Sweden avoiding lockdown

jibber5000

wakka12 wrote: »

I've taken a place where an known and established outbreak of coronavirus has occurred, there are not that many known large epicentres of contagion from which to draw assumptions. It, Lombardy, Madrid and Wuhan are where the bulk of the known information of how this virus spreads and affects people will come from, because of that reason, whether you like the information coming out of them or not

Basically, its the best we have to go on. And youre countering the proof based on a number of unknowns..maybe its spreading in Africa or Texas or India or whatever example youre using and not causing large numbers of deaths becuse the population is young not urbanised whatever..but equally maybe its not..most likely not given theres no proof of it yet

Of course with any epidemic there will be epicentres. I'm not arguing that.

Picking one place and saying that the mortality rate will be greater based on this one example is just incorrect from a public health standpoint.

wakka12

So including the 77 additional probable deaths today Ireland has almost the exact same number of deaths per capita as Sweden

wakka12

Definitely weakens the theory that the COVID patients would have died anyway.

Sweden and Belgium have experienced 25% and 12% increase in national mortality rates in the month of March. This would equate to 2300 additional deaths in Belgium and 1100 additional deaths in Sweden. In March Belgium reported 2373 coronavirus deaths while Sweden reported 1160. A strikingly similar correlation between number of excess deaths and reports of coronavirus deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

marno21

wakka12 wrote: »

Definitely weakens the theory that the COVID patients would have died anyway.

Sweden and Belgium have experienced 25% and 12% increase in national mortality rates in the month of March. This would equate to 2300 additional deaths in Belgium and 1100 additional deaths in Sweden. In March Belgium reported 2373 coronavirus deaths while Sweden reported 1160. A strikingly similar correlation between number of excess deaths and reports of coronavirus deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

I think the point being made was that many of the unfortunate deaths were patients with limited life expectancies which would only see them survive for months with no covid, whereby their death was accelerated by covid-19.

The median age of deaths in Ireland being in the mid 80s would seem to provide some evidence to this theory, that a proportion of the deaths were older people who were weak and had limited quality of life.

Of course, there is a large proportion of deaths occurring in much younger people also.

robinbird

marno21 wrote: »

I think the point being made was that many of the unfortunate deaths were patients with limited life expectancies which would only see them survive for months with no covid, whereby their death was accelerated by covid-19.

The median age of deaths in Ireland being in the mid 80s would seem to provide some evidence to this theory, that a proportion of the deaths were older people who were weak and had limited quality of life.

Of course, there is a large proportion of deaths occurring in much younger people also.

Not really. If you take out the elderly and those with already serious underlying medical conditions as well as the obese, there are very few.

Cyrus

wakka12 wrote: »

Definitely weakens the theory that the COVID patients would have died anyway.

Sweden and Belgium have experienced 25% and 12% increase in national mortality rates in the month of March. This would equate to 2300 additional deaths in Belgium and 1100 additional deaths in Sweden. In March Belgium reported 2373 coronavirus deaths while Sweden reported 1160. A strikingly similar correlation between number of excess deaths and reports of coronavirus deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

The point is you would need to look at the totals for the full year not one month. If the theory holds less people will die later in the year as some of those that would have died a little earlier .

Diarmuid

YFlyer wrote: »

Mortality rate is measured according to positive cases not total population.

Well to be more precise it's (number of death) /(number infected)

(number infected) is not necessarily the same as (number of positive tests) unless you test 100% (or a statistically representative number) and your test is 100% accurate.

That's why all these posts taking the number of deaths in Italy / number of cases are completely wrong and misleading.

plodder

Odd quote from Anders Tegnell in today's IT

“According to our modellers, we are starting to see so many immune people in the population in Stockholm that it is starting to have an effect on the spread of the infection,” Tegnell said. “These are mathematical models, they’re only as good as the data we put into them. We will see if they are right.”

A lot of people won't read past the first sentence and take from "we are starting to see" as actual emperical evidence, but it's just more mathematical models.

charlie14

plodder wrote: »

Odd quote from Anders Tegnell in today's IT

A lot of people won't read past the first sentence and take from "we are starting to see" as actual emperical evidence, but it's just more mathematical models.

That, plus there is no evidence that those who have been infected have developed immunity.

charlie14

robinbird wrote: »

Not really. If you take out the elderly and those with already serious underlying medical conditions as well as the obese, there are very few.

I would not say very few. Especially those with underlying medical condition such as suppressed immunity.

There are presently over 170,000 living in Ireland with cancer where a high proportion would be immunocompromised. Plus many more in the same position due to ongoing treatment for a multitude of other medical conditions.

IAMAMORON

charlie14 wrote: »

That, plus there is no evidence that those who have been infected have developed immunity.

Also no evidence that they haven't either....

A lot of armageddonist's trying to sell this particular fear. " it comes back" , you can get it "twice". It is certainly suiting the doomsday mantra.

Fact remains that you can be 99% certain that if it is a corona virus ( as we are being told it is ) , it will act and replicate its previous mutations such as SARS 1 etc.

Otherwise millions and millions of people are going to die. Given current death rates this does not seem feasible. We would already be seeing clear evidence of viral reinvention in Asian cases previously diagnosed. We aren't.

The WHO's negativity behind widespread antibody testing is a practical one. Most global health systems simply have not got the infrastructure to carry out a successful widespread antibody testing program, there is simply not enough test kits to test 8 billion humans.

Breezin

plodder wrote: »

Odd quote from Anders Tegnell in today's IT

A lot of people won't read past the first sentence and take from "we are starting to see" as actual emperical evidence, but it's just more mathematical models.

The outcomes of mathematical models based on data are empirical evidence.


Any model is only as good as its data. Tegnell is being cautious, as always, because he's a scientist.

biko

16004 cases
1937 dead
12.1% deaths of known cases

Numbers from FHMs own tracking page
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa

Kermit.de.frog

Sweden reports 172 new deaths

IAMAMORON

Does anyone have historical Swedish data, or a link to it ?

plodder

Breezin wrote: »

The outcomes of mathematical models based on data are empirical evidence.

Not really. The output of a model is not empirical evidence.

eg the Imperial College predictions for mortality based on their model were not empirical evidence of mortality. How could they be?

I hope he is right and maybe the data going into the model he is using is favourable, but for me it's not evidence of immunity yet. There was some information in today's Guardian also coming from Wuhan which is not so positive.

Chinese doctors in Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged in December, say a growing number of cases in which people recover from the virus, but continue to test positive without showing symptoms, is one of their biggest challenges as the country moves into a new phase of its containment battle.

Those patients all tested negative for the virus at some point after recovering, but then tested positive again, some up to 70 days later, the doctors said.

Many have done so over 50-60 days.

Though it has to be said, that kind of negative evidence, tending to disprove the immunity theory, is much easier to find at this stage than evidence which supports it. It is a lot harder to prove that someone cannot infect another person than that they can.

charlie14

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Also no evidence that they haven't either....

A lot of armageddonist's trying to sell this particular fear. " it comes back" , you can get it "twice". It is certainly suiting the doomsday mantra.

Fact remains that you can be 99% certain that if it is a corona virus ( as we are being told it is ) , it will act and replicate its previous mutations such as SARS 1 etc.

Otherwise millions and millions of people are going to die. Given current death rates this does not seem feasible. We would already be seeing clear evidence of viral reinvention in Asian cases previously diagnosed. We aren't.

The WHO's negativity behind widespread antibody testing is a practical one. Most global health systems simply have not got the infrastructure to carry out a successful widespread antibody testing program, there is simply not enough test kits to test 8 billion humans.

Hopefully it will only replicate and not mutate so that anyone who gets it will develop immunity, but those 179 cases in South Korea who have tested positive again after having it are worrying.

charlie14

Just seeing on Forbes that yesterdays report by the Sweden Health Agency that one third of Stockholm residents would be infected by May 1st. has been withdrawn because of an error.
A report on the preliminary findings by researchers at Karolinska Hospital and Karolinska Institute that at least 11 out of a 100 blood donors in Stockholm had already developed antibodies has also been withdrawn according to the same same source.

normanoffside

Diarmuid wrote: »

Well to be more precise it's (number of death) /(number infected)

(number infected) is not necessarily the same as (number of positive tests) unless you test 100% (or a statistically representative number) and your test is 100% accurate.

That's why all these posts taking the number of deaths in Italy / number of cases are completely wrong and misleading.

On This point, you would actually have to test the entire population at least once a week to get a true figure of infection.
Just because someone is not infected today does not mean they weren't infect last week or indeed won't be tomorrow

frillyleaf

robinbird wrote: »

It could well turn out in time that the whole lockdown, social distancing thing was pointless or indeed may have been the worst approach. And that the countries that didn't lockdown will fare best in the long run.

With the proviso of course that nursing homes and the vulnerable such as those in their eighties or fat should have been isolated.

So per capita per million

Sweden 156
Ireland 139

And our daily death rate is now higher so catching up fast.

It’s the healthcare ability to deal with capacity of cases. If we could deal with cases alongside normal day to day hospital cases we would be able to open up again now.

tobefrank321

plodder wrote: »

Not really. The output of a model is not empirical evidence.

eg the Imperial College predictions for mortality based on their model were not empirical evidence of mortality. How could they be?

I hope he is right and maybe the data going into the model he is using is favourable, but for me it's not evidence of immunity yet. There was some information in today's Guardian also coming from Wuhan which is not so positive.


Though it has to be said, that kind of negative evidence, tending to disprove the immunity theory, is much easier to find at this stage than evidence which supports it. It is a lot harder to prove that someone cannot infect another person than that they can.

There have been a number of attempts to explain this. For either SARs or MERs there was a case of someone continuing to test positive a full 100 days after recovery. They were suffering from leukemia and had a very weak immune system and died of leukemia in the end.

It appears that some people with weak immune systems find it difficult to completely rid the body of SARs like viruses. They can continue to retain some infection but with no symptoms and with no ability to shed or infect others. I don't think its something we need to be overly worried about. The vast majority make a full recovery and test negative after this recovery.

Breezin

plodder wrote: »

Not really. The output of a model is not empirical evidence.

eg the Imperial College predictions for mortality based on their model were not empirical evidence of mortality. How could they be?

It just is empirical, although more accurately it's a finding, however tentative, based on empirical evidence. It's based on data, and on specific treatment of the data. No model is perfect, and so long as its limitations are transparent, its output is empirically-founded. Like any model, its outputs need to be evaluated with caution, but it is information that is of use.

I hope he is right and maybe the data going into the model he is using is favourable, but for me it's not evidence of immunity yet.

I don't think he suggested that it was conclusive evidence of immunity. But I hope he is right too. It would be great if things were going in that direction, even if it's Sweden 1-0 Ireland.

plodder

Breezin wrote: »

It just is empirical, although more accurately it's a finding, however tentative, based on empirical evidence. It's based on data, and on specific treatment of the data. No model is perfect, and so long as its limitations are transparent, its output is empirically-founded. Like any model, its outputs need to be evaluated with caution, but it is information that is of use.

This depends on what the "treatment" of the data is. At one extreme you could have a simple mathematical transformation and nobody is going to argue that the output is not a form of empirical data (if the input data is), but you'd hardly call that a model. Really, a model is going to take data as input, and then other assumptions are made and it's really the nature of those assumptions that we are interested in. Are they assuming that this virus has the same immunity properties as previous coronaviruses, and that is what allows him to say that it's starting to control the spread? But, that is the big unknown. However, if he has testing data that corroborates this, then maybe that is grounds for optimism, but that's not clear yet.

IAMAMORON

charlie14 wrote: »

Hopefully it will only replicate and not mutate so that anyone who gets it will develop immunity, but those 179 cases in South Korea who have tested positive again after having it are worrying.

Link please.

whowantstwoknow

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Does anyone have historical Swedish data, or a link to it ?

This any good https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?

IAMAMORON

normanoffside wrote: »

On This point, you would actually have to test the entire population at least once a week to get a true figure of infection.
Just because someone is not infected today does not mean they weren't infect last week or indeed won't be tomorrow

The testing mantra is becoming farcical. I see opposition politicians are attempting to develop it into a flagging issue and beat the HSE with it like a stick. However the fact remains unless the entire population gets tested at one particular point in time it is pointless.

Even the current mooting of developing a comprehensive contact tracing mechanism to isolate future outbreaks once the lockdown is eased stinks of window dressing to me.

Once the lockdown is eased people are going to be in contact with a thousand more random permutations an hour. It is impossible to pin down. I cannot see it being efficient.

Bit cynical

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Even the current mooting of developing a comprehensive contact tracing mechanism to isolate future outbreaks once the lockdown is eased stinks of window dressing to me.

I agree. If it gets to the stage where most of the lockdown measures are lifted and very few are presenting with symptoms then it only takes one asymptomatic spreader and it all kicks off again. Testing and contact tracing won't be able to spot that spreader and most people won't know where they got the virus from.

I think it is all based on early advice from the WHO based in turn probably from dodgy data from China.

normanoffside

IAMAMORON wrote: »

The testing mantra is becoming farcical. I see opposition politicians are attempting to develop it into a flagging issue and beat the HSE with it like a stick. However the fact remains unless the entire population gets tested at one particular point in time it is pointless.

Even the current mooting of developing a comprehensive contact tracing mechanism to isolate future outbreaks once the lockdown is eased stinks of window dressing to me.

Once the lockdown is eased people are going to be in contact with a thousand more random permutations an hour. It is impossible to pin down. I cannot see it being efficient.

I agree it's a joke.
The only way that testing will 100% work is if somehow everyone is tested every morning before they leave their house. And that depends on tests being 100% accurate

Even in the case of the above a latent virus might come out of it's incubation period during the day.

plodder

But, if the current lockdown here will (or is) effectively controlling the spread, and that is without an effective testing regime, then it's reasonable to suppose that a limited removal of restrictions together with better testing will still keep it under control. So, you might be in contact with more people, but you are more likely to be able to trace those people, or put it another way, the only way a particular restriction can be lifted is if contacts are traceable (schools, many workplaces yes, pubs no, shops with present distancing measures etc). Might need some level of random testing of the population as well to catch outbreaks as early as possible.

Bit cynical

plodder wrote: »

But, if the current lockdown here will (or is) effectively controlling the spread, and that is without an effective testing regime, then it's reasonable to suppose that a limited removal of restrictions together with better testing will still keep it under control. So, you might be in contact with more people, but you are more likely to be able to trace those people, or put it another way, the only way a particular restriction can be lifted is if contacts are traceable (schools, many workplaces yes, pubs no, shops with present distancing measures etc). Might need some level of random testing of the population as well to catch outbreaks as early as possible.

However testing have only very minor benefit compared to the costs involved.

Expansion of ICU and treatment capacity, development of antivirals, herd immunity and eventual vaccines may be more enabling of partial lifting of restrictions.

I think random testing, particularly of antibodies, will become important to determine the level of immunity in the population and whether any easing of lockdown can happen.