Sweden avoiding lockdown

tobefrank321

greyday wrote: »

Are you still comparing Sweden to us Frank?
Still avoiding the comparison with its closest neighbours as it shows how badly they have done?
The game is up Frank, it has been for a while, they had lots of advantages over us and have done more than twice as badly on nearly every metric, Currently more than 5X our ICU rate, 10X infection rate, more than 3X death rate with it very likely to hit 4X around Christmas.
Did you find time to do the comparison with its closest neighbours.....I didnt think you would as you seem to find it hard to find them in the google search bar for some reason.

Feels like you're on a windup at this stage like a couple other posters!

You're the one saying we shouldn't follow Swedens path as its a failure. Its been shown to you that we're an equal failure.

One country can't be a failure and the other a success.

As for rest of Scandanavia, I've explained why I believe Norway did better. I'm more impressed by Finland who have even more older people than Sweden and 5% more of the population than Norway over 65.

But in truth come March 1st or thereabouts Sweden is going to have the same or less deaths per million as countless other nations.

Which is what they predicted.

JimmyVik

greyday wrote: »

The fallback seems to be that lock down's for years were not sustainable, I have never heard of lock down's lasting years until the Sweden fanboys started to use it in defence of Sweden's strategy, throughout this thread it has been stated lock down's only get used in a crisis situation to get infection rates down to a manageable level but the Sweden fanboys like to insinuate that lock down's are for extended time spans (years in franks case) which shows the complete lack of honesty in their arguments.

Im not a fan of lockdowns myself, but i can see they clearly have an effect.
I think a couple of 5 or 6 week lockdowns seems to be the way to go until we finally get this vaccine into people.

I see the resident you-know-what is still harping on about "Sweden has more older people, so even though they proportionally have more infections, and proportionally have more deaths, I'm going to ignore the more infections part and just create a fuzzy correlation between more older people + more deaths without actually mathematically estimating anything"





As someone who was in Norway for 3 weeks in August - no mask wearing. Everything was opened. No social distancing required. Schools were back. No-one was remote working. The resurgence in cases was linked to foreign workers who bypassed the mandatory testing & isolation and then it started spreading in the community (particularly in late teens/early 20s). Masks only became advisory on public transport in Oslo a month or so ago, and only became mandatory recently as the Norwegian government is a) trusting in it's testing & hospital capacity b) introducing measures in a staggered manner to be able to determine effects & c) aware of a duty to the public to not hit the EMERGENCY BRAKE up until it's absolutely necessary. Unsurprisingly, the government's approach is incredibly popular and public adherence is very high.

Their contact tracing & data analytics system is excellent - have a look at the dashboard that a tabloid is able to create from state data: https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/

'lOcKdOWn dOeSNt wORk' my hole.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/finland-and-norway-avoid-covid-19-lockdowns-but-keep-the-virus-at-bay-11605704407?mod=e2tw

Here are some choice quotes for the antivaxxers 5g conspiracy theorists-lockdowners who are still somehow defending the Swedish approach when even Sweden has turned on the initial Swedish approach, who are ignoring all empirical data, and are still basing their entire argument on "my assumptions and feelings have primacy".

In the north of Europe, Finland and Norway boast the West’s lowest rates of mortality linked to Covid-19 and a low incidence of coronavirus infections even though they have kept their economies and societies largely open while lockdowns returned to the continent.

While Sweden has captured global attention with its refusal to adopt mandatory restrictions—a policy now being reversed in the face of spiraling infections and deaths—its two northern neighbors now stand out as the closest Western equivalents to Asian nations that have managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic.

Their recipe: a brief, targeted lockdown in March, followed by tight border controls with mandatory testing and quarantine for all travelers.

Elsewhere in Europe, strict lockdowns in the spring helped bring infections down, but as most of the continent reopened borders, summer travelers turned into incubators for a new and bigger wave of infections, according to epidemiologists and policy makers. Even as governments reimpose draconian restrictions, borders across Europe remain largely open.

The Nordic policy mix could offer lessons for Western governments that are scrambling to bridge the gap until vaccines become widely available and whose latest lockdowns are causing public frustration and exacting a rising economic toll.

“Life is much closer to normal here than in most countries,” said Katja Kähkönen, a theater director from Tampere in Finland. Ms. Kähkönen’s new piece premiered on Saturday in front of a reduced audience under distancing rules that have roughly halved the number of people allowed to attend concerts and dine at restaurants.

After the show, she and her colleagues visited an Italian restaurant while a rock concert was taking place in a nearby bar—a scene now unimaginable in most European countries.

Finland and Norway follow a similar playbook of strict border controls, mandatory quarantines and detailed contact-tracing focused on preventing superspreading events when infections do occur. Travelers to Norway must produce a negative test to enter the country and must stay confined for 10 days in a certified hotel after arriving. Violators are subject to high fines or deportation.

Stopping inbound international travel early and urging Finns not to travel abroad was the foundation of Finland’s success, said Mika Salminen, director of the Department of Health Security and one of the architects of the pandemic strategy. As a consequence, air travel dropped by 95%, and over 94% of Finns vacationed within their country from May to August—with the rest traveling mainly to Norway.

“That meant we didn’t import infections like most of Europe did,” Mr. Salminen said.

Both countries also stand out for having forged a broad political consensus around their pandemic plans. The measures have changed little over time, avoiding the confusion of ever-shifting rules in the rest of Europe, and polls show they enjoy broad public support.

In Norway, government and opposition parties held a joint news conference in March to support the nation’s pandemic policy. The government has published every piece of expert advice underpinning the measures, and Prime Minister Erna Solberg holds televised news conferences for children, where she and her ministers field questions about the pandemic. Similar events took place in Finland in April.

The approach has brought economic dividends. Gross domestic product in Norway and Finland is set to drop by 2.8% and 4%, respectively, in 2020 compared with falls of 12.8% in Spain and 9.8% in France and Britain, according to International Monetary Fund estimates. (Provisional data for Sweden put's their drop at 4.7-5%)

On the health front, authorities in Norway and Finland are able to trace the origin of most new coronavirus cases whereas in Germany, which has fared better in the pandemic than most large European nations, the origin can’t be determined in 75% of cases. When Norwegian authorities noticed that the incidence of Covid-19 was higher among some minorities, they organized meetings with community and religious leaders to devise a common information strategy.


...

Both countries also used the summer to prepare for a winter surge in infections. Finnish universities, in cooperation with authorities, trained thousands of people online to conduct contact tracing while Norway boosted its testing capacity to be able to test 5% of its population each week.

Norway, like Finland, has a decentralized system where municipalities enjoy some latitude in shaping pandemic rules. Oslo, the capital, banned all bars and restaurants from serving alcohol this week after data showed the virus was spreading faster among young adults when they consumed alcohol.

What have many people who have been advocating for lockdown been noting all along?

1) That unmonitored international travel is incompatible with being able to exit and stay out of lockdown

2) That contact tracing is a key element in stopping spread in the community when inevitable outbreaks happen

3) That clear and consistent rules are necessary for 'buy-in' from the wider public

This was Taiwan's successful approach that was widely reported in February and New Zealand's approach for the entire duration.


What has Ireland failed at? All three elements. Ireland's problem/failure isn't it's approach to lockdown, it's in its approach to international travel, contact tracing and creating a consistent and coherent ruleset for behaviour at any stage in the coronavirus pandemic.

Bit cynical

Deleted User wrote: »

What has Ireland failed at? All three elements. Ireland's problem/failure isn't it's approach to lockdown, it's in its approach to international travel, contact tracing and creating a consistent and coherent ruleset for behaviour at any stage in the coronavirus pandemic.

Though in fairness Ireland was never going to shut down international travel given our membership of the EU, the CTA (and open border with the North) and our reliance on foreign workers. It is not that lockdowns don't work: they do albeit with a lot of costs down the line. The problem is not lockdowns per se but rather the overreliance on them.

Bit cynical

Deleted User wrote: »

A slight problem here is that you are comparing the rate for 55+ in Ireland with 60+ in Sweden. Big difference in chance of dying between age 55 and age 60 so this is likely to throw off the numbers.

Bit cynical

Bit cynical wrote: »

Though in fairness Ireland was never going to shut down international travel given our membership of the EU, the CTA (and open border with the North) and our reliance on foreign workers.

Membership of the EU doesn't preclude us from forcing mandatory isolation in state-provided/dictated facilities. The CTA remains mostly an unwritten agreement and nothing in that precludes similar temporary measures. Our reliance on foreign workers is no different to Norway's - it was migrant farm workers who are believed to be behind the second wave there.

You'll also note 'unmonitored international travel' - nowhere did I suggest a ban on it, nowhere suggests that Norway or Finland did such, so I'm not sure why you're creating a different argument than the one I proposed.

Discouraging travel from RoI to NI. Discouraging travel from NI to RoI. Discouraging international travel.

Permanently manned checkpoints on main border crossings with roving checkpoints on minor ones. Mandatory testing at all monitored border entry points, with isolation for visitors (including from NI) and returning RoI citizens.

It's a lot cheaper and easier to do than a country-wide lockdown, and is something that has been done elsewhere in the world - Ireland isn't that special

Bit cynical

Bit cynical wrote: »

A slight problem here is that you are comparing the rate for 55+ in Ireland with 60+ in Sweden. Big difference in chance of dying between age 55 and age 60 so this is likely to throw off the numbers.

Ireland uses *5-*4 deciles, Sweden uses *0-*9.


The user is arguing that because 'Sweden has 3 times the number of old people as us, it has 3 times the number of deaths as us'


Even accounting for the differing age deciles, comparing the figures of Sweden and Ireland shows his argument to be false. Sweden does not have 3x the deaths of us because it has 3x the older population - it has 3x the deaths because it has 3x the infections - what evidence there is suggests that the 'danger demographic' of older citizens caught the coronavirus at roughly the same rate as a proportion of the total infected population in both Ireland & Sweden, rather than 1.5x as the users argues must have happened.

ArthurDayne

greyday wrote: »

Are you still comparing Sweden to us Frank?
Still avoiding the comparison with its closest neighbours as it shows how badly they have done?
The game is up Frank, it has been for a while, they had lots of advantages over us and have done more than twice as badly on nearly every metric, Currently more than 5X our ICU rate, 10X infection rate, more than 3X death rate with it very likely to hit 4X around Christmas.
Did you find time to do the comparison with its closest neighbours.....I didnt think you would as you seem to find it hard to find them in the google search bar for some reason.

I’m struggling to understand this way of looking at things — i.e. their higher death rate / higher ICU rate means that we are doing better.

In many ways, it shows how far the narrative has changed since March. This virus, in and of itself, was billed as having the potential to effectively debilitate society and overrun the healthcare system to an almost apocalyptic level. The severity of the lockdown was supposed to be commensurate to that risk — that without strict and severe lockdown we would be faced with this healthcare apocalypse.

Defending the Swedish model is not, or at least should not be, about holding it up as a ‘success’. It is simply about saying that conventional wisdom a few months back would have dictated that, by now, Sweden would have tens of thousands dead and its healthcare system would have collapsed. But this has not transpired — the death of thousands of mainly elderly people is sad, but it is also not hitting the previously envisaged levels of terror. Sweden’s health service may come under strain and may face severe difficulties (with media reports likely to flirt with sensationalism and hyperbole to at least some degree) but if they reach utter crisis point they can take the appropriate measures based on the prevailing situation. Saying that Sweden is ‘abandoning’ its policy is like saying that Ireland abandoned its policy by leaving lockdown in the summer. The Swedes have simply tried to find balance rather than the perfection of one aspect at the expense of all others.

The discussion should not centre on whether Sweden has been successful generally as my belief has always been that there is no morally perfect way forward on this crisis. Defending the Swedish model is more about saying that our response is not commensurate to the risk, nor is it proportionate in terms of the damage being done and the long-term fallout it will leave in its wake. The proposition that “we have less deaths so we win” seems short sighted and actually fundamentally flawed. If we just maintained lockdown after Covid has gone, we would almost certainly have less death in the short term than other countries (less chance for people to be out and about at risk of catching illness or serious injury etc) — but would we consider that success? It’s not a zero-sum question of who can have the least deaths.

greyday

ArthurDayne wrote: »

I’m struggling to understand this way of looking at things — i.e. their higher death rate / higher ICU rate means that we are doing better.

In many ways, it shows how far the narrative has changed since March. This virus, in and of itself, was billed as having the potential to effectively debilitate society and overrun the healthcare system to an almost apocalyptic level. The severity of the lockdown was supposed to be commensurate to that risk — that without strict and severe lockdown we would be faced with this healthcare apocalypse.

Defending the Swedish model is not, or at least should not be, about holding it up as a ‘success’. It is simply about saying that conventional wisdom a few months back would have dictated that, by now, Sweden would have tens of thousands dead and its healthcare system would have collapsed. But this has not transpired — the death of thousands of mainly elderly people is sad, but it is also not hitting the previously envisaged levels of terror. Sweden’s health service may come under strain and may face severe difficulties (with media reports likely to flirt with sensationalism and hyperbole to at least some degree) but if they reach utter crisis point they can take the appropriate measures based on the prevailing situation. Saying that Sweden is ‘abandoning’ its policy is like saying that Ireland abandoned its policy by leaving lockdown in the summer. The Swedes have simply tried to find balance rather than the perfection of one aspect at the expense of all others.

The discussion should not centre on whether Sweden has been successful generally as my belief has always been that there is no morally perfect way forward on this crisis. Defending the Swedish model is more about saying that our response is not commensurate to the risk, nor is it proportionate in terms of the damage being done and the long-term fallout it will leave in its wake. The proposition that “we have less deaths so we win” seems short sighted and actually fundamentally flawed. If we just maintained lockdown after Covid has gone, we would almost certainly have less death in the short term than other countries (less chance for people to be out and about at risk of catching illness or serious injury etc) — but would we consider that success? It’s not a zero-sum question of who can have the least deaths.

I tend to agree with you, it certainly should not be about us compared to Sweden, it should be Sweden compared to its closest neighbours.

I prefer to deal with the here and now, if we don't suppress the virus we are going to kill people, we are not sure how many but its a great deal once it hits elderly care settings.
We can only speculate how many people in the future may suffer/die from lockdowns and we can hope to mitigate some of those, the success of a lockdown will ensure we don't have as many future casualties if people still use common sense and dont allow the numbers to get out of control again requiring more localised lockdowns.

JimmyVik

ArthurDayne wrote: »

I’m struggling to understand this way of looking at things — i.e. their higher death rate / higher ICU rate means that we are doing better.

In many ways, it shows how far the narrative has changed since March. This virus, in and of itself, was billed as having the potential to effectively debilitate society and overrun the healthcare system to an almost apocalyptic level. The severity of the lockdown was supposed to be commensurate to that risk — that without strict and severe lockdown we would be faced with this healthcare apocalypse.

Defending the Swedish model is not, or at least should not be, about holding it up as a ‘success’. It is simply about saying that conventional wisdom a few months back would have dictated that, by now, Sweden would have tens of thousands dead and its healthcare system would have collapsed. But this has not transpired — the death of thousands of mainly elderly people is sad, but it is also not hitting the previously envisaged levels of terror. Sweden’s health service may come under strain and may face severe difficulties (with media reports likely to flirt with sensationalism and hyperbole to at least some degree) but if they reach utter crisis point they can take the appropriate measures based on the prevailing situation. Saying that Sweden is ‘abandoning’ its policy is like saying that Ireland abandoned its policy by leaving lockdown in the summer. The Swedes have simply tried to find balance rather than the perfection of one aspect at the expense of all others.

The discussion should not centre on whether Sweden has been successful generally as my belief has always been that there is no morally perfect way forward on this crisis. Defending the Swedish model is more about saying that our response is not commensurate to the risk, nor is it proportionate in terms of the damage being done and the long-term fallout it will leave in its wake. The proposition that “we have less deaths so we win” seems short sighted and actually fundamentally flawed. If we just maintained lockdown after Covid has gone, we would almost certainly have less death in the short term than other countries (less chance for people to be out and about at risk of catching illness or serious injury etc) — but would we consider that success? It’s not a zero-sum question of who can have the least deaths.

Dont know about anyone else, but my main factor in not liking how Sweden went about it was down to the fact that they were gambling, when they could have gone with the conventional wisdom that the rest of the world went with.
And my main measure of success of failure is not the number of cases, as we all know that is not an accurate measure between countries, but the number of deaths - regardless of their age.

greyday

Deleted User wrote: »

I see the resident you-know-what is still harping on about "Sweden has more older people, so even though they proportionally have more infections, and proportionally have more deaths, I'm going to ignore the more infections part and just create a fuzzy correlation between more older people + more deaths without actually mathematically estimating anything"





As someone who was in Norway for 3 weeks in August - no mask wearing. Everything was opened. No social distancing required. Schools were back. No-one was remote working. The resurgence in cases was linked to foreign workers who bypassed the mandatory testing & isolation and then it started spreading in the community (particularly in late teens/early 20s). Masks only became advisory on public transport in Oslo a month or so ago, and only became mandatory recently as the Norwegian government is a) trusting in it's testing & hospital capacity b) introducing measures in a staggered manner to be able to determine effects & c) aware of a duty to the public to not hit the EMERGENCY BRAKE up until it's absolutely necessary. Unsurprisingly, the government's approach is incredibly popular and public adherence is very high.

Their contact tracing & data analytics system is excellent - have a look at the dashboard that a tabloid is able to create from state data: https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/

'lOcKdOWn dOeSNt wORk' my hole.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/finland-and-norway-avoid-covid-19-lockdowns-but-keep-the-virus-at-bay-11605704407?mod=e2tw

Here are some choice quotes for the antivaxxers 5g conspiracy theorists-lockdowners who are still somehow defending the Swedish approach when even Sweden has turned on the initial Swedish approach, who are ignoring all empirical data, and are still basing their entire argument on "my assumptions and feelings have primacy".



What have many people who have been advocating for lockdown been noting all along?

1) That unmonitored international travel is incompatible with being able to exit and stay out of lockdown

2) That contact tracing is a key element in stopping spread in the community when inevitable outbreaks happen

3) That clear and consistent rules are necessary for 'buy-in' from the wider public

This was Taiwan's successful approach that was widely reported in February and New Zealand's approach for the entire duration.


What has Ireland failed at? All three elements. Ireland's problem/failure isn't it's approach to lockdown, it's in its approach to international travel, contact tracing and creating a consistent and coherent ruleset for behaviour at any stage in the coronavirus pandemic.

SEE THIS Arthur, this is what real success looks like and there was no reason Sweden could not have been in the same position by taking the same precautions, Frank will have loads of reasons but at this stage it matters little.

tobefrank321

Deleted User wrote: »

Ireland uses *5-*4 deciles, Sweden uses *0-*9.


The user is arguing that because 'Sweden has 3 times the number of old people as us, it has 3 times the number of deaths as us'


Even accounting for the differing age deciles, comparing the figures of Sweden and Ireland shows his argument to be false. Sweden does not have 3x the deaths of us because it has 3x the older population - it has 3x the deaths because it has 3x the infections - what evidence there is suggests that the 'danger demographic' of older citizens caught the coronavirus at roughly the same rate as a proportion of the total infected population in both Ireland & Sweden, rather than 1.5x as the users argues must have happened.

Where to start with this one!

How about here.

https://www.prb.org/countries-with-the-oldest-populations/

Sweden has 2.05 million over the age of 65. Ireland has 650,000 over the age of 65. It's not even in the top 50 worldwide! What's 650,000 x 3?

Covid 19 deaths are hugely weighted towards over 65s. Here's a graph that illustrates that for Sweden.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/

Out of 5995 deaths, 5340 were aged 70 or over. If we assume a 50% split for 60-69, it becomes 5548 or 92%

Using 55-65 as you suggest, and using a 50-50 split as an estimate, you are talking 290 deaths or 4% of deaths (vs 92% in the 65+ agegroup).

Unfortunately you lost all credibility when you included the 55-65 age bracket here or in Sweden.

As regards 3 times infections, the confirmed cases is no more than an estimate. At peak and several times since, confirmed cases represented perhaps 10% - 50% of actual cases. In the UK, the ONS estimated 100,000 people a day were being infected at a time when confirmed cases was running a 20,000 a day.

Come back to me when you know exactly how many people have been infected.

I will give you this one, Sweden may have had far more infections than us, we simply don't know, as confirmed cases are never the full picture. But if their over 65s died at the same rate as here, they obviously did a better job protecting that age bracket from deaths. And the nursing home stats appear to support that. 47% deaths in Sweden, whereas we had a shameful 62% of deaths in nursing homes. So much for lockdowns protecting nursing homes!

tobefrank321

greyday wrote: »

SEE THIS Arthur, this is what real success looks like and there was no reason Sweden could not have been in the same position by taking the same precautions, Frank will have loads of reasons but at this stage it matters little.

If you were around in March you'd have seen I was one of the people on here calling for grounding of flights everywhere in Europe but particularly into Ireland.

The poster you quote also told a number of lies such as anyone who thinks lockdowns are far more successful in the long run (evidence clearly doesn't support it these days) are automatically anti vaxxers. If he bothered to check the vaccine thread he'd see otherwise.

He's quoting Taiwan and NZ as examples to follow for Sweden? Seriously? They are ISLANDS with limited entry points. NZ is thousands of miles from anywhere. Sweden is bordered on 2 sides with a land bridge to Denmark. Its a short Ryanair flight from most places in Europe including the ski resorts of Northern Italy.
Ireland has a significant border with NI/UK. We do not control what they do up the north, its an utterly foolish comparison.

Poster has a number of credibility issues I'm afraid as I have described.

I'm all for listening to posters who have a cogent intelligent point of view but this poster didn't.

Bit cynical

Deleted User wrote: »

Ireland uses *5-*4 deciles, Sweden uses *0-*9.

Doesn't mean that you can use the two sets of figures as if they are the same, I'm afraid.

greyday

tobefrank321 wrote: »

If you were around in March you'd have seen I was one of the people on here calling for grounding of flights everywhere in Europe but particularly into Ireland.

The poster you quote also told a number of lies such as anyone who thinks lockdowns are far more successful in the long run (evidence clearly doesn't support it these days) are automatically anti vaxxers. If he bothered to check the vaccine thread he'd see otherwise.

He's quoting Taiwan and NZ as examples to follow for Sweden? Seriously? They are ISLANDS with limited entry points. NZ is thousands of miles from anywhere. Sweden is bordered on 2 sides with a land bridge to Denmark. Its a short Ryanair flight from most places in Europe including the ski resorts of Northern Italy.
Ireland has a significant border with NI/UK. We do not control what they do up the north, its an utterly foolish comparison.

Poster has a number of credibility issues I'm afraid as I have described.

I'm all for listening to posters who have a cogent intelligent point of view but this poster didn't.

I was talking about Norway and Finland which he used as an example of Countries which were successful as they copied the likes of Taiwan and New Zealand in what they could and did it to a level that allowed them get back to normal relatively fast.
At least we think similar on some points Frank, I think you have big credibility issue too.

tobefrank321

greyday wrote: »

I was talking about Norway and Finland which he used as an example of Countries which were successful as they copied the likes of Taiwan and New Zealand in what they could and did it to a level that allowed them get back to normal relatively fast.
At least we think similar on some points Frank, I think you have big credibility issue too.

I'll have to take a look at the Norway and Finland borders. Its unlikely theres the type of daily crossover like there is on our border. A lot of people depend on crossing the border for trade and work.

You have significant north-south trade here - putting up border posts would slow that down and cause huge delays.

Shutting air travel is one thing. Putting people up in hotels for two weeks who came here might have been an option but tbh you'd be talking thousands if not tens of thousands - logistically difficult. And who wants to spend two weeks in a hotel when they go somewhere?

There's no doubt the Irish government made huge mistakes in securing our borders at all stages and allowed covid 19 in. So did many other countries.

Fair play to Norway and Finland, but there are dozens other countries who failed to control covid with lethal results. Not every country is an island or a remote country.

charlie14

ArthurDayne wrote: »

I’m struggling to understand this way of looking at things — i.e. their higher death rate / higher ICU rate means that we are doing better.

In many ways, it shows how far the narrative has changed since March. This virus, in and of itself, was billed as having the potential to effectively debilitate society and overrun the healthcare system to an almost apocalyptic level. The severity of the lockdown was supposed to be commensurate to that risk — that without strict and severe lockdown we would be faced with this healthcare apocalypse.

Defending the Swedish model is not, or at least should not be, about holding it up as a ‘success’. It is simply about saying that conventional wisdom a few months back would have dictated that, by now, Sweden would have tens of thousands dead and its healthcare system would have collapsed. But this has not transpired — the death of thousands of mainly elderly people is sad, but it is also not hitting the previously envisaged levels of terror. Sweden’s health service may come under strain and may face severe difficulties (with media reports likely to flirt with sensationalism and hyperbole to at least some degree) but if they reach utter crisis point they can take the appropriate measures based on the prevailing situation. Saying that Sweden is ‘abandoning’ its policy is like saying that Ireland abandoned its policy by leaving lockdown in the summer. The Swedes have simply tried to find balance rather than the perfection of one aspect at the expense of all others.

The discussion should not centre on whether Sweden has been successful generally as my belief has always been that there is no morally perfect way forward on this crisis. Defending the Swedish model is more about saying that our response is not commensurate to the risk, nor is it proportionate in terms of the damage being done and the long-term fallout it will leave in its wake. The proposition that “we have less deaths so we win” seems short sighted and actually fundamentally flawed. If we just maintained lockdown after Covid has gone, we would almost certainly have less death in the short term than other countries (less chance for people to be out and about at risk of catching illness or serious injury etc) — but would we consider that success? It’s not a zero-sum question of who can have the least deaths.

I have noticed this point on lockdown being made in a few threads. That it was solely to prevent health system ICU`s from being overrun.
Sweden doubled their ICU capacity, but as we have seen with Sweden during the first wave, regardless of how much ICU capacity you have it will not do a lot for your ratio of deaths to confirmed cases. Their ratio then was over 6% and their ICU`s were not at full capacity. Even now with the huge increase in numbers it is still over 3%.
Lockdown means less cases, and while the ratio of deaths to cases may not change,less cases means less deaths. Something thankfully Sweden are now recognising.

As you say there may not be a moral perfect way, but their is a morally incorrect way.
Tegnell himself has now said chasing herd immunity is immoral. There is no point posters now still sticking to the line from Tegnell and others who devised this strategy that to achieve herd immunity was just "a happy coincidence" should it happen due to their strategy. The evidence is there for all to see herd immunity was the strategy.
Tegnell and everyone else who devised that strategy are no random internet know-nothings. They are all state health care officials. It was every bit as immoral in March as Tegnell said it is a few weeks ago.

mcsean2163

greyday wrote: »

Not looking good at all for the followers of Swedens strategy, 167 in ICU and 61 deaths reported since Friday with both set to rise dramatically in the next few weeks.

Hmmm. No excess deaths in Sweden at present.


https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

greyday

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1328774105718525955/photo/1

This lad says there are 5% excess deaths in Sweden

charlie14

mcsean2163 wrote: »

Hmmm. No excess deaths in Sweden at present.


https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

For the 14 weeks from 16th March until 22nd June every weeks deaths were higher than the prior 5 year average.

Bit cynical

Bit cynical wrote: »

Doesn't mean that you can use the two sets of figures as if they are the same, I'm afraid.

I didn't do that. This is the second time where you're creating arguments out of thin air.


I compared the two closest sets of data and made it clear that they were not exactly the same. I did the opposite of what you're claiming.


Please stop being disingenuous.

tobefrank321

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Where to start with this one!

How about here.

https://www.prb.org/countries-with-the-oldest-populations/

Sweden has 2.05 million over the age of 65. Ireland has 650,000 over the age of 65. It's not even in the top 50 worldwide! What's 650,000 x 3?

I never argued that Sweden didn't have 3x the elderly population - yet you're 'starting' by throwing out a strawman as if you're rebutting something I posted.

Covid 19 deaths are hugely weighted towards over 65s. Here's a graph that illustrates that for Sweden.

You're again 'rebutting' something I haven't disagreed with. I posted a graphic that showed just how much covid deaths are weighted toward elderly population, and here you are 'showing how wrong I am' by agreeing with information I had already provided.

Out of 5995 deaths, 5340 were aged 70 or over. If we assume a 50% split for 60-69, it becomes 5548 or 92%

You can't do that. Once you start making assumptions with no basis in fact you've already lost any argument that you're trying to make. No statistician, or anyone trained in using statistics will ever do that. It's a hard rule that you never just make a 'guess' and then assume it's true.

Using 55-65 as you suggest

I didn't 'suggest' it, 55-64 is the age decile we use in Ireland - as I had already explained but you mysteriously ignored.

Out of 5995 deaths, 5340 were aged 70 or over. If we assume a 50% split for 60-69, it becomes 5548 or 92%

Using 55-65 as you suggest, and using a 50-50 split as an estimate, you are talking 290 deaths or 4% of deaths (vs 92% in the 65+ agegroup).

1) That's not an estimate, that's a guess.

2) Even you don't know what you're trying to say here

Unfortunately you lost all credibility when you included the 55-65 age bracket here or in Sweden.

'I didn't include' the 55-64 age bracket for Sweden, I used the 60-69 age bracket. Because that's the bracket they provided information on. You also forgot to explain how I lost credibility. You just stated a truism.

Thank you for confirming that in your rush to defend your nonsensical argument, you didn't even bother to look at a simple graphic.

As regards 3 times infections, the confirmed cases is no more than an estimate. At peak and several times since, confirmed cases represented perhaps 10% - 50% of actual cases. In the UK, the ONS estimated 100,000 people a day were being infected at a time when confirmed cases was running a 20,000 a day.

Here you are arguing that "imperfect data is worth less than no data"

That's quite...special.

Do you notice how nowhere in your post you actually provided anything that supported your argument that Sweden has the same deaths as us, normalised for mortality rate in elderly population?

I certainly noticed that!

tobefrank321 wrote: »

The poster you quote also told a number of lies such as anyone who thinks lockdowns are far more successful in the long run (evidence clearly doesn't support it these days) are automatically anti vaxxers. If he bothered to check the vaccine thread he'd see otherwise.

Hyperbole isn't a lie. Please do quote some of my lies. What you and the anti vaxxers, climate change deniers and 5g conspiracy theorists have in common is that you disregard data, disregard experts, and disregard science. You impute meaning into correlation, you live for unfounded assumptions, and you attach emotional value to your purportedly rational arguments.


I'm fully entitled to needle people who are toxic to any sort of intellectual/scientific thought by comparing them to groups that behave similarly. If you dislike it so much, you'd think you'd question your own behaviour rather than going on the offensive. Of course, the kind of person who questions their own behaviour probably doesn't end up posting the sort of stuff you've been posting!

He's quoting Taiwan and NZ as examples to follow for Sweden? Seriously? They are ISLANDS with limited entry points. NZ is thousands of miles from anywhere. Sweden is bordered on 2 sides with a land bridge to Denmark. Its a short Ryanair flight from most places in Europe including the ski resorts of Northern Italy.

I didn't quote Taiwan and NZ as examples to follow for Sweden. Plz don't lie just because you can't make an actual point.

Once again, we're back to being a Norway&Finland denier.

Norway & Finland followed the the three points I listed. They miraculously have the lowest number of deaths in the west. Here you are again, arguing that they don't exist - because acknowledging that they exist disproves your argument that there is no way but the Swedish or Irish way.

Ireland has a significant border with NI/UK. We do not control what they do up the north, its an utterly foolish comparison.

I didn't make that comparison. Another lie.

Poster has a number of credibility issues I'm afraid as I have described.

You have yet to describe any 'credibility issues', just your very limited reading comprehension over, and over, and over as well as a willingness to outright lie about the content of my posts.

I'm all for listening to posters who have a cogent intelligent point of view but this poster didn't.

Notice how I quote you and respond directly to what you say - but you refuse to quote me and instead make up nonsense about what you wish I'd said?

My posts are annoying to read, but at least I'm not someone provably spoofing on the internet.

Bit cynical

Deleted User wrote: »

I didn't do that. This is the second time where you're creating arguments out of thin air.


I compared the two closest sets of data and made it clear that they were not exactly the same. I did the opposite of what you're claiming.


Please stop being disingenuous.

Looking at deaths per million by age for both Ireland and Sweden, there's not a huge amount in the difference. Below is a chart on a logarithmic scale with Ireland and Sweden (Ireland first) alternating and it is hard to pick out the country with higher deaths by age range.



Sweden overall seems to have slightly more deaths when age is taken into account but there is not much in it.

tobefrank321

[Deleted User] wrote: »

My posts are annoying to read, but at least I'm not someone provably spoofing on the internet.

Of course you aren't. And yes you're posts are annoying to read. Maybe keep them a bit shorter next time, we've all got short attention spans here.

mcsean2163

charlie14 wrote: »

For the 14 weeks from 16th March until 22nd June every weeks deaths were higher than the prior 5 year average.

That's in the past, it's been normal for the last 20 weeks. It seems low at the moment.

charlie14

mcsean2163 wrote: »

That's in the past, it's been normal for the last 20 weeks. It seems low at the moment.

I would not see any reason for it being higher than average between 16th March and June 22nd. other than Covid-19.
It`s normal up to the last few week because like everywhere during Summer new cases were down.
With the huge rise in cases for the last number of weeks, with no signs of them getting lower, sadly I cannot see it staying that way

Vieira82

related: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/11/20/sweden-coronavirus-covid-19-doctors-frustrated-second-wave-black-pkg-intl-hnk-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus-intl/

greyday

66 deaths notified today and over 7000 infections.
Hopefully in a month or so they can drive it down to levels similar to Ireland.

mcsean2163

charlie14 wrote: »

I would not see any reason for it being higher than average between 16th March and June 22nd. other than Covid-19.
It`s normal up to the last few week because like everywhere during Summer new cases were down.
With the huge rise in cases for the last number of weeks, with no signs of them getting lower, sadly I cannot see it staying that way

I agree, very likely true. However, that doesn't disqualify my response.

bb1234567

greyday wrote: »

66 deaths notified today and over 7000 infections.
Hopefully in a month or so they can drive it down to levels similar to Ireland.

Wow that's quite an increase, hadn't realised it had gotten out of hand so quickly.
Sweden's total annual deaths may actually turn out quite significantly higher than the previous ten years if this level of deaths were to continue until January, in early October it was looking to be heading toward a pretty normal 90,000 or so total deaths.