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Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

Winter is its own natural social distancing of sorts.

This of course is unsurprising. Even random street violence drops during winter, as cold temperatures drives everyone inside and away from each other.

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And yet the cold and flu thrive in winter, so there's more to it than that.

Driving people inside is probably precisely the problem here - coronavirus, like other diseases, doesn't seem to transmit well at all outdoors, especially in warmer weather.

Well in a normal winter, people are driven inside places full of other people. In a coronavirus "winter", people simply stop going anywhere or associating with anyone they don't already live with.

That’s a very good point.

I'd have thought it would be the opposite. People use public transport instead of walking in the cold, people stay inside pubs and bars instead of spreading out outside.

Sweden's strategy isn't only about deaths by Covid-19. It's about preventing total number of deaths including deaths caused by the things we do to prevent the spread of the virus. The line is to keep things as open as possible. Quarantine is problematic if you take things such as suicide, alcohol and substance abuse, child and spouse abuse and depression into account. The list goes on.

And yeah, people are idiots for going to bars.

COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the US. It is a very lethal disease however you want to look at it.

Yes, I'm not saying the opposite. What I'm saying is that Sweden's strategy is broad and long-term. We're isolating the old and fragile as of now.

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