Sweden avoiding lockdown

99nsr125

charlie14 wrote: »

In regards to Sweden I do not see how 6% positivity can be looked on as good. It`s practically the same as Ireland with Ireland only a few days in lockdown and Sweden look to be round two weeks behind Ireland in new cases.
It does not indicate any greater level of immunity in Sweden than Ireland and it is certainly no indicator of herd immunity in Sweden.


Alternatively you could have 100,000 positive test results in Sweden tomorrow that would result in over 6,000 deaths. That was the mortality ratio for the last rise in Sweden`s confirmed cases.


What you re proposing as regards lockdown is putting the cart before the horse. Leave lockdown until you have a large number of infections throughout the community and it`s too late for it to have the effect of not doing it on time.
We have seen that already with the U.K. who played around with the herd immunity idea for too long, and to an extent with Italy and Spain who didn`t initially do it very well.

So what's your answer,

Bearring in mind we don't have a vaccine.

You'll need to run hospitals at pre covid capacity to prevent creating mortalities from delayed or missed treatment

Run the economy at capacity to prevent people falling into poverty or destitution

Balance the books so the youth of today, the generation being hit hardest isn't destroyed by inflation and interest rates.

greyday

99nsr125 wrote: »

So what's your answer,

Bearring in mind we don't have a vaccine.

You'll need to run hospitals at pre covid capacity to prevent creating mortalities from delayed or missed treatment

Run the economy at capacity to prevent people falling into poverty or destitution

Balance the books so the youth of today, the generation being hit hardest isn't destroyed by inflation and interest rates.

Vaccines expected to be distributed in first half of 2021, if not then we carry on with levels rising and dropping in tandem with rises in infections, its not rocket science, we may end up with immunity allowing us to stay at lower restriction levels but we have seen the change in behaviours to allow let it rip reopening is not an option.

charlie14

99nsr125 wrote: »

So what's your answer,

Bearring in mind we don't have a vaccine.

You'll need to run hospitals at pre covid capacity to prevent creating mortalities from delayed or missed treatment

Run the economy at capacity to prevent people falling into poverty or destitution

Balance the books so the youth of today, the generation being hit hardest isn't destroyed by inflation and interest rates.

What you really need to bear in mind is that acquired herd immunity for this virus has not worked where it has been attempted. Neither have we developed acquired herd immunity, (or even gotten close to) for practically all the viruses or diseases you mentioned after thousands of years without vaccines.


You also again state this "we don`t have a vaccine" mantra of yours while totally ignoring that the four leading vaccine candidates are all in Phase 3 and rapidly heading for safety and efficacy review by independent authorities.


If you let this virus rip then we have seen what it is capable of doing to hospital services from Italy. So if you want to let it rip then if you want to keep hospital services at pre Covid-19 levels you need more hospitals and personnel to staff them.
If you let it rip for no other purpose than just letting it rip, then your economy is not going to perform well either. Sick and dead workers do not tend to be very productive.

greyday

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/immunity-lasts-just-a-few-months-after-infection-uk-study-shows-39672046.html

The hope is a vaccine will confer greater immunity then what infection seems to be conferring, hopefully the role of T cells will offer more immunity than antibodies.

the incredible pudding

4768 cases for the past 4 days so just shy of 1200 on average per day.
More worrying for Sweden is the ICU numbers are increasing (not a huge amount but it's trending that way).
I was in Stockholm Centre picking up a couple of things this weekend and it was busy, uncomfortably so. I would wonder if people are becoming more lax to it. I'd definitely be curious to see a picture of Uppsala to see what kind of impact those local regional restrictions are having.

kkelly77

Looks like they're doing perfectly fine to me

FintanMcluskey

the incredible pudding wrote: »

4768 cases for the past 4 days so just shy of 1200 on average per day.
More worrying for Sweden is the ICU numbers are increasing (not a huge amount but it's trending that way).
I was in Stockholm Centre picking up a couple of things this weekend and it was busy, uncomfortably so. I would wonder if people are becoming more lax to it. I'd definitely be curious to see a picture of Uppsala to see what kind of impact those local regional restrictions are having.

Sweden about half of Ireland’s case numbers population wise so?

Doing exceedingly well in fact.

There seems to be a moral objection to the fact Sweden didn’t take a one dimensional approach to living with Covid.

the incredible pudding

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Sweden about half of Ireland’s case numbers population wise so?

Doing exceedingly well in fact.

There seems to be a moral objection to the fact Sweden didn’t take a one dimensional approach to living with Covid.

I know relative to the rest of Europe the numbers aren't especially high.
They're trending in the wrong direction though, which is where my concern is, in particular the ICU numbers. I happen to live in Stockholm so for obvious personal reasons of course I want to see it doing well. For what it's worth, I don't fully subscribe to either Swedish approach = good or Swedish approach = bad camps. I think it's far more nuanced than that.

FintanMcluskey

the incredible pudding wrote: »

I know relative to the rest of Europe the numbers aren't especially high.
They're trending in the wrong direction though, which is where my concern is, in particular the ICU numbers. I happen to live in Stockholm so for obvious personal reasons of course I want to see it doing well. For what it's worth, I don't fully subscribe to either Swedish approach = good or Swedish approach = bad camps. I think it's far more nuanced than that.

Fair point.

As someone in Ireland I just wish we had case numbers similar to Sweden and had a proper handle on this thing

greyday

Sweden took their approach without knowing the long term effects from contracting Covid, research released by Imperial College of London in the last few days would be a major concern for those who have contracted Covid with IQ being damaged in some people along with increased ageing and organ damage, we won't know the full adverse effects for a while to come but I personally prefer the suppression strategy where fewer contract the virus rather than the letting it rip strategy even moreso now with the data which is coming out.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.20.20215863v1

tobefrank321

From what I can see, the Swedes had 3 long term aims.

1. Not destroy their economy - this has been a success as although the Swedes have taken a hit, largely because of the actions of other countries, Sweden is likely to suffer one of the lowest drops in GDP among western countries in 2020.

2. A sustainable level of measures and restrictions - another success - you just have to look at the riots across Europe as one example of fatigue with lockdown. The hospitality industry is also on its knees. While the Irish government may be looking forward to a good Christmas for everyone, it won't be so great for tens of thousands here who lost their jobs or suffered severe financial losses - a miserable Christmas for them. You can look at the Czech Republic and most of Eastern Europe to see examples of unsustainble lockdowns. Italy also have said they can't afford economically to go into lockdown again.

3. Herd immunity - this was a failure but then again what many people fail to understand was this was intended as a side effect of the first two goals rather than a causal factor. The Swedes were hoping for herd immunity, it may have happened in limited circumstances or areas but not significantly enough to call it a success. If there was a deliberate plan (there wasn't, it was a side effect) then it was badly enacted. They banned large gatherings and bizarrely enough other countries across Europe (France with soccer and Portugal who had a full crowd at their Grand Prix) now allow far bigger crowds than happen in Sweden. Sweden's restrictions do not allow for herd immunity to happen, which will disappoint their critics, who now acknowledge it won't happen.

Finally, antibodies have been discredited as the main measure of immunity. In the majority of infected persons, antibodies are reckoned to last 3-6 months. Now without antibodies you'd expect widespread reinfections, ie the millions infected in the spring would now start to be re-infected. So far we've had 10 confirmed reinfections and at least one of those was from a slightly different strain, technically not a reinfection of the same strain. There's obviously other immune responses at play, thankfully!

greyday

the incredible pudding wrote: »

4768 cases for the past 4 days so just shy of 1200 on average per day.
More worrying for Sweden is the ICU numbers are increasing (not a huge amount but it's trending that way).
I was in Stockholm Centre picking up a couple of things this weekend and it was busy, uncomfortably so. I would wonder if people are becoming more lax to it. I'd definitely be curious to see a picture of Uppsala to see what kind of impact those local regional restrictions are having.

Sweden registered 1,870 new coronavirus cases on 23 October, the highest since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports.

Loafing Oaf

tobefrank321 wrote: »

riots across Europe as one example of fatigue with lockdown.

Are there? I'm not aware of there being any of significant scale outside Italy

tobefrank321

greyday wrote: »

Sweden registered 1,870 new coronavirus cases on 23 October, the highest since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports.

Numbers are certainly increasing as are ICU numbers. They removed 15 deaths over the weekend though. They have significantly more ICU scope than us. The restrictions in Uppsala will hopefully make a difference.

99nsr125

charlie14 wrote: »

What you really need to bear in mind is that acquired herd immunity for this virus has not worked where it has been attempted. Neither have we developed acquired herd immunity, (or even gotten close to) for practically all the viruses or diseases you mentioned after thousands of years without vaccines.


You also again state this "we don`t have a vaccine" mantra of yours while totally ignoring that the four leading vaccine candidates are all in Phase 3 and rapidly heading for safety and efficacy review by independent authorities.


If you let this virus rip then we have seen what it is capable of doing to hospital services from Italy. So if you want to let it rip then if you want to keep hospital services at pre Covid-19 levels you need more hospitals and personnel to staff them.
If you let it rip for no other purpose than just letting it rip, then your economy is not going to perform well either. Sick and dead workers do not tend to be very productive.

But we don't have a vaccine.

Trials are just that trials, also efficacy is only being tested on mild cases which are the ones that would have a similar outcome without it

From the BMJ

"None of the trials currently under way are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths," he said.

"Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus."

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037

You don't let any disease rip, you always try to mitigate it

But hiding away doesn't make it go away and even with a vaccine it won't go away either exactly like the other diseases we do have vaccines and treatments for that I have previously mentioned.

So what then,
You did begin to answer so I'll make it easier

Scenario 1 - no vaccine or an ineffective vaccine for the high risk cases

How do you care for everybody
Stop people from becoming destitute
Prevent permanent scaring of educational attainment
Prevent the destruction of the youth generation's lives

There are no easy answers, this I understand but it is never mentioned or addressed in the wider media that there are people we cannot save and people we can, we must choose for not to choose destroys everyone.

Wompa1

Wolf359f wrote: »

He's advocated a position, I am asking if he has any evidence or analysis to back it up.
How many young and healthy need to get infected in how short a time to achieve some community immunity?
I'm sure he has worked it all out, I mean he wouldn't be advocating a position without evidence to back up that his way is better than the current governments way.

There in lies the rub with the Swedish approach. When the experts decided on the strategy they knew close to nothing about the virus. You see experts like Fauci still qualifying most things he says with "we don't know for certain yet" and "it's still a very new virus".

At best the Swedish experts would get lucky and all of their assumptions are correct. They would lose a lot of lives but would eventually get herd immunity for however long that might last. (without a vaccine)

They have tweaked restrictions as they have gone. They have gone from a herd immunity approach to an approach they have stated is not about herd immunity and flip flopped back and forth. They have stuck to their guns despite their economy taking a hit from their trade partners and neighbors going into lockdowns. They have said it's not just about economy, it's about not having a second wave after a lockdown but they are having another wave too.

South Korea is already out of it's recession. They have had two waves. The second one which they dealt with very swiftly. They have much more experience dealing with this type of situation than any western nations. They mandate masks. They have strictly enforced quarantine for travellers. Testing people before allowing them into busy indoor public spaces.

IF it's true that we'll have a vaccine in the coming weeks and as Leo the Leak said, we will have it for our most vulnerable in Ireland in the first quarter of next year then trying to control spread while waiting for a vaccine will have been a better approach, imo.

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

A controlled spread, the guy is a nutter. What he is advocating is totally unworkable.

And locking us up for a year or more while the government borrows enormous amounts of money to pay everyone's salaries while killing all businesses is???

Bit cynical

greyday wrote: »

Sweden registered 1,870 new coronavirus cases on 23 October, the highest since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports.

They most likely had higher actual infections in May and June, the low reported number being due to limited testing at that time.

Bit cynical

Wompa1 wrote: »

There in lies the rub with the Swedish approach. When the experts decided on the strategy they knew close to nothing about the virus. You see experts like Fauci still qualifying most things he says with "we don't know for certain yet" and "it's still a very new virus".

At best the Swedish experts would get lucky and all of their assumptions are correct. They would lose a lot of lives but would eventually get herd immunity for however long that might last. (without a vaccine)

In fairness, despite very low new deaths by EU standards (only I think Finland and Cypruss lower), officials like Tegnell have never advocated their approach for other countries being keen to point out that what works for Sweden may not be appropriate for elsewhere.

greyday

Bit cynical wrote: »

They most likely had higher actual infections in May and June, the low reported number being due to limited testing at that time.

They are going to go a lot higher in the next few weeks.

Hands Like Flippers

greyday wrote: »

They are going to go a lot higher in the next few weeks.

People have been saying that for weeks and weeks now.

Maybe they will, but for not having a lockdown as we understand it their current figures are decent by comparison.

greyday

Hands Like Flippers wrote: »

People have been saying that for weeks and weeks now.

Maybe they will, but for not having a lockdown as we understand it their current figures are decent by comparison.

They are a couple of weeks at least behind the rest of Europe, they basically go on holidays in July/August and since returning their numbers have increased steadily and are now near exponential territory.

A good article here.
https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

Hands Like Flippers

greyday wrote: »

They are a couple of weeks at least behind the rest of Europe, they basically go on holidays in July/August and since returning their numbers have increased steadily and are now near exponential territory.

A good article here.
https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

Cheers. It appears however to be a very one sided article. Where is the interview with anyone supporting the current approach. After all Tegnell appears to be happy having interviews.

StefanFal

Sh1ts starting to get real again. 70% increase in cases in one week. Couple of weeks and the Swedes will be dropping like flies again since they won't act on it.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/senaste-nytt-om-coronaviruset

greyday

Hands Like Flippers wrote: »

Cheers. It appears however to be a very one sided article. Where is the interview with anyone supporting the current approach. After all Tegnell appears to be happy having interviews.

No other Country have gone Swedens way even with a second wave coming, IMO Sweden have lost credibility with the vast majority of Countries.
It was immediately after the WHO criticized Sweden that their death rate dropped dramatically, they released Data about immunity and when challenged they retracted it again.

For other Countries the strategy was to reduce infections to low numbers thereby decreasing deaths, lockdowns and severe restrictions were put in place, Sweden did neither but their numbers followed the trend of other wealthy Countries, If I was a bit cynical I would suggest numbers from Sweden were unreliable at best, we will no doubt find out in years to come.

eddie73

charlie14 wrote: »

In regards to Sweden I do not see how 6% positivity can be looked on as good. It`s practically the same as Ireland with Ireland only a few days in lockdown and Sweden look to be round two weeks behind Ireland in new cases.
It does not indicate any greater level of immunity in Sweden than Ireland and it is certainly no indicator of herd immunity in Sweden.

Alternatively you could have 100,000 positive test results in Sweden tomorrow that would result in over 6,000 deaths. That was the mortality ratio for the last rise in Sweden`s confirmed cases.

What you re proposing as regards lockdown is putting the cart before the horse. Leave lockdown until you have a large number of infections throughout the community and it`s too late for it to have the effect of not doing it on time.
We have seen that already with the U.K. who played around with the herd immunity idea for too long, and to an extent with Italy and Spain who didn`t initially do it very well.

Here is a link to an excellent resource.
https://corona.help/country/sweden
You will see very clearly the the mortality this time around is much, much less severe than the first wave of the virus. You would have to assume that Sweden nor the rest of the European countries are rigging the numbers (test results, deaths, recoveries etc, which you would have to consider if you were going to critically assess everything properly).

If this is the case, then you can't really anticipate the virus suddenly getting more deadly again all of a sudden, unless it mutated overnight.

charlie14

eddie73 wrote: »

Here is a link to an excellent resource.
https://corona.help/country/sweden
You will see very clearly the the mortality this time around is much, much less severe than the first wave of the virus. You would have to assume that Sweden nor the rest of the European countries are rigging the numbers (test results, deaths, recoveries etc, which you would have to consider if you were going to critically assess everything properly).

If this is the case, then you can't really anticipate the virus suddenly getting more deadly again all of a sudden, unless it mutated overnight.

Deaths on a particular day have no relation too confirmed cases on that day.
As we have seen everywhere, including Sweden, with new cases deaths follow. Often weeks later and the mortality rate depends on who has been infected. Older or vulnerable and there will be more deaths than young and healthy.


You may have missed it on that link, but the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases is 5% .That means that for every 20 confirmed cases to date in

Sweden 1 person has died. Hopefully the ratio of these new rising cases will be nowhere near that.

ceadaoin.

Sweden seems to be on track to have a normal number of deaths this year or at least not a huge amount of excess deaths. Mortality rate has been below baseline for a while now. Is it really likely that the increase in cases is going to lead to significantly more deaths than anywhere else by the end of the year? We know that the death rate for covid has fallen significantly since march/April, why would Sweden by any different?


https://emanuelkarlsten.se/number-of-deaths-in-sweden-during-the-pandemic-compared-to-previous-years-mortality/

Wompa1

Bit cynical wrote: »

In fairness, despite very low new deaths by EU standards (only I think Finland and Cypruss lower), officials like Tegnell have never advocated their approach for other countries being keen to point out that what works for Sweden may not be appropriate for elsewhere.

Sure and he has no sway in public health globally, only in Sweden. In Sweden, he took a stab in the dark with no reason to believe it would work for Sweden or anywhere else. Remember back in July when he said he believed immunity was widespread in the population and now they are asking people in the south to restrict movements and that things are likely to get worse.

As daft as the UK Government is, at least they saw the error of their ways and back pedalled.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Numbers are certainly increasing as are ICU numbers. They removed 15 deaths over the weekend though. They have significantly more ICU scope than us. The restrictions in Uppsala will hopefully make a difference.

70% increase in cases in a week and 55 people in ICU with over one third of new cases in Stockholm.
Those 15 deaths removed is a bit misleading. According to their official website there were 16 deaths over the weekend, but there were 31 deaths removed. All from the same region, Ostergotland.