Sweden avoiding lockdown

nw1dqsv7amx026

i_surge wrote: »

Sure after losing 1 in 350 of its population. But it was early in the race and knuckled down as it was very serious, i'm thinking of Florida.

Spain and Italy used hard policies to force a huge relative reduction in cases. Why are we so mediocre that we can't mimic what looks to be best practice?

Yes. Weren't the hospitals over run in new york?

Not sure there is a best practise yet. Could be it will be Sweden.

nw1dqsv7amx026

greyday wrote: »

The data about health after infection is only now starting to come out and it doesn't look good for some with permanent organ damage seemingly more common than expected.

References?

greyday

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/8/21251899/coronavirus-long-term-effects-symptoms

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/long-term-health-effects-covid-19

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists

i_surge

Jessica Swift Bearded wrote: »

Yes. Weren't the hospitals over run in new york?

Not sure there is a best practise yet. Could be it will be Sweden.

Can you address the points I made please? There are countries that did a great job in recovery from catastrophy or avoiding it almost completely...we should be copying them verbatim.

Sweden is not a best case model, the same approach failed spectacularly in other regions.

ceadaoin.

Boggles wrote: »

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.

Aside from lombardy, nowhere has had their medical system overwhelmed, not even New York City. We saw field hospitals sitting empty everywhere. The latest surges in the US in Arizona, Texas, Florida, and California did not cripple the healthcare system despite all the warnings and headlines that collapse was imminent. In fact you barely hear about those places anymore because cases are now declining or plateaued. They were seeing 10k new confirmed infections a day in some cases, and still managed.

Spiderman0081

charlie14 wrote: »

I did not say they were unemployed. I said that according to Bloomberg they were on furlough (temporary layoff from work) and as such were not included in unemployment figures.
Bloomberg said that if those numbers were included, Sweden`s unemployment rate would be 17%.
If you disagree with the Bloomberg analysis I suggest you take it up with Bloomberg.

That’s what Bloomberg have got wrong. What they are referring to is a reduction in hours from what I understand. There is not much point in referring to or disagreeing with the story if the story is unfounded. Using Bloomberg’s numbers as a comparison for what Ireland v Sweden are experiencing is pointless if Bloomberg have misunderstood the temporary hour reductions.

charlie14

Spiderman0081 wrote: »

That’s what Bloomberg have got wrong. What they are referring to is a reduction in hours from what I understand. There is not much point in referring to or disagreeing with the story if the story is unfounded. Using Bloomberg’s numbers as a comparison for what Ireland v Sweden are experiencing is pointless if Bloomberg have misunderstood the temporary hour reductions.

Have Sweden contradicted the Bloomberg analysis ?

bb1234567

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Aside from lombardy, nowhere has had their medical system overwhelmed, not even New York City. We saw field hospitals sitting empty everywhere. The latest surges in the US in Arizona, Texas, Florida, and California did not cripple the healthcare system despite all the warnings and headlines that collapse was imminent. In fact you barely hear about those places anymore because cases are now declining or plateaued. They were seeing 10k new confirmed infections a day in some cases, and still managed.

Well every country has different definitions of overwhelmed. Overwhelmed as ni triage yeh basically just Lombardy and maybe Madrid. But hospitals in India and parts of South America have not been able to treat all COVID patients who presented in hospitals, surely that could be considered overwhelmed.

ICU units are full across many parts of Texas too and some hospitals in texas at least have classified themselves as 'overwhelmed' by COVID.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/us/texas-coronavirus-rio-grande-valley-starr-county.html

Whether they are simply just **** hospitals routinely overwhelmed and the media are just focusing on it because it's COVID related or not, I don't know.

Ce he sin

Jessica Swift Bearded wrote: »

....Anyway the Swedish numbers are looking like they were correct.

But which numbers? Officially Sweden has had about 5,700 deaths. Looking at their deaths overall so far this year and taking 90,000 pa as a typical figure you'd expect about 52,500 deaths to July. The actual figure is about 59,200 which would suggest either that something else with high mortality has hit the country or that the official Covid 19 figures are considerably understated.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/

Bit cynical

greyday wrote: »

Even if Swedens strategy proves correct, it would be naive to think others were wrong as Sweden has gambled while others have done what was advised by experts, there is no other way IMO to describe Swedens strategy other than a gamble, they did not know if herd immunity could be achieved but ploughed ahead regardless.

Sweden is wrong, in your view, even if they are right, and other countries are right even if they are wrong?

greyday

Bit cynical wrote: »

Sweden is wrong, in your view, even if they are right, and other countries are right even if they are wrong?

Precisely, Sweden gambled while most others were prudent, hopefully Swedens gamble pay off and we all benefit.

Bit cynical

greyday wrote: »

Precisely, Sweden gambled while most others were prudent, hopefully Swedens gamble pay off and we all benefit.

It is a bit too tautological for my liking, I'm afraid. Plus you are equating running with the crowd as being prudent. Politically safe, yes, but not necessarily prudent. If Sweden prove correct, then thinking independently was the prudent thing to do.

greyday

Bit cynical wrote: »

It is a bit to tautological for my liking, I'm afraid. Plus you are equating running with the crowd as being prudent. Politically safe, yes, but not necessarily prudent.

Nope, there was very little known about the virus when it hit Europe first and to an extent there is still little known, it was prudent to follow the overwhelming expert advise for any number of reasons, by going your own road you took a risk which you had very little evidence to support, in essence you gambled with peoples lives, that is not what we should expect from our politicians or health service IMO.
If Swedens approach turns out to be correct then hurrah for Sweden for pulling off a monumental gamble.

i_surge

Bit cynical wrote: »

It is a bit too tautological for my liking, I'm afraid. Plus you are equating running with the crowd as being prudent. Politically safe, yes, but not necessarily prudent. If Sweden prove correct, then thinking independently was the prudent thing to do.

If you are honest about it you will concede that abandoning lockdown didn't work in the US. It puts a huge hole in the Swedish model.

nw1dqsv7amx026

i_surge wrote: »

Can you address the points I made please? There are countries that did a great job in recovery from catastrophy or avoiding it almost completely...we should be copying them verbatim.

Sweden is not a best case model, the same approach failed spectacularly in other regions.

You said:-

Sure after losing 1 in 350 of its population. But it was early in the race and knuckled down as it was very serious, i'm thinking of Florida.

So, you said New York lost 1 in 350, that's 0.28% of their population.

Our population is 4.9 million. Approximately 30,000 die every year so that's 3 in 500 or 1 in 166 or 0.6% of the Irish population die every year for a variety of reasons.

Potentially in New York a lot of these people would have died this year without Covid. Maybe/probably Covid pushed their deaths forward by a few months, days or years. Maybe a bad flu or cold winter would kill half as many.
I haven't looked at the demographics of New York nor have I looked into many die on average due to flu there.

I'm not saying it isn't sad and I'm not saying that Covid isn't responsible for a lot of death but so does the flu.

1 in 350 dead sounds bad until you compare it to a normal annual death rate of 1 in 166. And yes I know 1/350 wasn't over a year

Spain and Italy used hard policies to force a huge relative reduction in cases. Why are we so mediocre that we can't mimic what looks to be best practice?

I agree our approach is poor, its neither one nor the other. Spain is kicking off again.

The problem I have is what happens if you do manage to eliminate Covid. What price would need to be paid and for how long. Do we end up like Albania, shut off from the world?

You're pushing for crushing the virus in another thread so I'll ask the same question:-

What about the Northern Irish border? Its over 300 miles long with multiple roads across it, many which aren't even on the map. The British army tried for years to shut it by blowing up bridges, blocking roads and surveillance. Even then they couldn't stop smugglers and the IRA.

Closing the borders might work for New Zealand because its 4,000 km from the nearest country. But how long do they do this for and what price would there be economically?

I am not qualified in any way to answer that, maybe somebody qualified could answer how the Irish economy would work if it was shut off from the outside world for a few years?

I don't think we'd have any airlines or ferries waiting to start up.

Sweden is not a best case model, the same approach failed spectacularly in other regions.

Where are you referring to? The Netherlands? I certainly don't think the US had any coherent strategy which resembled the Swedish approach in any way.

nw1dqsv7amx026

greyday wrote: »

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/8/21251899/coronavirus-long-term-effects-symptoms

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/long-term-health-effects-covid-19

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists

I'll have a look at these tomorrow. Thanks.

nw1dqsv7amx026

Ce he sin wrote: »

But which numbers? Officially Sweden has had about 5,700 deaths. Looking at their deaths overall so far this year and taking 90,000 pa as a typical figure you'd expect about 52,500 deaths to July. The actual figure is about 59,200 which would suggest either that something else with high mortality has hit the country or that the official Covid 19 figures are considerably understated.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/

Where did you get monthly breakdowns for Sweden? I had a look at their CSO equivalent and I couldn't find it.

The link you supplied is yearly only?

niallo27

greyday wrote: »

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/8/21251899/coronavirus-long-term-effects-symptoms

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/long-term-health-effects-covid-19

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists

These are individual cases with long term being classified as 8 weeks. Any with actual proper studies.

nw1dqsv7amx026

Bit cynical wrote: »

It is a bit too tautological for my liking, I'm afraid.

I like that word. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've never heard it before, wasted youth

Plus you are equating running with the crowd as being prudent. Politically safe, yes, but not necessarily prudent. If Sweden prove correct, then thinking independently was the prudent thing to do.

What else would you expect the Irish to do. We crave approval.

nw1dqsv7amx026

greyday wrote: »

Nope, there was very little known about the virus when it hit Europe first and to an extent there is still little known, it was prudent to follow the overwhelming expert advise for any number of reasons

So how could an expert give advice on something which very little was known about?

ceadaoin.

bb1234567 wrote: »

Well every country has different definitions of overwhelmed. Overwhelmed as ni triage yeh basically just Lombardy and maybe Madrid. But hospitals in India and parts of South America have not been able to treat all COVID patients who presented in hospitals, surely that could be considered overwhelmed.

ICU units are full across many parts of Texas too and some hospitals in texas at least have classified themselves as 'overwhelmed' by COVID.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/us/texas-coronavirus-rio-grande-valley-starr-county.html

Whether they are simply just **** hospitals routinely overwhelmed and the media are just focusing on it because it's COVID related or not, I don't know.

Well the hospital they focus on in the article only has 45 beds in total and 50% of their emergency room patients are covid positive. Its no surprise that they are struggling to provide care, especially with being on the border and getting patients coming from Mexico too. The same thing happened in California along the border with people crossing for medical care.

Many small hospitals like that would transfer patients to larger facilities and they do mention in that they are doing that. For example, there are many patients from Arizona hospitalised here in Vegas because sometimes we are closer than the nearest suitable hospital in their own state. Hopefully this will help take some of the pressure off

greyday

niallo27 wrote: »

These are individual cases with long term being classified as 8 weeks. Any with actual proper studies.

The virus is with us 6 months, evidence is emerging of long term health problems for some who contract it, we will know how bad it is in years to come.

greyday

Jessica Swift Bearded wrote: »

So how could an expert give advice on something which very little was known about?

By studying previous viruses from the same family of viruses and by paying attention to Chinas experience where a full lockdown brought it under control.

niallo27

greyday wrote: »

The virus is with us 6 months, evidence is emerging of long term health problems for some who contract it, we will know how bad it is in years to come.

Yes but long term is classified as 8 weeks. Not exactly what I would call long term, so would you agree we don't know the long term affects as of yet.

greyday

niallo27 wrote: »

Yes but long term is classified as 8 weeks. Not exactly what I would call long term, so would you agree we don't know the long term affects as of yet.

Considering how long its here then yes, we can't say how good or bad the consequences are going to be for people that suffer organ damage long term but we can probably guess it will be detrimental rather than neutral for a cohort of those infected.

nw1dqsv7amx026

greyday wrote: »

By studying previous viruses from the same family of viruses

And how many vaccines are there for these other 7 corona viruses?

Do these viruses also kill?

and by paying attention to Chinas experience where a full lockdown brought it under control.

Under control in China, really?

So, we should follow the Chinese approach? That's going well for the students in Hong Kong or the Uighers.

theguzman

If Scientists can create a vaccine as it appears they are moving ever closer to doing then hopefully this research and medical field could also be used to get rid of the common cold which is caused by complex coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. I think we also need to start looking at genetic modification in the human field so that embryos are genetically modified to get rid of undesirable DNA traits, create a vast immunity to a whole host of diseases and to increase the IQ over all.

greyday

Jessica Swift Bearded wrote: »

And how many vaccines are there for these other 7 corona viruses?

Do these viruses also kill?



Under control in China, really?

So, we should follow the Chinese approach? That's going well for the students in Hong Kong or the Uighers.

Lets stick with their approach to the virus, or even South Koreas, if there is no vaccine we then have a long term problem which will still not include allowing it to run riot through the population, we now have most resources in place to stop exponential growth which over the next few months we will learn if they are adequate or have to be tweaked.

nw1dqsv7amx026

theguzman wrote: »

If Scientists can create a vaccine as it appears they are moving ever closer to doing then hopefully this research and medical field could also be used to get rid of the common cold which is caused by complex coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. I think we also need to start looking at genetic modification in the human field so that embryos are genetically modified to get rid of undesirable DNA traits, create a vast immunity to a whole host of diseases and to increase the IQ over all.

You're definitely pro-Sweden then, I believe they were also fans of Eugenics.

Nothing a little bit of re-direction!

nw1dqsv7amx026

greyday wrote: »

Lets stick with their approach to the virus, or even South Koreas, if there is no vaccine we then have a long term problem which will still not include allowing it to run riot through the population, we now have most resources in place to stop exponential growth which over the next few months we will learn if they are adequate or have to be tweaked.

You see the core of our disagreement on the correct approach is that I don't think this virus is dangerous except for the very old or sick.

I believe Tegnell when he says that they have seen very little repeat infection and that if the healthy can get immunity then the old and the sick could be safe again.

I don't believe the current approach is sustainable and I think we will all see that at the next budget.