Sweden avoiding lockdown

StefanFal

Vieira82 wrote: »

The lack of clarity in the message by govs around Europe is obviously costing human lives as hundreds are dying a day again in numerous countries and Sweden will follow through too..

follow through......snigger

tobefrank321

greyday wrote: »

If the Pfizer vaccine maintains the efficacy over the full trial as shown from the interim analysis..................The Swedish gamble will most certainly not have paid off.

And when do you think everyone who needs to be vaccinated will be vaccinated? The vaccine is great news. Unfortunately its unlikely to make much difference for at least 3 months. There are countries in a far far worse state than Sweden: Poland, Czechia, Hungary, France, Belgium, Italy, UK, US, Mexico, Brazil and many more. All of them had lockdowns ranging from short to medium term.

tobefrank321

TheadoreT wrote: »

Sweden have the largest % of single occupancy households in the world(over 50%) and it's even higher in the big cities. Stockholm is at 60% making it the highest city in the world. They're essentially the loners of the planet. Theres real social issues among the young and not coupling up like in previous generations.

All of this contributes to them not having to go into a strick lockdown as social distancing is already naturally in place. But anyone with an anti lockdown agenda will never mention this when championing Swedens approach.

Single occupancy is a help but not hugely significant. Nursing homes and hospitals are not single occupancy. And if you are asymptomatic you're going to spread it whether you live alone or not once you leave home.

OldRio

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Single occupancy is a help but not hugely significant.

Seriously? Good grief.

tobefrank321

OldRio wrote: »

Seriously? Good grief.

How exactly does single occupancy help if Covid 19 gets into a nursing home?

Good grief yourself!

OldRio

tobefrank321 wrote: »

How exactly does single occupancy help if Covid 19 gets into a nursing home?

Good grief yourself!

Ré Read what you actually wrote. Pay attention to the full stop

AlmightyCushion

tobefrank321 wrote: »

How exactly does single occupancy help if Covid 19 gets into a nursing home?

Good grief yourself!

It doesn't. However, it does help reduce the spread in the community which will help prevent it getting in to the nursing home in the first place.

tobefrank321

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

It doesn't. However, it does help reduce the spread in the community which will help prevent it getting in to the nursing home in the first place.

But its going to get into the nursing home eventually. If for example 50% of staff are single occupancy whereas the other 50% aren't (and by the way a lot of nursing home staff in Sweden are migrants who live in high density accommodation) its going to get in.

Single occupancy might help keep hospitalizations and ICU admissions down, but then again that's not where most deaths occur. In Ireland close to 600 people have been admitted to ICU. And the survival rate is 80%. So about 150 people have died in ICU, out of a total of 1,948 deaths. Its obvious that most deaths occur in residential settings.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

And when do you think everyone who needs to be vaccinated will be vaccinated? The vaccine is great news. Unfortunately its unlikely to make much difference for at least 3 months. There are countries in a far far worse state than Sweden: Poland, Czechia, Hungary, France, Belgium, Italy, UK, US, Mexico, Brazil and many more. All of them had lockdowns ranging from short to medium term.

With the news on Pfizer vaccine, and with Sweden being at the head of the queue for the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the way their numbers are rising is there not now a greater case than ever as to why the should now use lockdown ?

AlmightyCushion

tobefrank321 wrote: »

But its going to get into the nursing home eventually. If for example 50% of staff are single occupancy whereas the other 50% aren't (and by the way a lot of nursing home staff in Sweden are migrants who live in high density accommodation) its going to get in.

Single occupancy might help keep hospitalizations and ICU admissions down, but then again that's not where most deaths occur. In Ireland close to 600 people have been admitted to ICU. And the survival rate is 80%. So about 150 people have died in ICU, out of a total of 1,948 deaths. Its obvious that most deaths occur in residential settings.

It is not true that it will get into the nursing home eventually. My friend works in a nursing home here in Ireland and so far they managed to keep it out of the home he works in. Also, the more staff that have it, the more it will spread in the nursing home. So, by reducing the spread in the community, the less damage it will do in the nursing homes even if it does get.

Bit cynical

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

It doesn't. However, it does help reduce the spread in the community which will help prevent it getting in to the nursing home in the first place.

Not as much as one might think however. Ireland, for instance, had much lower levels of infection during the peak than Sweden but had similar rates of elderly sadly succumbing to the virus.

I think the reason for this is that even with low levels of infection, it only takes one infected person to bring it into a nursing home and then the whole population has it. So it is really only a matter of time even with low levels of viral infection.

zerosugarbuzz

Bit cynical wrote: »

Not as much as one might think however. Ireland, for instance, had much lower levels of infection during the peak than Sweden but had similar rates of elderly sadly succumbing to the virus.

I think the reason for this is that even with low levels of infection, it only takes one infected person to bring it into a nursing home and then the whole population has it. So it is really only a matter of time even with low levels of viral infection.

It doesn’t necessarily go that one person will spread it to everyone in the nursing home. I know 3 families where one person tested positive, they all isolated together and none of the other family members tested positive. With nursing homes always best to err on the side of caution though.

Bit cynical

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

It doesn’t necessarily go that one person will spread it to everyone in the nursing home. I know 3 families where one person tested positive, they all isolated together and none of the other family members tested positive. With nursing homes always best to err on the side of caution though.

True. I was exaggerating a little but in an institutional setting it can spread quickly to a comparatively large number of people even if not everyone gets it.

tobefrank321

charlie14 wrote: »

With the news on Pfizer vaccine, and with Sweden being at the head of the queue for the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the way their numbers are rising is there not now a greater case than ever as to why the should now use lockdown ?

Yes there is. But from what I read on here and elsewhere, it appears to be constitutionally difficult for Sweden to order lockdown. So they have gone down the advisory route instead.

coppergrass

TheadoreT wrote: »

Sweden have the largest % of single occupancy households in the world(over 50%) and it's even higher in the big cities. Stockholm is at 60% making it the highest city in the world. They're essentially the loners of the planet. Theres real social issues among the young and not coupling up like in previous generations.

All of this contributes to them not having to go into a strick lockdown as social distancing is already naturally in place. But anyone with an anti lockdown agenda will never mention this when championing Swedens approach.

That 50% figure for single occupancy households in Sweden is no longer the case. The Swedish Statistics Board (SCB) now has that figure at 40% of households across the country. If I had to guess I'd put at least some of that down to the ludicrous increase in property price here!

Looking at things by person rather than by household, 18% of people in Sweden live alone compared to 8% in Ireland (2016 census page 37). If you're a random person in Sweden, your most likely living situation by far is in a one or two parent household with children, at 47%.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Yes there is. But from what I read on here and elsewhere, it appears to be constitutionally difficult for Sweden to order lockdown. So they have gone down the advisory route instead.

I`m not sure that is 100% accurate.
They have some pretty extensive powers under both the Communicable Diseases Control Act and the Public Order Act.

If they are not enough then they have only themselves to blame for allowing the Coronavirus Act of April 16th to lapse on June 30th.

ArthurDayne

TheadoreT wrote: »

Sweden have the largest % of single occupancy households in the world(over 50%) and it's even higher in the big cities. Stockholm is at 60% making it the highest city in the world. They're essentially the loners of the planet. Theres real social issues among the young and not coupling up like in previous generations.

All of this contributes to them not having to go into a strick lockdown as social distancing is already naturally in place. But anyone with an anti lockdown agenda will never mention this when championing Swedens approach.

Nor will anyone advocating lockdown ever mention the demographic / cultural differences between Ireland and places like Belgium / Italy. It is a common theme on this thread that the differences between Ireland and Sweden are painted as an irreconcilable chasm — while the differences between Ireland and other continental European countries are forgotten.

What’s even more irritating is this tendency to compare Normality Sweden with Normality Ireland — that somehow Irish people would have in absolutely no way reacted or changed behaviour when faced with a virus that could kill their parents etc. That somehow, people would have gone home and happily hugged and kissed older vulnerable relatives — and that older vulnerable people would not have acted differently out of basic self-preservation.

And so we end up with this narrative...that Sweden is a land of almost naturally-occurring social distancing and Irish people simply would have just kept on sneezing over granny’s sofa. Sweden’s own institutions, like the University of Uppsala, were predicting something between 30,000 to 96,0000 deaths by July and I’m sure they are quite aware of Sweden’s cultural norms. The figures never went near it because all the mathematical modelling could never factor in that simple evolutionary concept — human nature and the ability of humans to adapt their behaviour to the changing world around them.

the incredible pudding

I'm seeing more masks be worn which is nice! (Still very much in the minority but it's an improvement!)

coppergrass

ArthurDayne wrote: »

What’s even more irritating is this tendency to compare Normality Sweden with Normality Ireland — that somehow Irish people would have in absolutely no way reacted or changed behaviour when faced with a virus that could kill their parents etc. That somehow, people would have gone home and happily hugged and kissed older vulnerable relatives — and that older vulnerable people would not have acted differently out of basic self-preservation.

This is a bit overplayed, but I don't think it's entirely without foundation either. There's a sense of collective social responsibility here that doesn't seem as prevalent in Ireland. It's kind of hard to articulate, but as a pointer, the turnout for the last two general elections here were 87% and 86% respectively. Ireland only managed 63% and 65%. At the beginning of the outbreak, cell tower data suggested that many trips out of Stockholm were down over 90% for the Easter weekend - I doubt that would've happened in Dublin had there been only recommendations rather than a hard lockdown. There seems to be more individual exceptionalism in Ireland - I know what I'm doing, I'll be grand.

There also seems to be greater trust in public officials - rightfully so for the most part - and their advice is taken seriously. I don't think it'd ever come to pass here that someone who only managed a year of latin and geography at UCD would find themselves at the helm of financial regulation, claiming on national TV that the banks are well capitalised on the eve of their collapse.

tobefrank321

charlie14 wrote: »

I`m not sure that is 100% accurate.
They have some pretty extensive powers under both the Communicable Diseases Control Act and the Public Order Act.

If they are not enough then they have only themselves to blame for allowing the Coronavirus Act of April 16th to lapse on June 30th.

Looking at today's figures from Sweden, it would definitely be a good time to declare a national lockdown for a month or two, especially in light of the Pfizer vaccine news and likely AstraZeneca vaccine too. The Swedish approach was a good idea when we had no idea if a vaccine was even possible or how effective it would be. Now it looks like we might have a very effective one soon. With this new information to hand, the Swedes should consider a full lockdown. Today's numbers aren't great, especially ICU numbers and new cases, an average of 4000 a day for the last 4 days. So much for their single household advantage, case numbers rose even faster than in Ireland!

So not having a lockdown was probably a good idea when they didn't know if or when there'd be a vaccine, but now is the time for a lockdown to get them to the vaccine rollout.

coppergrass

the incredible pudding wrote: »

I'm seeing more masks be worn which is nice! (Still very much in the minority but it's an improvement!)

I was in town this morning for the first time in a couple of months and I noticed the same. I'm in one of the regions without increased restrictions.

ArthurDayne

ArthurDayne wrote: »

Nor will anyone advocating lockdown ever mention the demographic / cultural differences between Ireland and places like Belgium / Italy.

Can you point to several posts where users deny the difference between Ireland & Belgium or Italy?


I've been dipping in and out of the thread since April and haven't noticed such.

It is a common theme on this thread that the differences between Ireland and Sweden are painted as an irreconcilable chasm — while the differences between Ireland and other continental European countries are forgotten.

You're being disingenuous. Users are correctly pointing out that the many social, geographical and demographic differences between Ireland and Sweden make direct comparisons pointless, and as such the best comparison to Sweden is with it's neighbours who are much more similar in most respects - which makes it easier to compare differences in outcomes.


That's logical, rational and the intellectual thing to do and yet the anti-vaxxerslockdowners keep on banging on the dumb anti-intellectual drum of "NO, NO YOU CAN'T COMPARE SWEDEN WITH IT'S NEIGHBOURS AS THAT MAKES IT LOOK BAD. IT CAN ONLY BE COMPARED WITH COUNTRIES THAT MAKE IT LOOK GOOD BECAUSE...."

What’s even more irritating is this tendency to compare Normality Sweden with Normality Ireland — that somehow Irish people would have in absolutely no way reacted or changed behaviour when faced with a virus that could kill their parents etc. That somehow, people would have gone home and happily hugged and kissed older vulnerable relatives — and that older vulnerable people would not have acted differently out of basic self-preservation.

It's only irritating if your biased toward Sweden's approach to lockdown and get irritated by points/information that makes Sweden's approach look less successful.


Generally, when you compare two different approaches, you start from a baseline.

And so we end up with this narrative...that Sweden is a land of almost naturally-occurring social distancing and Irish people simply would have just kept on sneezing over granny’s sofa. Sweden’s own institutions, like the University of Uppsala, were predicting something between 30,000 to 96,0000 deaths by July and I’m sure they are quite aware of Sweden’s cultural norms. The figures never went near it because all the mathematical modelling could never factor in that simple evolutionary concept — human nature and the ability of humans to adapt their behaviour to the changing world around them.

"I'm going to string words together and mistake that as a rational argument"


Meanwhile;

Sweden has recorded 15,779 new Covid-19 cases as the pandemic stretched testing to the limit in many hard-hit and densely populated regions.


The increase since the Health Agency's previous update on Friday compared with a 10,177 case jump for the corresponding period last week.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Looking at today's figures from Sweden, it would definitely be a good time to declare a national lockdown for a month or two, especially in light of the Pfizer vaccine news and likely AstraZeneca vaccine too. The Swedish approach was a good idea when we had no idea if a vaccine was even possible or how effective it would be. Now it looks like we might have a very effective one soon. With this new information to hand, the Swedes should consider a full lockdown. Today's numbers aren't great, especially ICU numbers and new cases, an average of 4000 a day for the last 4 days. So much for their single household advantage, case numbers rose even faster than in Ireland!

So not having a lockdown was probably a good idea when they didn't know if or when there'd be a vaccine, but now is the time for a lockdown to get them to the vaccine rollout.

"Aren`t great" is a bit of an understatement as regards the numbers.


I was always of the opinion their strategy was unethical and immoral. Now that they have accepted that it is time for their Public Health Authority to bite the bullet, forget their pride, and do what is best for their population and use lockdown.


What good it will do at this stage is debatable, but at the very least it will be better than just doing virtually nothing in the face of record new cases.

nofools

charlie14 wrote: »

"Aren`t great" is a bit of an understatement as regards the numbers.


I was always of the opinion their strategy was unethical and immoral. Now that they have accepted that it is time for their Public Health Authority to bite the bullet, forget their pride, and do what is best for their population and use lockdown.


What good it will do at this stage is debatable, but at the very least it will be better than just doing virtually nothing in the face of record new cases.

Yes even if they were right they were still wrong for even risking it under such uncertainty.

ArthurDayne

coppergrass wrote: »

This is a bit overplayed, but I don't think it's entirely without foundation either. There's a sense of collective social responsibility here that doesn't seem as prevalent in Ireland. It's kind of hard to articulate, but as a pointer, the turnout for the last two general elections here were 87% and 86% respectively. Ireland only managed 63% and 65%. At the beginning of the outbreak, cell tower data suggested that many trips out of Stockholm were down over 90% for the Easter weekend - I doubt that would've happened in Dublin had there been only recommendations rather than a hard lockdown. There seems to be more individual exceptionalism in Ireland - I know what I'm doing, I'll be grand.

There also seems to be greater trust in public officials - rightfully so for the most part - and their advice is taken seriously. I don't think it'd ever come to pass here that someone who only managed a year of latin and geography at UCD would find themselves at the helm of financial regulation, claiming on national TV that the banks are well capitalised on the eve of their collapse.

Fully appreciate the sincerity of what you are saying here but all these things don’t seem overly relevant to me because none of them have much to do with protecting loved ones or self-preservation.

When we talk about collective social responsibility in the Covid-19 context, this is a very different beast than electoral turnouts etc. What we are talking about here, when all is said and done, is whether Irish people are simply more predisposed to not caring if they give an older or vulnerable person a virus which may kill them — or indeed whether vulnerable Irish people are less predisposed to caring whether they die or not.

To me, the proof is in the statistics. Even when the crisis was beginning and general ‘virus etiquette’ was not yet established, numbers of deaths remained far below projections and the anticipated “surge” never really materialised in the manner which many foresaw that it would. Care homes were the biggest source of fatalities rather than vulnerable people out in the general community. In more recent months, the dramatic rise in cases has not yielded a dramatic rise in deaths or a similarly steep rise in ICU admission — which suggests that people were, at the very least, acting with a degree of care in light of their own vulnerability or the vulnerability of those they encounter.

The mathematical models did not capture this because it is a a fundamentally human phenomenon. The models could only say “Here is what happens in normality and here is what happens when you create an environment that prevents normality” — they failed to capture the more realistic outcome of people adjusting their behaviour based on their understanding of risk.

ArthurDayne

Deleted User wrote: »

Can you point to several posts where users deny the difference between Ireland & Belgium or Italy?


I've been dipping in and out of the thread since April and haven't noticed such.

I didn’t say that people denied them — I said that much more is made of Sweden’s differences from ourselves (to the point where you know as well as I do that they can be rhymed off at this stage in a way you could not do with other countries — high levels of trust, civic responsibility, better healthcare, high level of single occupancy etc).

Deleted User wrote: »

You're being disingenuous. Users are correctly pointing out that the many social, geographical and demographic differences between Ireland and Sweden make direct comparisons pointless, and as such the best comparison to Sweden is with it's neighbours who are much more similar in most respects - which makes it easier to compare differences in outcomes.


That's logical, rational and the intellectual thing to do and yet the anti-vaxxerslockdowners keep on banging on the dumb anti-intellectual drum of "NO, NO YOU CAN'T COMPARE SWEDEN WITH IT'S NEIGHBOURS AS THAT MAKES IT LOOK BAD. IT CAN ONLY BE COMPARED WITH COUNTRIES THAT MAKE IT LOOK GOOD BECAUSE...."

It is perfectly correct to say that direct comparisons are not definitively indicative, it is certainly correct to say that direct comparisons require pinches of salt and acknowledgement of contextual variations — but it is most certainly not correct to say that direct comparisons are “pointless”. I mean, who should we compare ourselves to then? The U.K. ? Is it vastly more demographically similar to us than Sweden? What about NZ, is it a far better geographical comparator?

Deleted User wrote: »

It's only irritating if your biased toward Sweden's approach to lockdown and get irritated by points/information that makes Sweden's approach look less successful.


Generally, when you compare two different approaches, you start from a baseline.

Yeah, but that doesn’t make the baseline immune from criticism. If news flashes came on a Friday evening that a massive group of hostile bomber jets was flying towards Dublin and would bomb the city in a few hours, would it be a sensible to say that people would all still behave the exact same way? Even before the authorities have time to make emergency plans, would ‘Dublin on a regular Friday night’ be a good baseline for predicting how many people would be in town?

No. Because when people perceive risk they adjust their behaviour, they don’t just do what they always do until someone orders them to do otherwise. They might do it in different ways, or indeed some will be less risk averse than others, but overall society would not behave the exact same way.

Deleted User wrote: »

"I'm going to string words together and mistake that as a rational argument"


Meanwhile;

You come on here parading the words “logical, rational and intellectual”, you accuse me of being disingenuous...and yet when I discuss an academic paper and actually try to weigh up their findings — this is your response:
"I'm going to string words together and mistake that as a rational argument“. There is nothing intellectual about doing that my friend. If there is a deficiency in what I say, please point it out — otherwise keep the mockery to yourself. If my point was easy for you to mock, then it should be easy for you to deconstruct with an argument.

Now, do you dispute that the Uppsala University figures were, in the end, wrong (bearing in mind even their more ‘conservative’ estimates were really, really wrong). If they were wrong, why were they wrong? I’m putting forward the argument that they were wrong because their model could not capture the very thing I mention — that people would naturally react to the risk rather than just behaving as normal. If you have a counter argument, then I’m happy to listen to it — not mock it.

FintanMcluskey

the incredible pudding wrote: »

I'm seeing more masks be worn which is nice! (Still very much in the minority but it's an improvement!)

Is there a reason the mask wearing is “nice”?

I’m curious

coppergrass

ArthurDayne wrote: »

In more recent months, the dramatic rise in cases has not yielded a dramatic rise in deaths or a similarly steep rise in ICU admission — which suggests that people were, at the very least, acting with a degree of care in light of their own vulnerability or the vulnerability of those they encounter.

That's a really good point, particularly about ICU admissions - I'd fully accept that there's just as much social responsibility in Ireland for protecting people vulnerable to the virus as the risk is perceived.

I don't think a 90% drop in Easter trips from Stockholm is irrelevant though, and I suspect it wouldn't have been anything close to that in Ireland in the absense of a lockdown. A healthy person who exposes themselves to the virus might have the best of intentions about not exposing someone vulnerable, but their perception of the risk is unlikely to quite match reality. Given the exponential nature of transmission, ICUs may have been days or weeks from being overwhelmed. Either way we'll never know because of the lockdowns, but I don't think it's clear at all that the narrower social responsibility you outline is enough to avoid them.

the incredible pudding

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Is there a reason the mask wearing is “nice”?

I’m curious

There's been a small anti mask sentiment here in Sweden and personally I have felt very much an anomaly wearing one on public transport. I do think that the vast majority of people don't really care what people wear (Swedes are, as a generalisation, extremely anti confrontational) but I've heard of colleagues getting hassle for wearing one which was disappointing and disencouraging. So, in a nutshell, I feel a little less anxiety wearing one now that more are following.

s1ippy

16,000 today is off the wall.

This thread should really have a different title given the fact that

A) There are regional lockdowns now, so they clearly haven't avoided diddly.

Their strategy has been proved to be woeful, immoral, economically damaging and headstrong.

Are there still people on here who think no restrictions are a good idea?