Sweden avoiding lockdown

VillageIdiot71

seamus wrote: »

The herd immunity approach is a very, very risky experiment based on what is effectively a hope that immunity is almost permanent.

Yeah, and significant restrictions on movements and contacts forever is a very, very risky experiment based on effectively a hope that society won't disintegrate if every human activity is made conditional on the risk of exposure to this single virus.

Hopefully, in a couple of years time, we'll be reflecting on this brief period when the world thought immunologists were the ****.

ek motor

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

None of that is true

Long term immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is unproven. Immunity to other coronaviruses lasts from a few months to a couple of years.

GreeBo

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

But I don't think anyone is alleging that Sweden is hiding a multiple of its deaths.

Or that theyve a sudden increased in unexplained deaths, that should have been deemed Covid cases.

That would require a Gemma O'Doherty level of conspiracy theory.

They arent necessarily hiding them, just not including them.
Their excess mortality rate is pretty high compared to their confirmed covid-19 deaths.

Week Excess mortality Confirmed COVID-19
deaths COVID-19 deaths
13 282 189 165
14 705 453 432
15 955 660 671
16 877 665 664
Total 2819 1957 1932

Drumpot

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

But I don't think anyone is alleging that Sweden is hiding a multiple of its deaths.

Or that theyve a sudden increased in unexplained deaths, that should have been deemed Covid cases.

That would require a Gemma O'Doherty level of conspiracy theory.

It’s not clear how comparable death rates in countries , specifically to COVID are as different countries are reporting them using different methods for different reasons.. The fact of the matter is that it suits some countries to downplay the virus And there are ways they can be selective in what deaths to report. I saw Ron Paul try to point to Sweden as a reason why schools and economy should open up by directly comparing “official” deaths with USA.

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c

I’d be interested to see Sweden’s month on month comparison in May with May in other years. That will give a far clearer indication of their true death rate.

yosemitesam1

ek motor wrote: »

Long term immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is unproven. Immunity to other coronaviruses lasts from a few months to a couple of years.

Long term immunity of greater than 2 years isn't needed to keep the virus at a low level.
There's no reason to think it's not on a par with other strains which generate more than enough immunity to keep the spread in a continued suppressed state.

Many on here seem to believe that herd immunity means that the virus is eradicated as it can no longer find a susceptible host.
That sort of a situation is only applicable to certain diseases and this is not one of them. Covid 19 can get one or two (depending if it was restricted in spreading too much in the first spread) mass spreading seasons and after that it will become on a par with other endemic coronavirus strains which survive but cannot grow massively in any one year.

tobefrank321

ek motor wrote: »

Long term immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is unproven. Immunity to other coronaviruses lasts from a few months to a couple of years.

So far its been proven to be 6 months and counting for SARS-CoV-2.

If you have proof otherwise, post it.

ek motor

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

Long term immunity of greater than 2 years isn't needed to keep the virus at a low level.
There's no reason to think it's not on a par with other strains which generate more than enough immunity to keep the spread in a continued suppressed state.

Many on here seem to believe that herd immunity means that the virus is eradicated as it can no longer find a susceptible host.
That sort of a situation is only applicable to certain diseases and this is not one of them. Covid 19 can get one or two (depending if it was restricted in spreading too much in the first spread) mass spreading seasons and after that it will become on a par with other endemic coronavirus strains which survive but cannot grow massively in any one year.

The question is - 'is it possible to get re-infected with SARS-CoV-2 at some point in the future? '. As yet, there is no definitive answer to this.

plodder

There are obviously reporting differences between countries, and maybe some massaging of figures, but you can't hide deaths generally. So, figures based on excess mortality might be better ways to compare countries. On that basis, Sweden is not too bad. They have accounted 81% to Covid-19 as compared with E&W 71%, Spain 78%, Germany 73% but France 92%, according to this:

https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/understanding-excess-mortality-the-fairest-way-to-make-international-comparisons

No figure for Ireland above, but would be very interesting to find out.

tobefrank321

ek motor wrote: »

The question is - 'is it possible to get re-infected with SARS-CoV-2 at some point in the future? '. As yet, there is no definitive answer to this.

yosemitesam1 answered this fairly well. You don't need long term immunity. You need immunity long enough to suppress the virus in the community. After that immunity levels may vary but would likely be enough to protect most people. The virus is constantly looking for a susceptible host and the right conditions - ie two people with the same level of non immunity. This gets harder and harder and the infection spread becomes relatively rare. Its also possible the virus could die out when it can no longer find susceptible hosts.

Of course if we had a vaccine, this would be the better approach. But that prospect is still a long way off by which stage most economies will be ruined unless they emerge from lockdown. And they will have to eventually.

Drumpot

plodder wrote: »

There are obviously reporting differences between countries, and maybe some massaging of figures, but you can't hide deaths generally. So, figures based on excess mortality might be better ways to compare countries. On that basis, Sweden is not too bad. They have accounted 81% to Covid-19 as compared with E&W 71%, Spain 78%, Germany 73% but France 92%, according to this:

https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/understanding-excess-mortality-the-fairest-way-to-make-international-comparisons

I’d love to see Ireland on that same scale. Ultimately that will be a better barometer then official stats thus far.

Also be interesting to see how many deaths can be indirectly connected to COVID down to people not getting medical treatment (even for different illness) for numerous reasons. It shows why it’s imperative to keep the infection rate low enough for healthcare to be available to manage all people who need it.

ek motor

tobefrank321 wrote: »

yosemitesam1 answered this fairly well. You don't need long term immunity. You need immunity long enough to suppress the virus in the community. After that immunity levels may vary but would likely be enough to protect most people. The virus is constantly looking for a susceptible host and the right conditions - ie two people with the same level of non immunity. This gets harder and harder and the infection spread becomes relatively rare.

Of course if we had a vaccine, this would be the better approach. But that prospect is still along way off by which stage most economies will be ruined unless the emerge from lockdown. And they will have to eventually.

No, that is not the question. The question is -'is it possible to become re-infected with SARS-CoV-2?'

GreeBo

tobefrank321 wrote: »

yosemitesam1 answered this fairly well. You don't need long term immunity. You need immunity long enough to suppress the virus in the community. After that immunity levels may vary but would likely be enough to protect most people. The virus is constantly looking for a susceptible host and the right conditions - ie two people with the same level of non immunity. This gets harder and harder and the infection spread becomes relatively rare.

Of course if we had a vaccine, this would be the better approach. But that prospect is still a long way off by which stage most economies will be ruined unless they emerge from lockdown. And they will have to eventually.

"herd immunity" wont stop infection if immune people can still carry and spread the virus though.

KyussB

Nermal wrote: »

Not really. That infection grants immunity is proven, a million times over.

How long it lasts is not proven, all that can be provided is the best guess that it will last at least a few years.

"Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—The Question Is How to Get There Safely":

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds

The world will awaken gradually from this delusion. People and institutions take time to change course.

An economist, a sociologist, and a Libertarian who works for several well known propaganda think-tanks that have a history of promoting everything from climate change denial to the health benefits of smoking...

You don't cite Libertarians for anything, as they are notorious for 1: Having a poor understanding of everything, and 2: Lying as a profession, producing propaganda to promote political aims through science denial.

The scientists have been very clear on this one: There is no evidence of long lasting immunity. There is no evidence that herd immunity is a viable possibility.

yosemitesam1

ek motor wrote: »

No, that is not the question. The question is -'is it possible to become re-infected with SARS-CoV-2?'

With other coronavirus strains the answer is yes but over a medium timeframe and variable from person to person

tobefrank321

ek motor wrote: »

No, that is not the question. The question is -'is it possible to become re-infected with SARS-CoV-2?'

There is no evidence of anyone being re-infected so far. Time will tell us more and how long it lasts.

But from the point of view of non vaccine achieved herd immunity it is largely a moot point. Once the virus is completely suppressed people can only be re-infected if its brought into the country from outside, if there is no effective quarantining.

Norway and Finland will face the same problem if they open up to the outside world and lift all restrictions. We will face that problem too. Every country will until there is a vaccine.

yosemitesam1

GreeBo wrote: »

"herd immunity" wont stop infection if immune people can still carry and spread the virus though.

Stopping infection isn't at all necessary, just keep it relatively under control.

Herd suppression would probably be a more accurate term than herd immunity

plodder

Seems they made the right call in keeping children under 16 at school.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0513/1138100-hiqa-coronavirus-review/

KyussB

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Lets say everyone on the planet contracted covid 19 at once and immunity lasted about 6 months. This would mean coronavirus would die out within 6 months as there are no new hosts. The R0 would drop to 0. As long as the Chinese didn't go back to eating bats etc we'd have this virus under control.

If immunity lasts 6 months then any country going down the herd immunity route would need rapid infection of the population and recovery in 5 months and maybe even 4 months. But remember experts say you don't need 100% infection. If a country reached 70 or 80% infection and recovery this would be enough for herd immunity.

The evidence so far points to at least 6 months immunity. 4.3 million cases and not a single re-infection, particurly from the early cases.

But you want more proof? The Chinese are about to test everyone in Wuhan. I hope they test all 80,000 who were infected and recovered. This might tell us if there were re infections are not. Hopefully there wasn't.

In summary immunity doesn't have to last years. It only has to last long enough for about 80% of your population to be infected and recovered so herd immunity is reached and the virus cannot find new hosts leading to a collapse in the R0 value.

Except not everyone catches coronavirus at the same time, which means that it's continually spreading to new people over 6 months (at an incredible rate of constant new cases), and by the end of those 6 months it's ready to spread back to people who have already got it....

I mean, it's very simple to think this through and see the failures in what you're saying.

You're also talking about mandatory 60 million deaths in the best case scenario - likely a lot more, because you're not going to cram up to a billion people through the worlds hospitals in 6 months, without spiking health service capacities, and dramatically escalating death rates...

Do the math. It's an inherently stupid plan - and that's what the experts have been saying. Economists working for known propaganda networks, are not the people to be listening to.

tobefrank321

plodder wrote: »

Seems they made the right call in keeping children under 16 at school.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0513/1138100-hiqa-coronavirus-review/

That's a very good analysis by HIQA and sums up much of what is known so far. In fairness HIQA have been on top of this with their analysis and studies.

tobefrank321

KyussB wrote: »

Except not everyone catches coronavirus at the same time, which means that it's continually spreading to new people over 6 months (at an incredible rate of constant new cases), and by the end of those 6 months it's ready to spread back to people who have already got it....

I mean, it's very simple to think this through and see the failures in what you're saying.

You're also talking about mandatory 60 million deaths in the best case scenario - likely a lot more, because you're not going to cram up to a billion people through the worlds hospitals in 6 months, without spiking health service capacities, and dramatically escalating death rates...

I will repeat what I have said numerous times. There is no scenario where the elderly and those in high risk categories can go about their daily business unless this virus has been completely suppressed. In every country virtually in the world except of course Belarus, the elderly and vulnerable are currently cocooning. They are doing so in Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Herd immunity (which is still a theory by the way as the Swedes are a long way off it) depends largely on allowing the 80% of healthy people go about their daily business, while cocooning away the vulnerable.

There is little to fear from covid 19 being spread among young healthy people. Of young healthy people a tiny number may suffer severe effects, which hospitals would be able to cope with.

As I said this is theory and so far hasn't been properly trialled. Whether any country will achieve it or not is questionable.

In your example, at the end of 6 months, there will be virtually zero non immune people. The chances of two non immune people meeting would be minimal - this is how herd immunity works. Not 100% immune, just enough so the chances of two non immune people meeting are low/zero. In this scenario eventually the virus dies out.

Is it a long term solution? Probably not.

But is permanent lockdown until a vaccine a solution? Probably not either. At some stage countries will have to emerge from lockdown and when they do, cases will automatically rise.

plodder

The RTE page has linked to the wrong document of HIQA.

They should be pointing to this one relating to children.

KyussB

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I will repeat what I have said numerous times. There is no scenario where the elderly and those in high risk categories can go about their daily business unless this virus has been completely suppressed. In every country virtually in the world except of course Belarus, the elderly and vulnerable are currently cocooning. They are doing so in Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Herd immunity (which is still a theory by the way as the Swedes are a long way off it) depends largely on allowing the 80% of healthy people go about their daily business, while cocooning away the vulnerable.

There is little to fear from covid 19 being spread among young healthy people. Of young healthy people a tiny number may suffer severe effects, which hospitals would be able to cope with.

As I said this is theory and so far hasn't been properly trialled. Whether any country will achieve it or not is questionable.

In your example, at the end of 6 months, there will be virtually zero non immune people. The chances of two non immune people meeting would be minimal - this is how herd immunity works. Not 100% immune, just enough so the chances of two non immune people meeting are low/zero. In this scenario eventually the virus dies out.

Is it a long term solution? Probably not.

But is permanent lockdown until a vaccine a solution? Probably not either. At some stage countries will have to emerge from lockdown and when they do, cases will automatically rise.

You're wrong about that as well - potentially up to a quarter of deaths are among people under 65, depending on country - and cocooning doesn't work for much of the elderly, it still leads to nursing homes turning into morgues.

The elderly are already partially excluded from hospital treatment as well - so you've still got upwards of a billion people to cram through the worlds hospitals in 6 months - which is practically impossible without massively spiking health service capacity, that massively increases death rates.

You're obviously not fact checking a single thing you're saying - you think people not cocooning will be fine and everything - you're getting basic facts wrong.

In your example - it was not my example, it was yours - it's impossible to infect everyone at the same time, so no - you're wrong - not everyone will be immune after 6 months, because people continuously catch it who have not had it before, all the way through those 6 months - and with herd immunity lasting only 6 months, those who caught it at the beginning will be ready to catch it all over again.

You're just repeating the same basic mistakes again, that I already explained to you.


Right now, the only way to resolve this is to replicate what some Asian countries have done - and bring new cases down close to Zero - with strict containment of new cases thereafter (likely with rolling, regional lockdowns). Without a vaccine, that's the only option.

seamus

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

Yeah, and significant restrictions on movements and contacts forever is a very, very risky experiment based on effectively a hope that society won't disintegrate

We know that society won't disintegrate. Because nobody is talking about imposing restrictions forever, and because we have an entire history of data that shows that it always rebounds regardless.

Ultimately the toss-up here is between suffering economic damage over a 5 year timespan, or allowing lots of extra people to die.

Economies always recover. They always have. We know from hundreds of thousands of years of war, famine, epidemic, whatever. Society picks up and moves on afterwards.

We also know from data that people never climb out of their graves and come back to life.

When it's a short economic shock against the mass loss of lives, it's a no-brainer.

Drumpot

tobefrank321 wrote: »

That's a very good analysis by HIQA and sums up much of what is known so far. In fairness HIQA have been on top of this with their analysis and studies.

The cynic in me thinks some of these studies are mostly to soften up people to let children go back to school. I get it, there are going to have to be sacrifices made and things conceded but these sort of incomplete or one off studies prove nothing on their own. It’s like the early suggestions that some vaccines worked on the virus but after more extensive testing they were proven to be innacurate.

There is so much they still don’t understand about the virus. I’ve watched medical Speicialists online discuss it extensively and they are still only working it out. So when I see “well a study somewhere shows children don’t really spread it” I’m very dubious.

- culture
- weather
- density
- how bad the outbreak is in an area
- strain (are we definitely sure that some strains are not more damaging then others?)
- children sick, there’s a number now showing an illness weeks after recovering, what percentage of children is it?

It’s the same things applied when people say Sweden got it right, it’s not actually that simple.

VillageIdiot71

seamus wrote: »

Economies always recover. They always have. We know from hundreds of thousands of years of war, famine, epidemic, whatever. Society picks up and moves on afterwards.
.

That's hugely arrogant complacency on your part.

Actually a denial of the impacts we will shortly be dealing with, with a double helping of shroud waving on top.

Mike3287

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

That's hugely arrogant complacency on your part.

Actually a denial of the impacts we will shortly be dealing with, with a double helping of shroud waving on top.

How is he wrong

Economy will recover, always does

Breezin

KyussB wrote: »

with herd immunity lasting only 6 months, those who caught it at the beginning will be ready to catch it all over again.

From the HIQA document:

... while some individuals have tested positive after recovery from Covid-19, this is likely due to virus re-detection, rather than re-infection with a second virus.

Wompa1

What does herd immunity really do? It deprives the virus of new hosts since most people it will come in contact with will have immunity.

Getting the reproduction rate down through lockdown and social distancing achieves the same with fewer deaths.

Also, aside from deaths with everyone speculating on herd immunity, it seems no one is speculating about the long term health implications for those who get COVID-19. I had Swine Flu when I was in my early 20's and fit as a fiddle. It decreased my lung capacity for years, I developed a really strange allergy linked to it and got inflammation in my joints.

I went on with the joint pain for a long time too. It wasn't until a physio in the hospital reviewed my patient history after my 4th visit that she saw I had Swine Flu and it clicked with her. My feckin' GP told me I had arthritis!

The depleted lung capacity is already known about. What will happen to those who get it a second time and their lungs are still damaged? Does anyone know of the long term residual affects?

At the beginning of our 'lockdown measures' it was all about flattening the curve.

Sweden, at this stage, seems to have, if not flattened it, at least kept it fairly low.

Therefore I would say their strategy has been a success. They wont have to wait until July to open anything.

Only time will tell how the death rate in the elderly will eventually balance against other countries.

Mike3287

seamus wrote: »

When it's a short economic shock against the mass loss of lives, it's a no-brainer.

If we did it correctly think many would gladly accept it, it is a a no-brainer

We are getting cases down and down now

No reason we can't be like New Zealand, Iceland and so on now and get rid of the virus

Close the border, sort out the flights,

Open up and have a closed economy for a while with restaurants, cinema's, pubs all open

We will do the opposite :pac: