Maybe some lessons from Sweden

Sweden did not impose many restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, following the advice of it's chief epidemiologist, Andres Tegnell.  It did advise that people should not gather in groups of more than 50, but left most businesses open and relied on encouraging people to practice good hygiene and social-distancing.

Dawn at Terrigal this morning

The result has been a much higher death rate than the adjacent Norway and Denmark (442 per million compared to 44 and 100, respectively), though still lower than the UK (580).  Tegnell has now said that Sweden made some mistakes, referencing in particular the number of elderly people who have died.  Around half of Swedish fatalities have been in nursing homes.

Terrigal lagoon this morning

I find it interesting that the Swedish death rate, though high, has not been as bad as the UK which, admittedly belatedly, imposed much more onerous restrictions.  I did hear one commentator, early in the pandemic, say that Swedes were culturally socially-distanced anyway, and maybe that explains their "better" performance.

High tide and Terrigal lagoon is just open to the ocean

Like Tegnell, I'm inclined to believe that if Sweden had done a much better job of protecting its vulnerable elderly, especially in nursing homes, they might have come through the epidemic with a much lower death rate whilst still managing to keep their economy functioning largely as normal.  There might be some lessons for all countries in the event of a second wave.

I walked and jogged nearly 5km this morning, still feeling very unfit and labouring during the run part.  Even though jogging was unpleasantly hard, it was very tempting to continue much further in the belief that the sooner I can get my mileage up, the faster I will lose weight and regain fitness.  But I have to find that middle ground between doing too little, with its fitness deficits, and too much, with its injury risks.  In the short-term, maybe I should also buy some new jeans, a size larger, so that I am not constantly reminded how out-of-shape I have become.