Sweden avoiding lockdown

Spiderman0081

I agree with 321123 but the only differences I have in my experiences is that I haven’t met a single person who wishes that the restrictions were more stringent.
This summer we traveled all around southern and western Sweden on a camping holiday. Every single place was delighted to see customers.
I work in the building trade in Stockholm and meet many different potential state, trade and private customers on a regular basis. Apart from not shaking hands anymore their isn’t the slightest difference to how we interact compared to last year. Rarely does the coronavirus topic come up and if it does I’ve never heard anything else but that of people being relieved that they were in Sweden during the last 6 months. Even those that mention that they had the virus say a few quick words about it and continue on talking about other topics just as quickly.

dubrov

I guess it all points to hire much influence the media still has. Same virus in both countries with similar impacts but a completely different view on personal safety

Spiderman0081

Like I mentioned before those that I meet daily are glad that the responsibility lies with them and not stringent restrictions.
One thing that is evident though is that there are Swedish scientists that don’t agree with Sweden’s approach and those that do.
The media here gives a voice to both sides which is a good thing. There are often debates on state tv where the participants both get to say their part. News articles can be about overcrowded buses or beaches but also articles about the positive effects of a lighter lockdown.
I feel that even though those that I work with or live around are happy with Sweden’s approach, the state media gives a platform for those who want to criticize the approach.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

Spiderman0081 wrote: »

Like I mentioned before those that I meet daily are glad that the responsibility lies with them and not stringent restrictions.
One thing that is evident though is that there are Swedish scientists that don’t agree with Sweden’s approach and those that do.
The media here gives a voice to both sides which is a good thing. There are often debates on state tv where the participants both get to say their part. News articles can be about overcrowded buses or beaches but also articles about the positive effects of a lighter lockdown.
I feel that even though those that I work with or live around are happy with Sweden’s approach, the state media gives a platform for those who want to criticize the approach.

It's the exact opposite here. If you appear to criticize our approach in any way you're labelled as an "anti masker", "conspiracy theorist" or a "Gemma head"...

Our media is a complete joke.

Spiderman0081

Hunky Monster wrote: »

It's the exact opposite here. If you appear to criticize our approach in any way you're labelled as an "anti masker", "conspiracy theorist" or a "Gemma head"...

Our media is a complete joke.

RTÉ and SVT are very alike when it comes to Anti-Trump rhetoric while writing blind positivity towards example BLM, METOO, etc etc but they do in equal part give a voice to those that are critical of the Swedish government’s and FHM’s approach.
RTÉ on the other hand are incapable of proper journalism, but are perfectionists when it comes to unjustified, unnecessary scaremongering.

GT89

Spiderman0081 wrote: »

RTÉ and SVT are very alike when it comes to Anti-Trump rhetoric while writing blind positivity towards example BLM, METOO, etc etc but they do in equal part give a voice to those that are critical of the Swedish government’s and FHM’s approach.
RTÉ on the other hand are incapable of proper journalism, but are perfectionists when it comes to unjustified, unnecessary scaremongering.

There's an excellent youtube channel called Sanity 4 Sweden I suggest people give a watch just a guy giving his opinion on some of the SJW types in Sweden and also matters outside Sweden like Trump etc. Another channel called SwebbTV that is an excellent source of alternative media mostly in Swedish but I think they've done some stuff in English too.

mcsean2163

Bit off topic but if anyone has seen.Spain....

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

Big surge in cases and very few deaths. If this continues, maybe it's time to reopen in Europe. In the meantime Peru etc. in a very bad way.

copeyhagen

i cant see it but they dont give it by region no? i know when we were there it was all localised to Catalonia

thebaz

I really dont what to believe anymore -
The Irish Times headline today is more fear-mongering for the masses , says we are doing worse now than Sweden who everybody scolds for being irresponsible -

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/could-ireland-become-the-wayward-child-of-europe-on-covid-response-1.4343216

then you read about Skerries and that is total irresponsiblity, even if it is teenagers - even though I question our over-reaction and what we are told I pracitce what we are told even if I dont believe in some of it and think its an overreaction and we should be looking at other issues such as mental health and other illness.

is_that_so

thebaz wrote: »

I really dont what to believe anymore -
The Irish Times headline today is more fear-mongering for the masses , says we are doing worse now than Sweden who everybody scolds for being irresponsible -

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/could-ireland-become-the-wayward-child-of-europe-on-covid-response-1.4343216

then you read about Skerries and that is total irresponsiblity, even if it is teenagers - even though I question our reaction and what we are told I pracitce what we are told even if I dont believe in some of it and think its an overreaction and we should be looking at other issues such as mental health and other illness.

It's Paul Cullen. He's had it in for our response, especially testing, from Day 1. He's frequently confrontational at briefings and he tried to take a pop at Glynn yesterday just as he'd done many times with Holohan.

Wompa1

thebaz wrote: »

I really dont what to believe anymore -
The Irish Times headline today is more fear-mongering for the masses , says we are doing worse now than Sweden who everybody scolds for being irresponsible -

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/could-ireland-become-the-wayward-child-of-europe-on-covid-response-1.4343216

then you read about Skerries and that is total irresponsiblity, even if it is teenagers - even though I question our over-reaction and what we are told I pracitce what we are told even if I dont believe in some of it and think its an overreaction and we should be looking at other issues such as mental health and other illness.

Goal of response was to flatten the curve to ensure our health system didn't get overwhelmed. It sounded like the health system in Stockholm did take a bit of a hammering for a few weeks. We seemed to do pretty well. While the PPE situation here wasn't ideal with the dodgy supply, it seemed like we got enough usable stock in to plug the gap while more shipments were getting flown in. Our median age seems to now be consistently in the 40's and lower now.

It's also still important to remember that Ireland is one of the few countries that is likely still overcounting COVID related deaths.

During the height of our cases in the first wave, we were getting between 4%-9% positive rates in tests. Right now, we seem to be getting about 1.2%.

There are few things about our response, I'm not a fan of like how we handled tourists, nursing homes and some of the contradictions in measures put in place under Martin's watch but overall, I think it's been a good response.

MOH

is_that_so wrote: »

It's Paul Cullen. He's had it in for our response, especially testing, from Day 1. He's frequently confrontational at briefings and he tried to take a pop at Glynn yesterday just as he'd done many times with Holohan.

Our testing is a disgrace. It's excuse after excuse for why the turnaround times are so inconsistent. Since April. There's zero point doing contact tracing if you can't actually get the test results for contacts back promptly. Yet they regularly trot out Trump-like lies that we're one of the best countries in Europe for testing.

tobefrank321

Today Sweden reported 142 new cases.

We reported 227.

It looks like they have new cases under control while ours start to creep up.

jesus_thats_gre

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Today Sweden reported 142 new cases.

We reported 227.

It looks like they have new cases under control while ours start to creep up.

You agree that it doesn't quite add up though, don't you?

The Swedes are effectively going about their day normally while we have a quite a few measures in place.

How, in that situation, do we end up with more daily cases? There is only 2 logical conclusions that you can arrive at; 1) a critical mass of people have caught the virus (which appears to have been disproven) and are now immune, or 2) they aren't testing particularly effectively. Maybe there is another explanation but I am struggling to come up with something.

I get why you might look longingly at what they are achieving but it's pointless advocating their model when it appears impossible to nail down exactly what it is they are doing.

bb1234567

It is likely a fortunate mix of several cultural or social factors in addition to their governing policies. Certainly there are not immunity levels of high enough a level to bring cases down to numbers as tiny as that, perhaps enough immunity to stop exponential growth sure, but the fact that the number of cases being confirmed is so low makes me think there is certainly many more factors at play than just the fact that Sweden has allowed it to spread more freely than in other places in the world.

Bit cynical

Certainly it defies the understanding many had at the earlier stages of the pandemic. The Imperial College model which informed the policies UK and other countries, predicted deaths of 40,000 by May 1st and increasing I think to 80,000 at peak if Swedes carried on with their current light measures (which they did). However we don't know if this model was ever correct with any of its predictions since Sweden was the only country which put it to the test. The model was parametrised with data specific to Sweden such as household size, population densities and so forth.

I think there's probably also more immunity than many believe. The main study was done in back in April and tested only antibodies. We now know that that is not the only mechanism and April is too early to explain what is happening now. Further evidence is that regions with high infection rates are not seeing resurgences to the same extent that regions unaffected are seeing. We can infer that Sweden had high infection rates due to high ICU admissions during its peak.

But I agree that there are other factors too. Some restrictions are still in place and because the measures are fairly modest, Swedes who are believed to be fairly conformist, are likely to be still adhering to them. They don't have the housing problems of a lot of other countries.

What I think they managed was a high degree of infections at peak which they dealt with though a massive expansion of hospital facilities. Whatever degree of immunity the virus confers will be maximised in Sweden compared to countries that had a stronger suppression strategy.

Diarmuid

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

How, in that situation, do we end up with more daily cases? There is only 2 logical conclusions that you can arrive at; 1) a critical mass of people have caught the virus (which appears to have been disproven) and are now immune, or 2) they aren't testing particularly effectively. Maybe there is another explanation but I am struggling to come up with something.
.

And 3) their measures are more effective AND SUSTAINABLE, ours aren't.

We are doing 1.6 test/1000, they are doing about 1

I suspect it's a combination of all three.

is_that_so

Diarmuid wrote: »

And 3) their measures are more effective AND SUSTAINABLE, ours aren't.

We are doing 1.6 test/1000, they are doing about 1

I suspect it's a combination of all three.

There are very big societal and social differences, the primary one for a cluster disease being that 40% of the population live alone. They are also big believers in the primacy of the country/state. For other countries to do what they are doing they would need to be Swedish.

the incredible pudding

I don't think testing rates are a good indicator of how a country is doing tbh.
It's easy to get a test here in Sweden but that still doesn't mean that testing is necessarily widespread.
There's still on average around 1 person being admitted to the ICU with Covid per day so I'd look to that as being a better metric.

mcsean2163

No covid19 deaths in Ireland since August 22nd. Great news.


We're currently in isolation awaiting covid19 results after our sons had a temperature on Saturday. Daughter missing school all week because kids had a temperature.

Look at France, lots of infections and virtually no deaths.

At the risk of being flippant, I'd much rather be living under a Swedish regime, especially since we had similar proportional of elderly deaths.

I've wondered are factors influencing the mortality rate, wrote a report on it and queried the professors in trinity but nobody seems to care. They just want the lockdown measures. We all know that Peru had one if the strictest lockdowns and yet has the highest mortality versus Uruguay. Why are none of the experts exploring the international mortality rates?

I give up, back to isolation.

tobefrank321

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

You agree that it doesn't quite add up though, don't you?

The Swedes are effectively going about their day normally while we have a quite a few measures in place.

How, in that situation, do we end up with more daily cases? There is only 2 logical conclusions that you can arrive at; 1) a critical mass of people have caught the virus (which appears to have been disproven) and are now immune, or 2) they aren't testing particularly effectively. Maybe there is another explanation but I am struggling to come up with something.

I get why you might look longingly at what they are achieving but it's pointless advocating their model when it appears impossible to nail down exactly what it is they are doing.

It does add up. Allegations the Swedes are not testing fully or properly isn't supported by evidence.

If new confirmed cases were down but deaths, ICU and hospital admissions remained high, I'd say yes, its suspicious.

But new cases, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths are all down significantly in recent weeks and they are all interlinked.

So yes it does look like the Swedes have this under control with sustainable measures. I'd say the voluntary compliance of the population helped.

Our problem is house parties, people not isolating, etc From what I can see, the Swedes will abide by advice, whereas a small minority of Irish people won't follow advice and everyone then ends up penalised with lockdowns.

AdamD

tobefrank321 wrote: »

It does add up. Allegations the Swedes are not testing fully or properly isn't supported by evidence.

If new confirmed cases were down but deaths, ICU and hospital admissions remained high, I'd say yes, its suspicious.

But new cases, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths are all down significantly in recent weeks and they are all interlinked.

So yes it does look like the Swedes have this under control with sustainable measures. I'd say the voluntary compliance of the population helped.

Our problem is house parties, people not isolating, etc From what I can see, the Swedes will abide by advice, whereas a small minority of Irish people won't follow advice and everyone then ends up penalised with lockdowns.

House parties haven't caused any lockdowns in Ireland. The initial, mass lockdown was government policy in reaction to outbreak. The localised lockdowns recently were due to meat factories.

jesus_thats_gre

Diarmuid wrote: »

And 3) their measures are more effective AND SUSTAINABLE, ours aren't.

We are doing 1.6 test/1000, they are doing about 1

I suspect it's a combination of all three.

Ok, it could reasonably be the case.

What specific measures do we think are more effective? What could we copy tomorrow in order to achieve the same results?

jesus_thats_gre

tobefrank321 wrote: »

It does add up. Allegations the Swedes are not testing fully or properly isn't supported by evidence.

If new confirmed cases were down but deaths, ICU and hospital admissions remained high, I'd say yes, its suspicious.

But new cases, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths are all down significantly in recent weeks and they are all interlinked.

So yes it does look like the Swedes have this under control with sustainable measures. I'd say the voluntary compliance of the population helped.

Our problem is house parties, people not isolating, etc From what I can see, the Swedes will abide by advice, whereas a small minority of Irish people won't follow advice and everyone then ends up penalised with lockdowns.

You very could be onto something there alright!

Sort of inferring that Irish people - a cohort anyway, need a stricter lockdown than the Swedes though?

Don't want to appear to be leading you down a path there either. I can see why we would now be somewhat fawning over what the Swedes have achieved. I just can't figure out what specifically they are doing in order to get there. Especially given that they mostly are not wearing masks.

99nsr125

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

You very could be onto something there alright!

Sort of inferring that Irish people - a cohort anyway, need a stricter lockdown than the Swedes though?

Don't want to appear to be leading you down a path there either. I can see why we would now be somewhat fawning over what the Swedes have achieved. I just can't figure out what specifically they are doing in order to get there. Especially given that they mostly are not wearing masks.

It's still the same the area under the flattened curve remains the same as the original curve.

It's airborne
There is no vaccine
It will have been with us for months before we realised

Expand hospital capacity to account for the extra admissions and that's about all you can do

charlie14

99nsr125 wrote: »

It's still the same the area under the flattened curve remains the same as the original curve.

It's airborne
There is no vaccine
It will have been with us for months before we realised

Expand hospital capacity to account for the extra admissions and that's about all you can do

From yesterday`s New York Times.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has notified public heath officials in all 50 states and 5 large cities to prepare to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to health care workers and other high risk groups a soon as late October or early November"

99nsr125

charlie14 wrote: »

From yesterday`s New York Times.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has notified public heath officials in all 50 states and 5 large cities to prepare to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to health care workers and other high risk groups a soon as late October or early November"

Right so be prepared for something that doesn't exist just in time for the election ? ? ? How very convenient

MOH

99nsr125 wrote: »

Right so be prepared for something that doesn't exist just in time for the election ? ? ? How very convenient

Combined with stopping testing asymptomatic close contacts so they can announce a huge drop in people testing positive, all thanks to their "vaccine".

charlie14

99nsr125 wrote: »

Right so be prepared for something that doesn't exist just in time for the election ? ? ? How very convenient

There area number of vaccines in Phase 3 trials. The two most likely in this case would be those of Pfizer and Moderna.
I have no doubt Trump will be pushing to have at least one ready for use before the election, but the final say will not be necessarily up to him.

Any vaccine will require the approval of the FDA, and while Pfizer have said it`s trials are on track to apply for regulatory authorisation in October, they will not apply for such if it does not fully satisfy their own safety protocols.
Moderna also in Phase 3 trials, on data from an earlier trial phase to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, indicated the vaccine was "generally safe and well-tolerated" by participants across a broad age range.
AstraZeneca the British/Swedish multinational in partnership with Oxford university is also in Phase 3 trials of its vaccine.

is_that_so

charlie14 wrote: »

There area number of vaccines in Phase 3 trials. The two most likely in this case would be those of Pfizer and Moderna.
I have no doubt Trump will be pushing to have at least one ready for use before the election, but the final say will not be necessarily up to him.

Any vaccine will require the approval of the FDA, and while Pfizer have said it`s trials are on track to apply for regulatory authorisation in October, they will not apply for such if it does not fully satisfy their own safety protocols.
Moderna also in Phase 3 trials, on data from an earlier trial phase to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, indicated the vaccine was "generally safe and well-tolerated" by participants across a broad age range.
AstraZeneca the British/Swedish multinational in partnership with Oxford university is also in Phase 3 trials of its vaccine.

That's all too late for Trump anyway. He'll get very little bump from, at best, a vaccine available for a brief time before the election. Q1 2021 is a more realistic as the earliest starting point for vaccines.