with difficulty of administration. Either method is completely scalable. Insurance companies in America refuse to give up their piece of the pie that they never should have had in the first place. It really is that simple.

I don't recall anyone saying anything about administration or related costs...The reasons previously stated were financial - each state would need to build and fit-out multiple new hospitals (including land costs and staffing) and legal - The laws/regulations in the USA (and each of its states).

Insurance companies still exists in most countries, as do private hospitals. In Australia we have both public and private hospitals, along with private health insurance.

To implement a similar system in the USA would likely require many laws to be changed across national, state, and local governments - You would first need the citizens and all regions of each state to agree to have the local health departments\services merge into a statewide health department\service. I'm fairly sure if people could put together a logical, coherent argument for this ("the health insurance industry makes ungodly amounts of money in the USA and they don’t want to give that pure profit middle man money up" would seem to fail on this count) then it is possible that laws there could change, but you need to take into consideration the potential number of laws/regulations that would need to be changed (and to try to mitigate unintended consequences of changing any of these), so it is not something that could happen overnight.

Alternatively, I don't know whether there is anything to prevent a local governement in the USA from building and staffing their own hospital, funded through local rates, and offering free cover to citizens of the locality, while charging others for use of the services. One locality doing this might influence neighbouring local governments to emulate it, eventually spreading across the nation. After all, It's no good blaming the national government for something when even small communities aren't interested/willing to take action themselves.

We have private insurance coverages here in Canada, too. I have Blue Cross extended benefits through my Union. There are very few private hospitals and surgical centres though, afaik anyways.

There are other reasons the USA doesn’t have healthcare beside the insurance industry lobbying the government and the government lying to people and telling them universal healthcare is socialism (true) and socialism is bad! (Fake news - socialized medicine is one of the greatest things many countries have.) There’s also an strong element of the wealthy wanting to have theirs (healthcare) while withholding it form the poor. (mostly non whites.) Can’t hang onto white privilege if you go around treating everyone equally!

Back on track: Sweden is well within the top 10 worst C-19 death rate countries in the world. Why would anyone consider them to have the correct approach that should be emulated?

How about the Swedes themselves? they opted for this approach and their economy is in much better state and their people are much happier than their neighbors.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/21/ana ... f-covid-19

Their government opted for this approach, they didn’t hold a referendum.

They have 5x the per capita death rate of their neighbours. That’s not good and can in no way be a metric of success that proves they’re the only country with the “correct,” approach. Wtf?

From the article: “That is not to say there isn’t anger out there, particularly at a perceived lack of shielding of older people. More than a third of fatalities have been people living in care homes.“

Even some of them realize how stupid it is to sacrifice people for a few dollars.

I guess it depends on what someone values more, human life or a few extra dollars in the bank and the freedom to get a haircut and buy a burger.

You’ve made it clear that you’d sacrifice people so you can go to work and you think that’s just fine. Most of the rest of the world disagrees with you and that’s why we’re doing our part to minimize the number of people who die from this.

South Africa is still in level 4 lockdown and more businesses are now open. We seem to have flattened the curve to a good degree but the economy won't sustain an indefinite severe lockdown. Barbers, hairdressers, pet grooming, garden services, garages, estate agencies and many other shops and services remain closed, as do our beaches and national parks.

We can't even openly visit friends/family at this juncture.

People are getting a bit frustrated with it now because our death rate and infection rate has been comparatively low, and there's growing pressure on the government. As long as we do the common sense thing such as masks while doing our grocery and other shopping, I think the lockdown needs to go. It's served its purpose and while the virus won't simply disappear, we can't sustain this artificial situation which allows the government to make arbitrary rules and limit freedoms. The problem with lockdowns is it gives the army and police an opportunity to act like jerks and seek people breaking laws doing stuff which has always been perfectly legal. Now suddenly it's illegal to visit a beach? It's nonsense and doesn't have anything to do with the virus.

California perhaps. I had not thought of this before but it sounds more likely than drastic change at a national level. I know they don't have it now but until covid they had a budget surplus.