Sweden avoiding lockdown

Probes

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

I understand your point comparing Sweden to its geographical neighbours.

However when we compare Sweden to its most similar societal European neighbours, Sweden has performed rather well.

In fact, considering it’s lack of suppression on citizens and the associated risks, it’s performed better than the rest of Europe

It seems to me that the virus tends to hit Scandinavian countries later for whatever reason. Sweden isn’t doing well, it shares a physical border with other countries who are doing a much, much better job.

Not only are Sweden letting more people catch to get die or seriously sick, they are letting the virus spread and we know that the more it spreads the greater chance it has to mutate. We’ve already seen two variants that are concerning in regards to vaccine efficacy, it is completely irresponsible to allow the virus the chance to mutate at this stage in the game.

sydthebeat

As Sweden has a higher older population than its neighbours, and this virus is particularly dangerous and deadly to older people.....

Then shouldn't Sweden have initially taken MORE stringent measures to protect its elderly than its nordic neighbours?

The argument some are using in order to balance Swedens death rate, is actually a damning indictment of how EVEN MORE morally bankrupt their policy decisions were.

Its not a positive thing to say about Swedens decisions that more people died in Sweden because they were older.

Bit cynical

sydthebeat wrote: »

Then shouldn't Sweden have initially taken MORE stringent measures to protect its elderly than its nordic neighbours?

I think they admitted fairly early on that they should have done more to protect their older population, particularly those in nursing homes. Though perhaps a bit more open about it, they made the same mistakes other European countries made and since, as you point out, they have a greater proportion of older people, suffered more because of it.

tobefrank321

Wolf359f wrote: »

Do you really believe if the UK had no lockdown's their Covid deaths would be less? and likewise, if Sweden locked down, they would have more Covid deaths?
Because that's what you're implying.

As a long term strategy they appear to be next to useless particularly when countries go for a harsh lockdown then open up to benefit from the summer tourist or winter ski season and once they've made their money lockdown again. And most countries in Europe fall into one or other category.

Then you have lockdown fatigue which means people are less willing to commit to restrictions the longer it goes on especially at Christmas time as an example or Thanksgiving in the US.
Now I'm not saying Swedens approach is vastly superior, but its very possible they'd have ended up in the same situation as today if they went down the harsh lockdown route. Sweden and Denmark are the least remote countries in Scandinavia and the closest to the European mainland. That makes a difference. Finland is probably the most remote and least accessible countries in Europe bar Iceland. Its far more remote than Sweden, if people even looked at a map they'd see that - a militarised border with Russia mostly through forests and thundra, and borders with Sweden and Norway way up in the Arctic circle.

tobefrank321

sydthebeat wrote: »

As Sweden has a higher older population than its neighbours, and this virus is particularly dangerous and deadly to older people.....

Then shouldn't Sweden have initially taken MORE stringent measures to protect its elderly than its nordic neighbours?

The argument some are using in order to balance Swedens death rate, is actually a damning indictment of how EVEN MORE morally bankrupt their policy decisions were.

Its not a positive thing to say about Swedens decisions that more people died in Sweden because they were older.

Morality has nothing to do with dealing with this. If you allow morality cloud your judgement you are likely to end up with even more deaths. Morally you should put everyone who needs a ventilator on one but we know that doesn't happen and the younger person will always get one before an elderly person as they have more chance of being saved. But if you did the moral thing both patients would die. That's one example.
Morally we should lockdown forever to save lives. But thats not possible. Countries who tried the "moral" approach of harsh lockdowns in the spring like Slovenia, Czechia, Hungary and several more are now likely to have the hightest death rate in the world.

Morality is no good if its combined with an incompetent strategy which costs more lives than it saves.

And few countries can claim to be anyways moral in this. Irelands treatment of nursing homes, sending covid patients there to free up hospitals was about as immoral as you can get.

tobefrank321

charlie14 wrote: »

Where have I or anyone said Covid-19 was not most discriminatory to those over 65 ?
What you have been doing repeatedly is using a comparison between Ireland and Sweden as an explanation for Swedish deaths.
Why not use the same metric to compare Sweden and it`s three Nordic neighbours and post those ?

Because of this belief you have that culturally Ireland has more in common with Sweden than any of it`s Nordic neighbours.:rolleyes:

Ah so now you've resorted to cultural similarities in Scandinavia. Its been pointed out countless times times there are hardly none. There's more differences than similarities just as there are more differences than similarities between ireland and uk, canada and us, greece and spain.

Stop embarrassing yourself. You know nothing about Scandinavia.

Basic stuff like how much more disconnected a country like Finland is from the European mainland escapes you.

Honestly I've never come across someone who speaks such nonsense, its actually painful engaging with you because of your lack of knowledge of Scandinavia.

Scandinavia is a region nothing more, like the British Isles, Iberia Penninsula or North America. The countries in these regions are all vastly difference and only a committed xenophobe would say they are all the same.

FintanMcluskey

sydthebeat wrote: »

As Sweden has a higher older population than its neighbours, and this virus is particularly dangerous and deadly to older people.....

Then shouldn't Sweden have initially taken MORE stringent measures to protect its elderly than its nordic neighbours?

The argument some are using in order to balance Swedens death rate, is actually a damning indictment of how EVEN MORE morally bankrupt their policy decisions were.

Its not a positive thing to say about Swedens decisions that more people died in Sweden because they were older.

So lockdown at all costs forever more?

Remembering Sweden’s overall death rate for 2020 was normal, surely we lockdown forevermore to prevent all infectious respiratory related deaths?

Do you see anything wrong with your post?

sydthebeat

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Morality has nothing to do with dealing with this. If you allow morality cloud your judgement you are likely to end up with even more deaths. Morally you should put everyone who needs a ventilator on one but we know that doesn't happen and the younger person will always get one before an elderly person as they have more chance of being saved. But if you did the moral thing both patients would die. That's one example.
Morally we should lockdown forever to save lives. But thats not possible. Countries who tried the "moral" approach of harsh lockdowns in the spring like Slovenia, Czechia, Hungary and several more are now likely to have the hightest death rate in the world.

Morality is no good if its combined with an incompetent strategy which costs more lives than it saves.

And few countries can claim to be anyways moral in this. Irelands treatment of nursing homes, sending covid patients there to free up hospitals was about as immoral as you can get.

God forbid we actually allow morality to cloud judgement???

‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members’.
Mahatma Gandhi. 1931

A lot of people support lockdown and really want to go out of their way to paint Sweden as some awful granny killing murderers for not using lockdown until pressured into doing so.

But the stats show that they barely even have excess deaths for 2020. And even if the number is slightly higher, there is a pandemic after all.

It would surely be strange to have less deaths in the year of a pandemic.

Sweden have proved to me that not locking down doesn’t result in huge numbers of deaths.

sydthebeat

sydthebeat wrote: »

God forbid we actually allow morality to cloud judgement???

‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members’.
Mahatma Gandhi. 1931

After 2008, the austerity that followed and now this and the economic downturn that will follow...

Our young generations are really the vulnerable.

And we are not treating them well are we?

niallo27

If Swedens excess deaths are normal, what are the excess deaths in Norway and Finland. Be interesting to see are they way down on other years.

FintanMcluskey

Deleted User wrote: »

Sweden have proved to me that not locking down doesn’t result in huge numbers of deaths.

I always thought once the death figures for 2020 was released the argument was over. The stats were proof. You can’t argue with the numbers.

Turns out Sweden should have tried to lower its average death rate in 2020

Are lockdowns some weird version of Stockholm syndrome?

lucernarian

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A lot of people support lockdown and really want to go out of their way to paint Sweden as some awful granny killing murderers for not using lockdown until pressured into doing so.

But the stats show that they barely even have excess deaths for 2020. And even if the number is slightly higher, there is a pandemic after all.

It would surely be strange to have less deaths in the year of a pandemic.

Sweden have proved to me that not locking down doesn’t result in huge numbers of deaths.

Still the same echo chamber I see, the word "lockdown" is a complete red herring when most of what we have are guidelines and is nothing like a "stay at home" order like seen in the States. Sweden's GDP tanked like everywhere else at the start of the year precisely because they recommended social distancing and for people to stay away from each other.

kippy

Deleted User wrote: »

Sweden have proved to me that not locking down doesn’t result in huge numbers of deaths.

This is not a scientific deduction - for the record.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Ah so now you've resorted to cultural similarities in Scandinavia. Its been pointed out countless times times there are hardly none. There's more differences than similarities just as there are more differences than similarities between ireland and uk, canada and us, greece and spain.

Stop embarrassing yourself. You know nothing about Scandinavia.

Basic stuff like how much more disconnected a country like Finland is from the European mainland escapes you.

Honestly I've never come across someone who speaks such nonsense, its actually painful engaging with you because of your lack of knowledge of Scandinavia.

Scandinavia is a region nothing more, like the British Isles, Iberia Penninsula or North America. The countries in these regions are all vastly difference and only a committed xenophobe would say they are all the same.

Perhaps you should consider reading the relevance of replies to posts before jumping in, making assumptions and embarrassing yourself.

My post was in reply to one of Fintan`s where he felt no comparison should be made to Sweden`s neighbours on Covid-19 deaths of those aged 65 and over because of their supposedly vast cultural differences,yet somehow believes Ireland is so culturally similar to Sweden that it was fine to do so..


With you, (at least by your on assertion), having so much more knowledge of Scandinavian countries than me,then why not clear up this by posting the figures for each of these four country `s deaths due to Covid-19 in the 65 and over age group, taking into account size of population and percentage in that age group.


If you fail to do so then I believe it is fair to view your scurrilous attempts at accusing me of being xenophobic, along with the rest of your attempts to denigrate, as nothing other than the rantings of someone who has no bounds as to how low they will stoop to defend a strategy that the Swedish authorities themselves have deemed a failure.

charlie14

For those here still in denial of Sweden using lockdown who may have missed yesterdays announcements.
Sweden has introduced news law subject to fines for non adherence.

Maximum of one person per 10 square meters allowed in shops, gyms and other public places. This 10 square meters not to include shelving, cash registers etc.
Private venues now subject to the 8 person rule on public gatherings.

FintanMcluskey

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

I always thought once the death figures for 2020 was released the argument was over. The stats were proof. You can’t argue with the numbers.

Turns out Sweden should have tried to lower its average death rate in 2020

Are lockdowns some weird version of Stockholm syndrome?

Disturbing to see people upset that there isn’t more deaths.

is_that_so

charlie14 wrote: »

For those here still in denial of Sweden using lockdown who may have missed yesterdays announcements.
Sweden has introduced news law subject to fines for non adherence.

Maximum of one person per 10 square meters allowed in shops, gyms and other public places. This 10 square meters not to include shelving, cash registers etc.
Private venues now subject to the 8 person rule on public gatherings.

10 sq metres gives the minimum 2m in all directions to each person inside a space.

SpacialNeeds

The title of this thread is stupid and has been for some time

sheepysheep

sydthebeat wrote: »

God forbid we actually allow morality to cloud judgement???

‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members’.
Mahatma Gandhi. 1931

This isn't really being manifested as an issue of morality though. It's more a form of politically motivated virtue signalling attempting to portray anyone with a contrarian opinion on lockdown as inherently morally suspect.

A few weeks back i posted this link to a report of the consequences of lockdown.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...llor-announces

It concerns the possibly deaths of 100,000 children through starvation. It was attempt to juxtapose the rhetoric against the reality.

A normal person would surely paused for thought. However, not a single pro lockdown poster could even acknowledge this harsh reality, preferring to concern themselves with inane dishonest statistical arguments concerning death rates.

Where's the lock-downer concern for record numbers of calls to child-line from distressed children suffering physical and sexual abuse?

Where's the lock-downer concern for battered women and the rise in ICU admissions for such cases?

Any contemplation of lockdown should surely merit a holistic consideration of all pros and cons, and the cons for lockdowns are both considerable and increasingly acknowledged.

Sweden's approach acknowledged the importance of the possible long term effects of lockdown as well as possible short term gains. At the end of 2020 their strategy resulted in only a nominal amount of excess deaths which has been clearly shown by other posters.

Bearing in mind that they embarked on this strategy in the face of dire warnings of 140,000 imminent deaths, they were remarkably prescient to ignore the early hyperbole.

When the projected deaths failed to materialize there seems to have been a concerted effort to shift the focus of attention to an accounting exercise where a fractional difference in recorded deaths has become the issue of prime importance. This is just plain wrong. The Swedish approach can be evaluated right now. It's been as successful as pretty much any other other western industrialised country.

It's also obvious that this fact is very disappointing to a number of the pseudo-humanitarian pro lock-downers on this thread who would be secretly delighted in Sweden had logged 150k deaths this year.

sheepysheep

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Ah so now you've resorted to cultural similarities in Scandinavia. Its been pointed out countless times times there are hardly none. There's more differences than similarities just as there are more differences than similarities between ireland and uk, canada and us, greece and spain.

Stop embarrassing yourself. You know nothing about Scandinavia.

Basic stuff like how much more disconnected a country like Finland is from the European mainland escapes you.

Honestly I've never come across someone who speaks such nonsense, its actually painful engaging with you because of your lack of knowledge of Scandinavia.

Scandinavia is a region nothing more, like the British Isles, Iberia Penninsula or North America. The countries in these regions are all vastly difference and only a committed xenophobe would say they are all the same.

To be honest, I don't know why you engage with that particular poster. He must have 2000 posts on this thread by now, yet his contributions have been nothing more than a veritable tour de force of lies, conjectures, falsehoods, half-truths, conspiracy theories, dissembling and misinformation.

Whatever credibility he though he had went flying out the window a few weeks back when, nearly a year and 2k posts into the pandemic, he accidently revealed that he didn't understand the difference between IFR and CFR, and ended up trying to waffle the foot back out of his mouth by insisting that CFR is the important measure.

He's determined to have the last post. Might as well let him have it.

Bit cynical

lucernarian wrote: »

Sweden's GDP tanked like everywhere else at the start of the year precisely because they recommended social distancing and for people to stay away from each other.

I think they are looking at negative 2.9% this year which is less than half of the expected negative 7% for the Eurozone.

tobefrank321

charlie14 wrote: »

For those here still in denial of Sweden using lockdown who may have missed yesterdays announcements.
Sweden has introduced news law subject to fines for non adherence.

Maximum of one person per 10 square meters allowed in shops, gyms and other public places. This 10 square meters not to include shelving, cash registers etc.
Private venues now subject to the 8 person rule on public gatherings.

Where are the lockdown measures here? The shops, gyms and other places are allowed remain open and allowed trade.

Its clear you don't know what a lockdown is. Lockdown includes CLOSURE of non essential retail, gyms, cinemas, pubs, restaurants, libraries, museums, etc.

milehip

SpacialNeeds wrote: »

The title of this thread is stupid and has been for some time

Would you care to suggest a new title?

charlie14

is_that_so wrote: »

10 sq metres gives the minimum 2m in all directions to each person inside a space.

It`s not as simple as you make it sound. It`s a new lockdown restriction governed by law and punishable for noncompliance. Any shop, gym etc regardless of fixtures and fitting is required to provide a minimum of 10 square metres of floor space for each customers at all times.
If the internal floor space is 50 sq. metres that means a maximum of 5 people at any one time. 100 sq. metres, 10 customers at any one time.
In shops it does not mean, as your post appears to suggest, 2 metres apart in shopping aisles

charlie14

sheepysheep wrote: »

To be honest, I don't know why you engage with that particular poster. He must have 2000 posts on this thread by now, yet his contributions have been nothing more than a veritable tour de force of lies, conjectures, falsehoods, half-truths, conspiracy theories, dissembling and misinformation.

Whatever credibility he though he had went flying out the window a few weeks back when, nearly a year and 2k posts into the pandemic, he accidently revealed that he didn't understand the difference between IFR and CFR, and ended up trying to waffle the foot back out of his mouth by insisting that CFR is the important measure.

He's determined to have the last post. Might as well let him have it.

A very sweeping statement.

Perhaps rather than generalisations, you would care to point out what exactly these lies, conjectures, falsehoods etc are ?
You yourself apparently do not know what conjecture is. Especially when it comes to IFR and CFR.


CFR is the confirmed fatality rate. The actual percentage of fatalities to confirmed cases of infections.

IFR is the percentage rate of fatalities based on the assumed number of infection. It is based on conjecture.


The very same conjecture that Sweden based their herd immunity figures on. When that was shown to be pie in the sky, Tegnell then used the same infection rate based conjecture that Sweden would have much higher immunity levels than other countries if there was a second wave. That one isn`t working out to well either from their numbers.


Nobody can even agree on what this conjectured rate of infection is. It varies from a multiple of anything from 50% greater than actual confirmed cases, to a multiple 1,000% or even higher.
Sweden have used their conjectured rate twice for immunity and have been shown to be wrong. Manaus used only the 50% rate claiming they had achieved herd immunity to be also proven wrong.





.

charlie14

milehip wrote: »

Would you care to suggest a new title?

Sweden now using lockdown ?

Tork

charlie14 wrote: »

Sweden now using lockdown ?

Swedish response to Coronavirus?

FintanMcluskey

Tork wrote: »

Swedish response to Coronavirus?

The value of a robust democracy?

99nsr125

charlie14 wrote: »

A very sweeping statement.

Perhaps rather than generalisations, you would care to point out what exactly these lies, conjectures, falsehoods etc are ?
You yourself apparently do not know what conjecture is. Especially when it comes to IFR and CFR.


CFR is the confirmed fatality rate. The actual percentage of fatalities to confirmed cases of infections.

IFR is the percentage rate of fatalities based on the assumed number of infection. It is based on conjecture.


The very same conjecture that Sweden based their herd immunity figures on. When that was shown to be pie in the sky, Tegnell then used the same infection rate based conjecture that Sweden would have much higher immunity levels than other countries if there was a second wave. That one isn`t working out to well either from their numbers.


Nobody can even agree on what this conjectured rate of infection is. It varies from a multiple of anything from 50% greater than actual confirmed cases, to a multiple 1,000% or even higher.
Sweden have used their conjectured rate twice for immunity and have been shown to be wrong. Manaus used only the 50% rate claiming they had achieved herd immunity to be also proven wrong.





.

Oh ffs, I just don't have the time

CFR is CASE Fatality Rate