Follow Sweden and have more pain without any extra gain

There are 3 Covid-19 “experiments” going around the world in terms of controlling the virus

• The first is by countries like Malaysia or Australia where lockdowns are mandated when the community spread appears to be very large.  Note that Melbourne implemented its current lockdown when the number of daily cases is just below 200.  For those who have forgotten Malaysia implemented the MCO when we had about 120 odd cases

• The second is Sweden where there is no mandatory lockdown.  Instead, the country relied on its citizens to act voluntarily to stay at home, or social distance or even wear a mask.  Of course, gatherings were banned. 

• The third is like the US and Brazil where there are conflicting measures.  The top officials don’t think the virus is anything important while local officials are trying to implement some social distancing measures.

The above is based on impressions of the news.  I wanted to see whether there are any objective indicators to see the differences in the respective govt approach.

There are actually 2 indices that I have used in the past – The Oxford Stringency Index and the Malaysian GCI

For an apple to apple comparison, I thought that we should see the index score when the virus was at a peak in each of the relevant countries.

Unfortunately, the GCI only gives the current status whereas the Oxford Index has the historical performance. 

Let's see how these countries score on the Oxford Stringency Index at their respective Covid-19 peak. 

	Oxford Stringency Index	Peak period
Malaysia	73	26 March
Australia	71	29 March
Sweden	41	24 June
USA	69	8 Jul
Brazil	77	19 Jun

The real surprise is that the score of the US and Brazil are not much different from those Australia and Malaysia

Sweden, as expected, has a very low score.

So what does this mean – either the Oxford Stringency Index is not measuring the correct thing or that US/Brazil has the official measures (so that they are picked up by Oxford) but have poor compliance?

The details of the Oxford index are as follows

• Based on 17 indicators of government responses.

• Eight of the indicators record information on containment and closure policies, such as school closures and restrictions in movement. 

• Four record economic policies, such as income support to citizens or provision of foreign aid. 

• Five record health system policies such as testing or emergency investments into healthcare.

I can't tell whether is a measurement error or that the Stringency Index is not reliable enough.  

Can anyone have a better explanation for the US and Brazil?

But let's look at Sweden in more detail and see how it has performed compared to its 2 Scandinavian neighbors who had lockdowns. 

• I looked at Covid-19 cases as at today based on Worldodometer
• I then looked at 2 economic indicators as reported by the respective countries ie projected economic contraction for the year and the May unemployment rate.  For both economic indicators the bigger the number the worse it is

	Oxford Stringency Index	Peak Period	No of cases per m population	No of deaths per m population	Economic contraction	Unemployed in May
Norway	76	27 Mac	1,651	46	3.9 %	7.1 %
Denmark	72	7 April	2,227	105	4.1 %	5.6 %
Sweden	41	24 Jun	7,312	543	4.5 %	9 %

You will note that Sweden has the worst Covid-19 performance and its economy and unemployment rate is not better than those of its neighbors.

I have seen articles saying Sweden is worse off and did not gain any economic benefit because we are living in a global economy and even if Sweden wanted the economic activities to continue, it could not do so for those with international links.  At the same time, the locals are also wary of going out and spending.

I think the message is that opening up the economy without controlling the virus does not benefit the country.

Now whether this applies to the US is something worth watching.  

But I am still confused about the Oxford Stringency Index numbers for Brazil and US

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such.