Sweden avoiding lockdown

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Boggles wrote: »

Who claimed they were?
Your grasp of what letting a novel virus rip through a society and system like Ireland's and what the actual results of that will be is quite naive.

Back in March, this argument would have been valid. Now we have data on the consequences. From a health point of view, it's obvious which demographic is at risk and which isn't. The Irish (and Swedish) approach didn't protect those at risk!

It's also painfully obvious what the economic result has been, although Pascal Donohoe is quoted as saying that a "deficit of nearly €8bn" for one month is "a swing in line with what they expected"

You seem to be measuring it purely on deaths, with an assumption death percentages will remain steadfast in a certain age demographic.

Absolutely, since positive tests are purely a function of the criteria used to test and the number of tests performed. We all know people who probably had the virus back in March/April but weren't eligible for a test.
That said, hospital admissions would also be useful but that data is not readily available.
I would also suggest that people with certain health issues are at risk but the government does not release that data.

As for screening, vitally important, but sadly not the magic bullet people have been making it out it is since this pandemic happened, Sweden actually paused screening too, they also have published studies on the effectiveness of screening and they muse whether this money should be used on treatment instead, which has proven to extend the lives of cancer sufferers.

Fair enough, I'm not aware of these studies. I focused on that rather than diluting the argument. I would suggest that all non-Covid health care has suffered and that there will be consequences over and above any lives that have been saved from Covid.

Perhaps, out of interest, you could also provide a reference to these studies? And information on what healthcare was paused in Sweden.

Now you will probably move onto suicide if you haven't all ready, as if letting a virus rip through and all the associated carnage that would follow would bring down the suicide rate.

I have no first hand experience of people who suffer with their mental health.
I would assume that lock down contributes to their struggle. Certainly, I find the isolation challenging and I have not been looking after my health as well as before, i.e. alcohol, diet and exercise.
It also upsets me what the consequences of this action will be on the young.
Mostly it upsets me that there is very little debate outside boards.ie on the course taken by the government.

Baseless headline arguments start to fall apart wants you drill down into them.

You would have to elaborate on what you mean here.

The headline argument on this thread is that the sustainable approach to the Corona virus pandemic undertaken by Sweden has had a similar death rate to the restrictive and very costly approach undertaken by the Irish. Further over time it could be that their approach will have a lower death rate.

tobefrank321

biko wrote: »

As mentioned in my quote "Sweden's Nordic neighbours have managed to avoid both a health and economic crisis"

Norway are hardly known for their manufacturing base or exports of goods though like Sweden would be.

Sweden are renowned for Volvo including Volvo trucks, Scania, Ikea, SAAB, and much more, all of which depend on non lockdowns in other countries.

Apart from oil and they've billions of Euro in reserves because of it, what do Norway manufacture and export?

Finland have Nokia, but again what else?

It would be interesting to see a comparison of how much Sweden exports annually compared to other Scandinavian countries.

JimmyVik

greyday wrote: »

You are contradicting yourself.
What you started advocating is what Ireland set out to do which was reduce the rate of infections to give the health service the time to get resources in place to be able to treat all those who suffered a severe reaction to the virus, this has largely been achieved for the level of infection we see now.
The Country opened up and we now see a manageable rise in infections thus far, caution is advised so we don't get back to exponential growth which we saw for the first month or so that it was spreading.
Strict measures are now required to keep the virus at the manageable level, schools are going to be opened and hopefully outbreaks managed without the need for Countrywide lockdowns, Pubs will remain closed as there is a strong belief the pub environment cannot be controlled in the same manner as other retail/service outlets.
Without evidence the virus is burning out or the population are gaining immunity, there is far too much risk in letting the virus run amok and the balance you speak of is what Ireland is trying to find without risking our most vulnerable.

It was also to buy time to see what this virus actually was going to do. Playing it safe with a major unknown, which is much better known now than it was then. I think Ireland got it right.

tobefrank321

Boggles wrote: »

Who claimed they were?

Your grasp of what letting a novel virus rip through a society and system like Ireland's and what the actual results of that will be is quite naive.

You seem to be measuring it purely on deaths, with an assumption death percentages will remain steadfast in a certain age demographic.

As for screening, vitally important, but sadly not the magic bullet people have been making it out it is since this pandemic happened, Sweden actually paused screening too, they also have published studies on the effectiveness of screening and they muse whether this money should be used on treatment instead, which has proven to extend the lives of cancer sufferers.

Now you will probably move onto suicide if you haven't all ready, as if letting a virus rip through and all the associated carnage that would follow would bring down the suicide rate.

Baseless headline arguments start to fall apart wants you drill down into them.

It shouldn't be let rip through society.

But you'd question the sustainability of not letting it rip through the 80% healthy (minimum) who will only have mild symptoms and in most cases no symptoms.

The long term goal is herd immunity, one way or another, preferably through a vaccine. But mass vaccination is at least another year off.

Remember no-one has been deliberately infected with covid19 yet to check if a vaccine works which is a big milestone. Instead they have to await the results of studies in Brazil and South Africa.

We have a good handle at this stage who will get severe symptoms: pensioners, the obese, diabetes sufferers, hypertension suffers and and a couple other groups. If in theory these could be cocooned for a couple of months and the virus allowed to rip through the healthy, herd immunity would be achieved in a couple of months and many countries would be done with this virus. Certain parts of Italy are done with it and certain parts of NYC.

That's the theory anyways but very hard to put into practice for all kinds of reasons including political ones.

JimmyVik

tobefrank321 wrote: »

It shouldn't be let rip through society.

But you'd question the sustainability of not letting it rip through the 80% healthy (minimum) who will only have mild symptoms and in most cases no symptoms.

The long term goal is herd immunity, one way or another, preferably through a vaccine. But mass vaccination is at least another year off.

Remember no-one has been deliberately infected with covid19 yet to check if a vaccine works which is a big milestone. Instead they have to await the results of studies in Brazil and South Africa.

We have a good handle at this stage who will get severe symptoms: pensioners, the obese, diabetes sufferers, hypertension suffers and and a couple other groups. If in theory these could be cocooned for a couple of months and the virus allowed to rip through the healthy, herd immunity would be achieved in a couple of months and many countries would be done with this virus. Certain parts of Italy are done with it and certain parts of NYC.

That's the theory anyways but very hard to put into practice for all kinds of reasons including political ones.

Thats how Boris started out. Donald too, though he is just pretending it wasnt.

tobefrank321

JimmyVik wrote: »

It was also to buy time to see what this virus actually was going to do. Playing it safe with a major unknown, which is much better known now than it was then. I think Ireland got it right.

It was right until we knew more. But its not sustainable for a second or more waves. We have to live with it.

tobefrank321

JimmyVik wrote: »

Thats how Boris started out. Donald too, though he is just pretending it wasnt.

They didn't make any provisions for cocooning the vulnerable and elderly though. Their approach was too rushed and uncontrolled.

There's a difference between a planned approach and the chaos the UK embarked on.

The UK ended up stuck between two stools and the Swedes also although less so.

JimmyVik

tobefrank321 wrote: »

It was right until we knew more. But its not sustainable for a second or more waves. We have to live with it.

Its still right.
We are at a place right now we would have love to have been when we started. Its working.

Its all down to number in the hospitals. Once hospitals are above the magic number with the R number above a magic number that will trigger whatever is next in the plan. If those number signal a full lockdown then thats what it will be, but hopefully we can continue as we are with minor tweaks to the whatever strategy they are following.

JimmyVik

tobefrank321 wrote: »

They didn't make any provisions for cocooning the vulnerable and elderly though. Their approach was too rushed and uncontrolled.

There's a difference between a planned approach and the chaos the UK embarked on.

The UK ended up stuck between two stools and the Swedes also although less so.

They did what they could. Knowledge was far inferior then to what it is now.
Everything is easy in hindsight.

Boggles

tobefrank321 wrote: »

But you'd question the sustainability of not letting it rip through the 80% healthy (minimum) who will only have mild symptoms and in most cases no symptoms.

Because that figure is variable and if you let it rip through it will most certainly drop.

If you let emergency medicine collapse, it won't just be old covid patients dying.

Danzy

Whatever the right or wrong of Sweden's approach, the virus has long since peaked and they are over the worst of it.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Fair point. The furlough schemes are confusing the unemployment stats.

Our unemployment rate is predicted to to fall the level you mentioned in the second half of the year, but at the moment as far as I know it is also 17%. In real terms there is probably very little difference in that area between Ireland and Sweden.

greyday

Holohan said on Late Late show we had to protect the community to protect the elderly which was the wrong approach, it was the elderly we had to protect first and foremost, the care homes that went against his advice and closed down early did a lot better than those who closed down when the government on NPHET advice told the caere homes to lockdown.
Old people being moved from hospitals to care homes without testing is one of the biggest scandals of the handling of the pandemic, some foresight and common sense would have saved a lot of lives.

JimmyVik

greyday wrote: »

Holohan said on Late Late show we had to protect the community to protect the elderly which was the wrong approach, it was the elderly we had to protect first and foremost, the care homes that went against his advice and closed down early did a lot better than those who closed down when the government on NPHET advice told the caere homes to lockdown.
Old people being moved from hospitals to care homes without testing is one of the biggest scandals of the handling of the pandemic, some foresight and common sense would have saved a lot of lives.

As I said. Easy to say now.

greyday

JimmyVik wrote: »

As I said. Easy to say now.

People working in care homes were saying it from the start.

JimmyVik

greyday wrote: »

People working in care homes were saying it from the start.

All sorts of people were saying all sorts of things from the start.
Do you honestly believe that Holohan and the gang knew that care homes would be effected so badly?

greyday

Jimmyvik, we need to recognise our failures as well as our successes if we are to continue to control the virus, we obviously had limitations in our ability to do the right things at the beginning which needed to be acted on to ensure it doesn't happen again, testing was an area most Countries could not increase capacity quickly enough, PPE was another, decisions on lockdowns were within our remit, it was the people who decided to stop the Patricks day parades which IMO was the catalyst for the government introducing the required measures.
We have achieved a lot in short space of time but we also could have done better in certain aspects.

greyday

JimmyVik wrote: »

All sorts of people were saying all sorts of things from the start.
Do you honestly believe that Holohan and the gang knew that care homes would be effected so badly?

They didn't listen, we already knew from other Countries that the elderly were the most at risk, the people on the ground who were experienced in dealing with outbreaks voiced their concerns but were not listened to until the numbers proved their concerns were correct, I have family members working in that environment and remember only too well how worried they were, fortunately the care homes they are involved with decided to lockdown early and 3 of the 4 have had no cases on Covid inn their facilities.

These facilities lockdown every year for the vomitting bug and flu, they were told that something new which seemed far more dangerous did not require an early lockdown which was clearly against common sense.

cnocbui

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Norway are hardly known for their manufacturing base or exports of goods though like Sweden would be.

Sweden are renowned for Volvo including Volvo trucks, Scania, Ikea, SAAB, and much more, all of which depend on non lockdowns in other countries.

Apart from oil and they've billions of Euro in reserves because of it, what do Norway manufacture and export?

Finland have Nokia, but again what else?

It would be interesting to see a comparison of how much Sweden exports annually compared to other Scandinavian countries.

Roughly speaking, the most recent monthly export figures in € Billions for Sweden, Norway and Denmark, were 11.6, 5.2 and 5, respectively, so Sweden had exports of more than the other two combined.

polesheep

JimmyVik wrote: »

As I said. Easy to say now.

You can say this as many times as you like but the fact is a great many people were saying it at the time. Personally, I had the head taken off me several times for suggesting restricting the old and vulnerable.

greyday

cnocbui wrote: »

Roughly speaking, the most recent monthly export figures in € Billions for Sweden, Norway and Denmark, were 11.6, 5.2 and 5, respectively, so Sweden had exports of more than the other two combined.

You need to compare Sweden with Finland as Norway exports mainly petroleum which got hit vastly more than most other products during the pandemic.

Bit cynical

greyday wrote: »

The Country opened up and we now see a manageable rise in infections thus far, caution is advised so we don't get back to exponential growth which we saw for the first month or so that it was spreading.


Strict measures are now required to keep the virus at the manageable level, schools are going to be opened and hopefully outbreaks managed without the need for Countrywide lockdowns, Pubs will remain closed as there is a strong belief the pub environment cannot be controlled in the same manner as other retail/service outlets.

What you seem to be saying is that strict measures are now required to maintain the success of the previous strict measures.

I agree with you. We have painted ourselves into a corner. My point was that perhaps this is not the best approach long term.

greyday

Bit cynical wrote: »

What you seem to be saying is that strict measures are now required to maintain the success of the previous strict measures.

I agree with you. We have painted ourselves into a corner. My point was that perhaps this is not the best approach long term.

I am saying some strict measures are still required, not all!
The strict measures were required to get the infections down to a manageable level, less strict measures are required to keep it down.

Bit cynical

greyday wrote: »

I am saying some strict measures are still required, not all!
The strict measures were required to get the infections down to a manageable level, less strict measures are required to keep it down.

I was exaggerating a little, but the goal here may have started out as flattening the curve so that hospitals could cope but quickly transformed to getting case numbers down to zero or close to it. The wrong approach, imo, as currently infections in the healthy population are the only way to gain some sort of immunity. It would only be the correct approach if a vaccine was due next week ready to use.

We've done extremely well with this wrong goal. Despite having a fairly high peak by EU standards and also an above average cumulative death toll, we've brought the daily deaths right down to zero for an extended period of days.

It is good that deaths are very low, but we did this in an unbalanced way, overwhelmingly relying on suppressing the virus rather than treating cases. The problem now is that stricter measures than would otherwise be the case are now required to keep things at a manageable level and these measures may not be sustainable.

greyday

Bit cynical wrote: »

I was exaggerating a little, but the goal here may have started out as flattening the curve so that hospitals could cope but quickly transformed to getting case numbers down to zero or close to it. The wrong approach, imo, as currently infections in the healthy population are the only way to gain some sort of immunity. It would only be the correct approach if a vaccine was due next week ready to use.

We've done extremely well with this wrong goal. Despite having a fairly high peak by EU standards and also an above average cumulative death toll, we've brought the daily deaths right down to zero for an extended period of days.

It is good that deaths are very low, but we did this in an unbalanced way, overwhelmingly relying on suppressing the virus rather than treating cases. The problem now is that stricter measures than would otherwise be the case are now required to keep things at a manageable level and these measures may not be sustainable.

We are now doing similar to Sweden with the exception of Pubs which was always the plan IMO, eradication is not the strategy with what we are doing at the moment or we would have restricted movement into the Country long before now, I agree herd immunity or a vaccine are the end game but as yet we have no proof that herd immunity can be gained from infection, suppression is the only game in town at the moment and we are doing very well thus far.

Bit cynical

greyday wrote: »

We are now doing similar to Sweden with the exception of Pubs which was always the plan IMO, eradication is not the strategy with what we are doing at the moment or we would have restricted movement into the Country long before now, I agree herd immunity or a vaccine are the end game but as yet we have no proof that herd immunity can be gained from infection, suppression is the only game in town at the moment and we are doing very well thus far.

I think it is fairly clear however that immunity is gained from infection. It is what moves the curve away from exponential growth and starts bringing numbers down after the peak. We have known immunity is at work from about April of this year. Sweden, with their level of restrictions, would have much higher deaths otherwise.

If it were the case that no immunity was gained from infection then I would agree with you that suppression is the only strategy but there's never been evidence that there was no immunity. We should not be acting on the basis of something without evidence.

greyday

Notice I said herd immunity rather than just immunity, some infected people are showing barely detectable antibodies which is a major concern.

biko

81,967 known cases
5,766 officially dead
5% of known cases have passed

Numbers from FHMs own tracking page
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa

mcsean2163

charlie14 wrote: »

Your last post "Note that deaths typically peak around winter "


Any child, not even studying math, can tell you that Winter in the Northern Hemisphere is not between April and July 17th. Nor is it in the first 6 months of the year.

Your own source, Euromomo, shows no excess deaths for the first 12 weeks of the year never mind the 3rd. or the 4th. week of January.


Excess deaths begin in April and by the 17th. July they are 2,000 greater than reported Covid-19 deaths.
With deaths typically peaking around Winter, then that figure should most likely be higher as the calculations are based on the 10 year average total deaths of a 6 month 50/50 split.

I think I've given enough information for you or anyone else to work it out.

Spiderman0081

charlie14 wrote: »

Our unemployment rate is predicted to to fall the level you mentioned in the second half of the year, but at the moment as far as I know it is also 17%. In real terms there is probably very little difference in that area between Ireland and Sweden.

Sweden’s unemployment rate is not 17%, it is 9,8%. I think you are talking about the extra people who are “korttidspermitterade”. Companies were able to reduce the amount of working hours of their employees if it was temporarily necessary. The government covers the hours lost up to approximately 90% of most wages for those hours.
These people are by no means unemployed.