Sweden avoiding lockdown

charlie14

ElTel wrote: »

It's hard to disagree with you on this especially with these email leaks (have not read them myself). The living with the virus for two years sustainable plan sounds a lot more PC of course.

Whatever way it's worded though do you think we can make any inferences/deductions about their hopes for a vaccine when they came up with their strategy and would it be different now?

On that I believe there are only three people who could give a definitive answer.Anders Tegnell, Johan Giesecke and Johan Carlson, so I very much doubt we will ever know.
Giesecke hired the other two when he was state epidemiologist 1995-2005 and appeared to still hold a lot of influence with both at the beginning the epidemic in Sweden. Often referring to them as "my boys".

Whether Tegnell or Carlson gave much consideration to a vaccine or not due to the belief then that it could take anything up to seven years to develop one, the criticism both shipped because of the Swine Flu vaccine Pandemrix, or the influence of Giesecke who appeared to be set against the idea from the start, again I doubt we will ever know.
Ironic in a way in that one of the leaders in developing a vaccine is the British/Swedish company AstraZeneca with whom Sweden recently placed an order for 6 million vaccine doses subject to it being approved.

Giesecke in particular appears to have totally discounted a vaccine in favour of herd immunity as early as March in emails with Tegnell regarding Ro and Re numbers. He was at that time employed as a consultant by AP3, a Swedish pension fund, and in a email to that company, also in March, he stated that it would all be over in two months due to so many being infected, that there would be herd immunity.

tobefrank321

Sweden now removed from the UK quarantine list and probably removed from other countries red zone lists.

This might be counter productive for Sweden as they could see an influx of visitors from countries with high covid rates as southern European countries saw during the summer.

Sweden might actually have to impose travel restrictions on visitors from other countries with higher rates than them.

It will be interesting to see if they allow the border to remain open to other Scandinavian countries now, after borders were closed to them.

Ginger n Lemon

Back.

Incredible. Whats happening in Sweden is absolutely incredible. I've posted back 1st week of July here saying that Sweden won't have any excess deaths. Boy I am on course for my prediction. Some other OP said "they are on a trajectory for 5-8k extra deaths". No.

Swedes have done exceptionally well, hats off to them. While I am here in Dublin, dreading tomorrows NPHET "recommendation". I suppose I ll be back in lockdown. And so will 1million other people. Great strategy we "followed" huh.

I am very surprised how well Sweden have done.

I am joking, I am not surprised at all. Fintan - if you r still around, you were right. I was right. Tegnell was right.

Blazer

Unfortunately you’re not an expert.
Governments had to decide at the start the strategy to go for.
And our health service is nowhere near what Sweden has.
If anything I say that’s what drove the national strategy.
Ireland simply could not cope with a few thousand cases in ICU.
Even with the limited number we have there’s been a huge impact to other hospital services.
I don’t criticise the government for going the hard lockdown at the start but what they’ve done since then and continue to do is ridiculous.

begbysback

is_that_so wrote: »

When this has passed or we are faced with another one, the narrative will be this is what most countries did and this is what Sweden did. It's just not a convincing enough approach for others to embrace.

And this is what Ireland did, kept the wet pubs closed, problem solved.

Tenzor07

Blazer wrote: »

Unfortunately you’re not an expert.
Governments had to decide at the start the strategy to go for.
And our health service is nowhere near what Sweden has.
If anything I say that’s what drove the national strategy.
Ireland simply could not cope with a few thousand cases in ICU.
Even with the limited number we have there’s been a huge impact to other hospital services.
I don’t criticise the government for going the hard lockdown at the start but what they’ve done since then and continue to do is ridiculous.

Back in 2012 Ireland spent 10.8% of GDP on healthcare, which is what Sweden consistently spend on healthcare... Only in the last number of years has it dropped down about 3 percentage points...
With the HSE budget being over €21 billion last year... The Government is also building the world's most expensive hospital which should cost around the €3billion mark if not more..

The main reason Ireland's healthcare system doesn't match Sweden is because of corruption, incompetence, inefficiency in the HSE and Government mismanagement over the years..

Blazer

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Back in 2012 Ireland spent 10.8% of GDP on healthcare, which is what Sweden consistently spend on healthcare... Only in the last number of years has it dropped down about 3 percentage points...
With the HSE budget being over €21 billion last year... The Government is also building the world's most expensive hospital which should cost around the €3billion mark if not more..

The main reason Ireland's healthcare system doesn't match Sweden is because of corruption, incompetence, inefficiency in the HSE and Government mismanagement over the years..

Absolutely. Ireland is the role mode for complete and utter inefficiency

mcsean2163

Blazer wrote: »

Absolutely. Ireland is the role mode for complete and utter inefficiency

That's not entirely true, there's great doctors and nurses in the HSE, the administration around them...

20silkcut

mcsean2163 wrote: »

That's not entirely true, there's great doctors and nurses in the HSE, the administration around them...

Have personal experience of visiting my local GP for a minor issue some time ago. When I went to pay the secretary the charge was €50.
Turned out I had no money on me but I had my card from my health insurance and mentioned it to the secretary. She said yes GP visits are covered and took the number off it,
Two weeks later received a letter from my health insurance itemising that the GP visit cost €170.

mollser

Tenzor07 wrote: »

The main reason Ireland's healthcare system doesn't match Sweden is because of corruption, incompetence, inefficiency in the HSE and Government mismanagement over the years..

I level it all at the unions actually. Great opportunity for the unions to be part of the solution, but no they get in the way of any change/efficiency at every turn. Fair smack of incompetence also though!

Drumpot

While their elderly may not agree, Sweden did us a favour by doing something completely different to everybody else. In time maybe their response or parts of their response can be adopted by others but right now is not the time to say their strategy is a success or one that everybody should follow.

In comparison to their neighbors, who are the most accurate benchmark , they don’t look favourable. Maybe over the winter this will change but right now they still look like they frontloaded deaths that their neighbors may not suffer. Economically they aren’t doing any better but again in time this may change.

With regards to how a Swedish model may work in Ireland , this I don’t understand. I believe social responsibility and following government orders is a cultural thing in Sweden that I don’t believe we share in Ireland and other European/US countries. Many can’t even follow imposed restrictions when they are legal, why do people think a more passive approach comparable with Sweden will somehow help us here? I believe there are maybe other factors like good VIT D habits in Scandinavian countries and different household dynamics that could also help explain Nordic differences.

The only angle I can see is that people may follow guidelines if they buy into them. But this doesn’t explain how basically having less restrictions and more opportunities for the virus to spread will somehow lead to less deaths.

From an ethical POV I don’t think I will ever be on board with frontloading deaths like they did, when very little was known about the virus around the time they decided on this approach. Taking time to figure out how to respond to the virus was the prudent approach. The virus death rate and long term effects could of been a lot worse , even Sweden didn’t know how this was going to play out. But We need to understand why Sweden’s model may work in other countries, not just point at them and go “look , Sweden were right all along, let’s do that”.

dubrov

Drumpot wrote:

I believe social responsibility and following government orders is a cultural thing in Sweden that I don’t believe we share in Ireland and other European/US countries. Many can’t even follow imposed restrictions when they are legal, why do people think a more passive approach comparable with Sweden will somehow help us here?

I'd disagree with this. Irish people are remarkably compliant with government direction. This is the reason why must recommendations are advisory rather than legal.

Despite one of the worst recessions in Europe here in 2008, civil unrest was very low compared to other countries.

Diarmuid

Drumpot wrote: »

From an ethical POV I don’t think I will ever be on board with frontloading deaths like they did, when very little was known about the virus around the time they decided on this approach.

The didn't "frontload" the deaths. The fcuked up and let it into the nursing homes, just like Ireland also did.

Drumpot

Diarmuid wrote: »

The didn't "frontload" the deaths. The fcuked up and let it into the nursing homes, just like Ireland also did.

Herd Immunity is about taking all the pain now/sooner (frontloading cases), with the idea that long term society will benefit.

By virtue of taking a less cautious approach then their nordic neighbours, they took greater risks in the earlier part of the pandemic when less was known about the vius. History might be kinder, but when you are in the thick of a crisis you are not always sure how your strategy will pan out. The lock-down, while crude, was a more cautious approach.

plodder

Drumpot wrote: »

While their elderly may not agree, Sweden did us a favour by doing something completely different to everybody else. In time maybe their response or parts of their response can be adopted by others but right now is not the time to say their strategy is a success or one that everybody should follow.

In comparison to their neighbors, who are the most accurate benchmark , they don’t look favourable. Maybe over the winter this will change but right now they still look like they frontloaded deaths that their neighbors may not suffer. Economically they aren’t doing any better but again in time this may change.

With regards to how a Swedish model may work in Ireland , this I don’t understand. I believe social responsibility and following government orders is a cultural thing in Sweden that I don’t believe we share in Ireland and other European/US countries. Many can’t even follow imposed restrictions when they are legal, why do people think a more passive approach comparable with Sweden will somehow help us here? I believe there are maybe other factors like good VIT D habits in Scandinavian countries and different household dynamics that could also help explain Nordic differences.

The only angle I can see is that people may follow guidelines if they buy into them. But this doesn’t explain how basically having less restrictions and more opportunities for the virus to spread will somehow lead to less deaths.

From an ethical POV I don’t think I will ever be on board with frontloading deaths like they did, when very little was known about the virus around the time they decided on this approach. Taking time to figure out how to respond to the virus was the prudent approach. The virus death rate and long term effects could of been a lot worse , even Sweden didn’t know how this was going to play out. But We need to understand why Sweden’s model may work in other countries, not just point at them and go “look , Sweden were right all along, let’s do that”.

One useful thing that came out of that Ivor Cummins video (for me) was another plausible explanation for why Sweden did worse than its neighbours - basically that Sweden had a much more benign flu season the previous year with far fewer excess deaths, creating the so called tinderbox, ie a larger pool of vulnerable elderly that was picked off by Covid. Though there does seem to be structural factors that benefit them, compared to us, eg the lowest average household size in the world.

Incidentally, the death rate among the elderly cohort was higher here than in Sweden up to the initial peak around May. It was our younger population profile that made us look better. I assume when our lockdown kicked in that situation changed. But, lockdown does not count as "living with it" in my book.

Drumpot

plodder wrote: »

One useful thing that came out of that Ivor Cummins video (for me) was another plausible explanation for why Sweden did worse than its neighbours - basically that Sweden had a much more benign flu season the previous year with far fewer excess deaths, creating the so called tinderbox, ie a larger pool of vulnerable elderly that was picked off by Covid. Though there does seem to be structural factors that benefit them, compared to us, eg the lowest average household size in the world.

Incidentally, the death rate among the elderly cohort was higher here than in Sweden up to the initial peak around May. It was our younger population profile that made us look better. I assume when our lockdown kicked in that situation changed. But, lockdown does not count as "living with it" in my book.

"Lockdown" means many different things to different people. As I understand it, Sweden did have restrictions and did encourage people to be more careful, they were just less authoritarian in how they did it.

I've been saying for awhile that we need to adapt to a longer term solution. The opening of schools and loosening of restrictions are an indication that countries will be going for more of a "Sweden model" (if thats what you can call it) in the longer term. Maybe with a mix of local lockdowns.

What is remarkable is that there are examples of countries, certainly asian ones, who have kept numbers relatively low with savage tracing systems for the virus. If we really want to live with it and carry on with less restrictions, this seems like the perfect balance, but for some reason we are fumbling on with a mish mash of things that dont appear to be working.

mcsean2163

Diarmuid wrote: »

The didn't "frontload" the deaths. The fcuked up and let it into the nursing homes, just like Ireland also did.

Who knows, perhaps there are other factors too, for example a medication in Swedish/ Irish nursing homes could be different to that used in Oslo and could cause have complications. Would be interesting to compare.

Ozark707

Drumpot wrote: »

What is remarkable is that there are examples of countries, certainly asian ones, who have kept numbers relatively low with savage tracing systems for the virus. If we really want to live with it and carry on with less restrictions, this seems like the perfect balance, but for some reason we are fumbling on with a mish mash of things that dont appear to be working.

But these Asian countries had a level of lockdown that was probably in excess of Spain in many cases. I am not sure that would ever work here. It certainly would not work in Sweden.

growleaves

Savage is right.

People don't seem to understand that we don't know what is going on in China. Ever. We see media and images and read newspaper stories and think we know a little. But we don't.

China turned part of their country into a prison in March and then in April declared covid eradicated. Who knows what the hell is going on, and whether they were telling the truth in the first instance or the second. Trying to emulate a mirage is not a good idea.

And for anyone who thinks doubting the stories put out by a Communist dictatorship amounts to conspiracy theorising, there are no words.

Ginger n Lemon

growleaves wrote: »

Savage is right.

People don't seem to understand that we don't know what is going on in China. Ever. We see media and images and read newspaper stories and think we know a little. But we don't.

China turned part of their country into a prison in March and then in April declared covid eradicated. Who knows what the hell is going on, and whether they were telling the truth in the first instance or the second. Trying to emulate a mirage is not a good idea.

And for anyone who thinks doubting the stories put out by a Communist dictatorship amounts to conspiracy theorising, there are no words.

100%. Complete opposite would be Sweden. Who have been honest from the very start. Even when few more than predicted have died there govt admitted that they failed to protect care homes. Now you can have 100% faith in their low - non existent covid figures reported and to be honest, in their strategy.

Its like a different planet there, they ll look at you as if you have 3 heads if you start mentioning "closing down schools" "2nd wave" "business closed for 3 months, 6 months +" "daily figures reported to the entire nation" "very concerned about increase in cases (when they went from 9 to 27 in 2 days in July)"...

321123

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

100%. Complete opposite would be Sweden. Who have been honest from the very start. Even when few more than predicted have died there govt admitted that they failed to protect care homes. Now you can have 100% faith in their low - non existent covid figures reported and to be honest, in their strategy.

Its like a different planet there, they ll look at you as if you have 3 heads if you start mentioning "closing down schools" "2nd wave" "business closed for 3 months, 6 months +" "daily figures reported to the entire nation" "very concerned about increase in cases (when they went from 9 to 27 in 2 days in July)"...

Correct, I'm Irish living in Stockholm and people here are chocked when they hear what is going on in Ireland. Like my boyfriend's dad asked me yesterday: "But how can you live your life, run a business and plan for the future when the guidelines, communication and restrictions change on a daily busis. It must do a lot of harm in the long run". When Swedish people see what is happening in Ireland, UK etc they are more and more happy with the Swedish approach of consistency.

They are also surprised why the government is scaremongering instead of calming people down.

Ginger n Lemon

321123 wrote: »

Correct, I'm Irish living in Stockholm and people here are chocked when they hear what is going on in Ireland. Like my boyfriend's dad asked me yesterday: "But how can you live your life, run a business and plan for the future when the guidelines, communication and restrictions change on a daily basis. It must do a lot of harm in the long run". When Swedish people see what is happening in Ireland, UK etc they are more and more happy with the Swedish approach of consistency.

They are also surprised why the government is scaremongering instead of calming people down.

You cant. People are devastated all over the nation. The only reason this has actually occurred is because govt was giving out 350 euros per week to just about everybody and people didnt pay attention to what was happening. Now people get 200 - 300 and slowly start to realize that they dont have a job. Every 6th person in Ireland is unemployed (over age of 18) We have protests in Dublin every 2 weeks (had taxi drivers protest 2 days ago... that bad)

could you tell please, if not too much to ask, in terms of shops in Sweden and cafes etc. have many actually closed/went out of business over last 6 months? (located around where you live?)

Is covid discussed at all on Swedish TV and if yes how frequently/ what sort of coverage?

When will the 50 people gathering limit be increased? approximately?

Are there any markings on the floor for social distancing? Are those being followed, generally?

321123

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

You cant. People are devastated all over the nation. The only reason this has actually occurred is because govt was giving out 350 euros per week to just about everybody and people didnt pay attention to what was happening. Now people get 200 - 300 and slowly start to realize that they dont have a job. Every 6th person in Ireland is unemployed (over age of 18) We have protests in Dublin every 2 weeks (had taxi drivers protest 2 days ago... that bad)

could you tell please, if not too much to ask, in terms of shops in Sweden and cafes etc. have many actually closed/went out of business over last 6 months? (located around where you live?)

Is covid discussed at all on Swedish TV and if yes how frequently/ what sort of coverage?

When will the 50 people gathering limit be increased? approximately?

Are there any markings on the floor for social distancing? Are those being followed, generally?

Only one shop has gone bust where I live but I have heard some have gone under. But I'm in Dublin currently actually and it is a massive difference. A big difference too between Stockholm and Dublin is that there are a lot of people living in central Stockholm. The 100+ year old buildings that make up the city centre mostly have several floors of often large apartments above the stores/bars/cafes. So the city centre isn't dead just because there are less tourists. And since people are going out and enjoying themselves they have been able to survive (although it has been much slower than usual).

Covid is maybe 10% of the media. Society and people have moved on to a large extent. Figures are now going to be reported weekly they said on today's press conference. If I check aftonbladet.se which is the largest news site there are as of now 9 non-covid articles before the first covid article.

The 50 limit is increased to 500 from first of October. So is the visitation restrictions for hospitals and nursing homes.

There are a few for queues in supermarkets and they are followed (so people are adhering mostly to social distance). But no traffic system, massive signs everywhere etc. Also remember that you don't have to wear masks anywhere which contributes to the normality feeling.

Ginger n Lemon

321123 wrote: »

Only one shop has gone bust where I live but I have heard some have gone under. But I'm in Dublin currently actually and it is a massive difference. A big difference too between Stockholm and Dublin is that there are a lot of people living in central Stockholm. The 100+ year old buildings that make up the city centre mostly have several floors of often large apartments above the stores/bars/cafes. So the city centre isn't dead just because there are less tourists. And since people are going out and enjoying themselves they have been able to survive (although it has been much slower than usual).

Covid is maybe 10% of the media. Society and people have moved on to a large extent. Figures are now going to be reported weekly they said on today's press conference. If I check aftonbladet.se which is the largest news site there are as of now 9 non-covid articles before the first covid article.

The 50 limit is increased to 500 from first of October. So is the visitation restrictions for hospitals and nursing homes.

There are a few for queues in supermarkets and they are followed (so people are adhering mostly to social distance). But no traffic system, massive signs everywhere etc. Also remember that you don't have to wear masks anywhere which contributes to the normality feeling.

I'd lie if i said I didnt have a tear slip down my face reading that in bold.

Thank you a lot! I dont want be a smartass but i am not too surprised. I've heard interview with Swedish virologist who was before tegnell way back in April on unherd.tv, he articulated and explained everything very well without scaremongering about 500k + dying according to "formulas" and "simulations" etc. and if thats the sort of person you had in Swedish government in the past I had full belief that his successor would be equally qualified.

We had a health minister who kept saying "would you have some cop on".... rest is history. Our current health minister went to a press briefing while coughing and was coughing on camera... then reported "being unwell".

PS Dont go to stephens green shopping centre 1st floor...... 30% + of shops there permanently closed. Too depressing. needless to say dont go to temple bar neither.

JimmyVik

plodder wrote: »

One useful thing that came out of that Ivor Cummins video (for me) was another plausible explanation for why Sweden did worse than its neighbours - basically that Sweden had a much more benign flu season the previous year with far fewer excess deaths, creating the so called tinderbox, ie a larger pool of vulnerable elderly that was picked off by Covid. Though there does seem to be structural factors that benefit them, compared to us, eg the lowest average household size in the world.

Incidentally, the death rate among the elderly cohort was higher here than in Sweden up to the initial peak around May. It was our younger population profile that made us look better. I assume when our lockdown kicked in that situation changed. But, lockdown does not count as "living with it" in my book.

I think one thing that Ivor forgot to mention in his video was that you can have charts say what you want.
While I did find it very interesting its plain as day what he wants his graphs to show so thats what they will show.

321123

The Swedish prognosis for the GDP has been revised. A drop of 4.4% for 2020 is the new prognosis. Then an increase of 3.3% in 2021.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/ekonomi/prognosen-svag-uppgang-for-sveriges-bnp

thebaz

321123 wrote: »

Correct, I'm Irish living in Stockholm and people here are chocked when they hear what is going on in Ireland. Like my boyfriend's dad asked me yesterday: "But how can you live your life, run a business and plan for the future when the guidelines, communication and restrictions change on a daily busis. It must do a lot of harm in the long run". When Swedish people see what is happening in Ireland, UK etc they are more and more happy with the Swedish approach of consistency.

They are also surprised why the government is scaremongering instead of calming people down.

I was skeptical of the Swedish approach back in March , as I thought like many we were dealing with a virus with a fatality of maybe 5 % - thankfully this did not happen - but I still believed in our strategy to flatten the curve through Spring , to save our health service, this we did successfully - but the toll on the country mentally and economically has been horrific, certainly here in Dublin, and tomorrow we head into another lockdown , Back in March many were so critical of the Swedish policy , particulrly when we thought the death rate would be well over 1 % , but as we head into another lockdown, I now wish we had adopted the Swedish cool thought out stratgegy , rather than our harsh lockdown strategy , that is devastating our younger population, and I am in fact old.

321123

thebaz wrote: »

I was skeptical of the Swedish approach back in March , as I thought like many we were dealing with a virus with a fatality of maybe 5 % - thankfully this did not happen - but I still believed in our strategy to flatten the curve through Spring , to save our health service, this we did successfully - but the toll on the country mentally and economically has been horrific, certainly here in Dublin, and tomorrow we head into another lockdown , Back in March many were so critical of the Swedish policy , particulrly when we thought the death rate would be well over 1 % , but as we head into another lockdown, I now wish we had adopted the Swedish cool thought out stratgegy , rather than our harsh lockdown strategy , that is devastating our younger population, and I am in fact old.

I was VERY sceptical of the Swedish strategy and honestly a bit afraid to move there in the middle of the pandemic (around Easter). My Swedish boyfriend landed a job in Stockholm he couldn't resist accepting. So he was going but I contemplated staying in Ireland until it calmed down and join him after the summer but in the end came with. Then when in Stockholm it didn't take long until I was comfortable even though I still think they initially took the nursing home deaths a bit too easy.

It is interesting how powerful the tone used in the media and by the government really is.

douglashyde

thebaz wrote: »

I was skeptical of the Swedish approach back in March , as I thought like many we were dealing with a virus with a fatality of maybe 5 % - thankfully this did not happen - but I still believed in our strategy to flatten the curve through Spring , to save our health service, this we did successfully - but the toll on the country mentally and economically has been horrific, certainly here in Dublin, and tomorrow we head into another lockdown , Back in March many were so critical of the Swedish policy , particulrly when we thought the death rate would be well over 1 % , but as we head into another lockdown, I now wish we had adopted the Swedish cool thought out stratgegy , rather than our harsh lockdown strategy , that is devastating our younger population, and I am in fact old.

Your comment particular resonates.

I was very worried at the start of this. Reports back in March that the death rate was north of 5%, that it effected everyone and that it spread super easy.

The vast vast majority of the Irish public were onboard and the govt approach was the right thing to do given the information at hand.

Now, I would like to see the govt once again, do the right thing with the information at hand .5% death rate with that been massively skewed by the elderly w/ severe underlying health conditions.

plodder

JimmyVik wrote: »

I think one thing that Ivor forgot to mention in his video was that you can have charts say what you want.
While I did find it very interesting its plain as day what he wants his graphs to show so thats what they will show.

Eh no. Either those charts were as he described them or he faked them, which I think would have been pointed out by now; so I think is unlikely.