Massive Dow Futures surge on news that the curve appears in the process of being flattened at last!

[Ms. Toad]

61. Sweden is not playing with a full deck . . .

Or they have a secret stash of hospitals and equipment.

Given unlimited resources - I still think it is a bad idea, but perhaps defensible. Even with unlimited resources, people will die now who would not necessarily even catch the illness at all if we stretch it out long enough to find a vaccine.

And - no one has unlimited resources. The real threat here is the inabilty to keep people alive long enough to survive it because of limited resources if we all come down with it at once. This is especially true given how long it takes to recover and be able to be removed from the ventilator. Italy has had to choose who gets the ventilator. Without a mandatory stay home, stay healthy order I would not be surprised to see that hapen in Sweden as well.

As to the 1918 pandemic - influenza is different from COVID 19. Even if it is not precisely the same strain, we've all been exposed to close cousins of most of the flus. So there is some natural immunity to influenza viruses. That doesn't exist with COVID 19. So while there are a number of peopel with immunity aready to the flu + those who get it and act as barriers to create a natural slowing effect with the flu (even the 1918 one), there is no reservoir of immune people for COVID 19 - so we have to wait for people to get it and recover and become barricades for new transmissions. It's moving too fast and recovery takes too long for that to be an effective strategy.