Sweden avoiding lockdown

tobefrank321

biko wrote: »

An image of failure

In Swedish; "and Sweden's total death count is more than four times that of their Nordic neighbours. Combined"

And Ireland's is one and a half times their total death toll combined .

Norway and Finland are remote countries and outliers in Europe similar to other remote countries or islands.

Norway for example shut its one and only land border to stop covid getting in. That is simply not an option for 90% of countries. Norway could easily live off its massive sovereign wealth fund for years, again not an option for 90% of countries.

tobefrank321

Poland normally has about 1100 deaths a day. These days they are posting average daily covid deaths of about 550.

Poland enacted one of the strictest lockdowns in the spring. It didn't help them in the long run.

Its amazing that this doesn't make the headlines anywhere - BBC, RTE, CNN, nowhere.

Locking down hard and opening up doesn't appear to work for many countries. Covid comes back with a vengeance.

Slovenia passed Sweden over the weekend for deaths per million for the first time, another hard lockdown country.

And there's no question we are the same. We are credited as a success - that's only because we are locked down. What happens when we open up tomorrow? Numbers and deaths will rise. We are going to have to lock down again in January and probably March which hopefully will be the final lockdown.

biko

Norway did a very good thing to close the border with Sweden. It probably saved countless Norwegian lives.
If Sweden would have followed their neighbour's example their death toll could have been below 1000 people.
They had all the prerequisites, except a leadership with brains.

Tegnell guessed Norway would catch up to Sweden during a second wave, this hasn't happened.

Bit cynical

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Norway and Finland are remote countries and outliers in Europe similar to other remote countries or islands.

Norway for example shut its one and only land border to stop covid getting in. That is simply not an option for 90% of countries. Norway could easily live off its massive sovereign wealth fund for years, again not an option for 90% of countries.

Yes. Norway has done well (and fair play to them) but it is only a good example for countries that can close its borders for an extended period of time.

tobefrank321

biko wrote: »

Norway did a very good thing to close the border with Sweden. It probably saved countless Norwegian lives.
If Sweden would have followed their neighbour's example their death toll could have been below 1000 people.
They had all the prerequisites, except a leadership with brains.

Its easier to close one border than 3 borders. I think they reopened it at a later stage and I'm not sure if its currently open or not.

biko

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Its easier to close one border than 3 borders. I think they reopened it at a later stage and I'm not sure if its currently open or not.

That's not it. A country can easily close borders.
Sweden didn't even try to close its borders.
For instance immigration was still happening, only hampered by other countries blocking flows to Sweden.

Sweden's population grew by 24,801 people in the first six months of 2020.
To compare, in the same six months of 2019, the population of Sweden grew by 51,004 people.

If the Nordic countries all would have followed Norway's, or Finland's. example than all the countries would have been safer.

For quite some time the leadership said openly that Sweden wouldn't even get the virus!

Bit cynical

biko wrote: »

That's not it. Sweden didn't even try to close its borders.
For instance immigration was still happening, only hampered by other countries blocking flows to Sweden.

In fairness, Ireland also did not close any of our borders or restrict travel from other EU countries in the early part of the outbreak so we can't point the finger at Sweden on that score.

tobefrank321

biko wrote: »

That's not it. Sweden didn't even try to close its borders.
For instance immigration was still happening, only hampered by other countries blocking flows to Sweden.

Sweden will always welcome immigrants when most other countries turn them away. Not that it will ever get credit for it.

Anyways several countries in Europe eg Czechia and Slovenia closed their borders. Its obvious it cannot be sustained longterm especially if you depend heavily on tourism. There's people in tourist hotspots who are impoverished through the loss of business. Hard to believe in 21st century Europe.

biko

Bit cynical wrote: »

In fairness, Ireland also did not close any of our borders or restrict travel from other EU countries in the early part of the outbreak so we can't point the finger at Sweden on that score.

Yes, Ireland didn't manage this crisis very well either, that's not news. Many countries didn't initially realise the seriousness of the situation.

Sweden had every advantage that Norway and Finland had, but they chose to go the other way and now they are paying for it (or rather their old and weak are paying the price for it).

The only thing that works is handling influx of people while testing everyone.
This is the reason Taiwan and Iceland managed the virus so quickly while everyone else did not.

Wompa1

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Poland normally has about 1100 deaths a day. These days they are posting average daily covid deaths of about 550.

Poland enacted one of the strictest lockdowns in the spring. It didn't help them in the long run.

Its amazing that this doesn't make the headlines anywhere - BBC, RTE, CNN, nowhere.

Locking down hard and opening up doesn't appear to work for many countries. Covid comes back with a vengeance.

Slovenia passed Sweden over the weekend for deaths per million for the first time, another hard lockdown country.

And there's no question we are the same. We are credited as a success - that's only because we are locked down. What happens when we open up tomorrow? Numbers and deaths will rise. We are going to have to lock down again in January and probably March which hopefully will be the final lockdown.

Should have got the north on the same page during the first lockdown to go for a zero COVID strategy but maybe it wasn't possible. They seem to be somewhat dictating our short term plans now.

If we get the vaccine to the most vulnerable by February, a lockdown in March may be a harder sell.

Bit cynical

biko wrote: »

Yes, Ireland didn't manage this crisis very well either, that's not news. Many countries didn't initially realise the seriousness of the situation.

Sweden had every advantage that Norway and Finland had, but they chose to go the other way and now they are paying for it (or rather their old and weak are paying the price for it).

It just seems a bit strange that we in Ireland are leveling withering criticism at Sweden when we did much the same thing, and also got much the same result when age profiles are taken into consideration despite much heavier and damaging internal restrictions here.

ArthurDayne

biko wrote: »

Yes, Ireland didn't manage this crisis very well either, that's not news. Many countries didn't initially realise the seriousness of the situation.

Sweden had every advantage that Norway and Finland had, but they chose to go the other way and now they are paying for it (or rather their old and weak are paying the price for it).

The only thing that works is handling influx of people while testing everyone.
This is the reason Taiwan and Iceland managed the virus so quickly while everyone else did not.

Again though, you are just ignoring one of the major reasons we went into lockdown in the first place. Saving lives in the immediate sense from Covid-19 specifically was only one consideration beside the other very significant one that the effect of Covid infection would be to cause all-out collapse of the healthcare system — therefore leading to a complete catastrophe of inaccessible healthcare for an undefined period.

This argument put forward that the other Nordic countries saved more lives by locking down is as clever and profound a point as saying the Pope is a Catholic. Of course it saves more life in the immediate sense to impose lockdowns — if we locked down all the time we would probably reduce many forms of death (through infectious illness and injury) in the short term. But this is changing the argument from one that was originally about avoiding the catastrophe of a collapsed healthcare system to one that is purely about who saves more lives in the short term. The point is — with Sweden’s soft touch and the previously touted severity of Covid, we should be looking at a country falling apart as its healthcare system is left obliterated for a sustained long period. We are not. Even looking towards Belgium (a highly densely populated country) we can now see that, even when a critical point is reached, measures can then be taken to alleviate the pressure.

There is little point waxing lyrical about one’s great concern for the vulnerable when one ignores the fact that it is the vulnerable of today and tomorrow who will suffer hardest and longest from the ramifications of the global shutdown. For example, it will and is already having an effect on supply chains and aid funding in the third world / developing world which will exacerbate poverty and — with that — misery and death. The avoidance of suffering and death is a long term task requiring big picture perspective.

charlie14

thebaz wrote: »

I have been trying to say this throughout , but Charlie wants to dramatise the higher number , in an abusive manner
.

You have insisted throughout that your 0.3% was the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases.


I have not been abusive, nor have I been dramatising any numbers.

I have provided you with numbers for various countries, I have even provided you with the number of confirmed cases and deaths for Ireland that showed the ratio was 2.86%, yet you still insisted this 0.3% of yours was correct.
You got it wrong. Just get over it ffs.

charlie14

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Ah come on now, Charlie is a decent poster he wouldnt be doing that :rolleyes:

As opposed to a poster that has yet to get one of his crystal ball projection right and was on other threads shouting for Ireland to open up completely while Sweden was locking down. :pac:

thebaz

charlie14 wrote: »

You have insisted throughout that your 0.3% was the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases.


I have not been abusive, nor have I been dramatising any numbers.

You got it wrong. Just get over it ffs.

I never said "0.3 was the ratio of deaths TO CONFIRMED cases";

I stated numerous times 0.3% was the average expected mortality for someone who gets infected with COvid- but keep lying in your abusive manner.

tobefrank321

charlie14 wrote: »

You have insisted throughout that your 0.3% was the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases.


I have not been abusive, nor have I been dramatising any numbers.

I have provided you with numbers for various countries, I have even provided you with the number of confirmed cases and deaths for Ireland that showed the ratio was 2.86%, yet you still insisted this 0.3% of yours was correct.
You got it wrong. Just get over it ffs.

He never said that! Its quite plain what he said.

As for confirmed cases, cfr varies wildly - For Mexico its nearly 10%, for Slovakia its 0.8%.

JimmyVik

Just looked at Swedens deaths for the first time in ages.
Wow.

tobefrank321

JimmyVik wrote: »

Just looked at Swedens deaths for the first time in ages.
Wow.

Have you looked at the 23 countries above them in the deaths per million? Including a hard lockdown country like Slovenia who are posting daily death totals that would equate to 250 a day in Sweden.

JimmyVik

Why do people instantly go into whataboutery mode when someone says something is bad?

charlie14

Stormyteacup wrote: »

G


Well you’re discussing two different things are you not? I suspect you know that.

You’re not incorrect with those total mortality rates. But CFR is much lower.

This is helpful from the WHO in late August;

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/estimating-mortality-from-covid-19

‘Assumption 1: The likelihood of detecting cases and deaths is consistent over the course of the outbreak.

Early in an outbreak, surveillance tends to focus more on symptomatic patients who seek care, so milder and asymptomatic cases are less likely to be detected, leading to overestimation of CFR; this overestimation may decrease as testing and active case finding increase. One method to account for this is to remove from the analysis those cases that occurred before the establishment of robust surveillance, including application of clear case definitions (a method called left censoring).’


For two and a half months, September to mid November, CFR in Ireland was under 0.2%.

Recently it doubled along with hospitalisation rates even though case numbers decreasing - but that’s another conversation.

CFR (case fatality rate) is the ratio of deaths to confirmed cases at a specific point in time. If that is a particular day for a country like Sweden at present unless there are no further infections that ratio is not going to decrease. It is only going to get higher.
IFR (infection fatality rate) is nothing more than guesswork on infections based on modelling figures that have been consistently shown to be miles out in any area relating too this virus.

There are two examples where we can compare this guesswork of infections being 1,000% greater than actual confirmed cases.


One is Sweden.
When Sweden was chasing herd immunity Tegnell used this estimate. It has been shown twice in Sweden how wrong it is.


During a press conference, based on their antibody test results Tegnell was speculating on when Stockholm would reach herd immunity. A reporter pointed out to him that if that estimate on infections was correct, then Stockholm would already have over 100% immunity.
From the number of confirmed cases in Stockholm since, like all the other guesswork/modelling figures, it`s also plain to see how far that estimted infection rate is off.

The second is Brazilian city of Manaus capital of the Amazon region.
21st September researchers posted a paper on the website MedRxiv.
Their conclusion, based on antibody test results of 44% that with just 50% more estimated infection they had achieved herd immunity.
Within a week the city had reverted to lockdown due to new rising infections.


IFR guesswork when applied to real world situations has been shown as just how inaccurate it is.

biko

JimmyVik wrote: »

Why do people instantly go into whataboutery mode when someone says something is bad?

It's kinda like;
"Why is Sven such a douchebag when his brothers are so nice? They all live together and have shared history for many many years."
"He is nothing compared to a guy I know in another part of town. That guy, and some other guys I know of, are way worse."

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

He never said that! Its quite plain what he said.

As for confirmed cases, cfr varies wildly - For Mexico its nearly 10%, for Slovakia its 0.8%.

I never said it wasn`t. I actually posted the figure for Mexico as well as others.

It just shows that the ratio of confirmed cases to deaths in each country is most likely due to multiple various reasons. It just shows how pointless it is using an estimate IFR on a one fits all basis.


Just an aside, but Mexico is an interesting case. Large numbers there passed in the under 55`s having no underlying conditions

Ginger n Lemon

The disappointing thing about this thread (apart from thousands of posts from Charlie14 trying to convince people covid mortality rate is higher than 0.3%) is that strategy seems to be judged purely on "cases" and "deaths with covid".

This is my big worry, people are becoming so narrow minded its all about "covid covid covid".

Sweden have lived fairly (95%+) normal life for months of January to October/November. You cant put a price on that. What posters in this thread are doing is saying that strategy is a failure as "they let it rip" and "compare them to neighbor countries ONLY" and ofcourse "they sacrificed their elderly". Doesnt make it for a good discussion does it.

Most bizarre thing is there are 20 + countries in the world (who are not Belarus or China or Russia) trust worthy countries who are reporting higher deaths per 100k than Sweden, but funny enough they went into a hard lockdown of closing schools, shutting down every business except supermarket etc., this is never actually addressed or acknowledged by "Sweden's strategy is bad mkay, they let it rip mkay" posters, but rather theres a lot of bickering going on as to mortality of this mild, very mild virus that 99.8%+ recover from.

charlie14

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

The disappointing thing about this thread (apart from thousands of posts from Charlie14 trying to convince people covid mortality rate is higher than 0.3%) is that strategy seems to be judged purely on "cases" and "deaths with covid".

This is my big worry, people are becoming so narrow minded its all about "covid covid covid".

Sweden have lived fairly (95%+) normal life for months of January to October/November. You cant put a price on that. What posters in this thread are doing is saying that strategy is a failure as "they let it rip" and "compare them to neighbor countries ONLY" and ofcourse "they sacrificed their elderly". Doesnt make it for a good discussion does it.

Most bizarre thing is there are 20 + countries in the world (who are not Belarus or China or Russia) trust worthy countries who are reporting higher deaths per 100k than Sweden, but funny enough they went into a hard lockdown of closing schools, shutting down every business except supermarket etc., this is never actually addressed or acknowledged by "Sweden's strategy is bad mkay, they let it rip mkay" posters, but rather theres a lot of bickering going on as to mortality of this mild, very mild virus that 99.8%+ recover from.

The title of this thread is Sweden avoiding lockdown.
What you are failing to see (or purposely avoiding with attempted "look over there" rhetoric) is that it is no longer the case.

There is also the little matter of all the advantages you and others were predicting from this strategy have all been shown as failures.


I see there was a lot of speculation over the weekend that the Swedish government are sidelining Tegnell and the Public Health Authority.
Not past time imo, but probably to little to late.

tobefrank321

charlie14 wrote: »

The title of this thread is Sweden avoiding lockdown.
What you are failing to see (or purposely avoiding with attempted "look over there" rhetoric) is that it is no longer the case.

The only way you can measure success or failure is deaths per million. Sweden is 24th on that table. The 23 ahead of them are countries that followed the lockdown approach. How on earth you can judge those 23 countries successes is beyond me. Czechia have posted more deaths since September than Sweden did in 11 months. You call that or their approach a success? Or Slovenias? Who now have the worst daily figures in the world.

FintanMcluskey

biko wrote: »

It's kinda like;
"Why is Sven such a douchebag when his brothers are so nice? They all live together and have shared history for many many years."
"He is nothing compared to a guy I know in another part of town. That guy, and some other guys I know of, are way worse."

That’s as weak as an argument I’ve seen here

And some of them are fairly bad

kaymin

charlie14 wrote: »

I never said it wasn`t. I actually posted the figure for Mexico as well as others.

It just shows that the ratio of confirmed cases to deaths in each country is most likely due to multiple various reasons. It just shows how pointless it is using an estimate IFR on a one fits all basis.


Just an aside, but Mexico is an interesting case. Large numbers there passed in the under 55`s having no underlying conditions

Who cares about the death to confirmed cases when it's a meaningless number as has been pointed out ad finitum by numerous posters. I get jaded reading your posts.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

The only way you can measure success or failure is deaths per million. Sweden is 24th on that table. The 23 ahead of them are countries that followed the lockdown approach. How on earth you can judge those 23 countries successes is beyond me. Czechia have posted more deaths since September than Sweden did in 11 months. You call that or their approach a success? Or Slovenias? Who now have the worst daily figures in the world.

Other than this persistent running around the world looking for figures to make Sweden`s look good while ignoring those of their next door neighbours, what exactly has Sweden`s no lockdown strategy achieved that some here were preaching a few months ago was the only way to go as there would be no vaccines.

They are now using lockdown.
Herd immunity was a complete bust. Contrary to Tegnell`s predictions on a second wave, whatever immunity they may have got is certainly not noticeable from their case numbers.
Financially there has been no benefits.Their GDP Q2 is nothing to write home about, and from their own Central Bank projections with this second wave that is not going to get any better.
Their consumer spending figures was no better during their no lockdown.
Neither were their unemployment figures, and now with them using lockdown I doubt they have improved.
The - no vaccine/Sweden will not need one - has Sweden with help from a backdoor deal being the most likely European to begin vaccinations.

So what exactly has this Swedish strategy achieved that some here were preaching that it was what all countries should be doing ?

charlie14

kaymin wrote: »

Who cares about the death to confirmed cases when it's a meaningless number as has been pointed out ad finitum by numerous posters. I get jaded reading your posts.

It not compulsory, so no need to read them.



Getting a feeling though when it comes to the various case fatality rate for countries, and a one fits all assumed infection fatality rate you are well aware which is meaningless.

greyday

Its starting to look like Sweden won't have any choice but to see their herd immunity through if they don't halve infections in the next 3-(6)weeks.