Sweden avoiding lockdown

charlie14

normanoffside wrote: »

Doesn't it take a month after Infection to start to show antibodies?
Surely in a few more weeks, Spain will show a higher level of them.

Not as High as might have been hoped though.

The Spain report is from a survey by the Carlos III Health Institute of 70,000 blood samples.

With the number being that high I would very much doubt a few weeks are going to make much difference to the findings.

the incredible pudding

ICU numbers in Sweden have dropped again, to the lowest since before April which is positive. I'm still not sure how to feel about the situation tbh, I don't think there'll be a clear picture for months.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

There is no harm in discussing the herd immunity theory which is different to advocating it.

The Swedes are engaged in a large scale experiment. There may be something to be learned from it, there may not be. What countries might learn is that their approach was the wrong one. Alternatively, it may prove in the end they got it right. We simply don't know at this stage.

Personally speaking, I'm interested in the science behind covid 19 and the different approaches taken by different countries.

The herd immunity approach is interesting in theory but hard to make work in the real world. So it will be interesting to see how it ends up for the Swedes.

From the findings of France`s Pasteur Institute and Spain`s Carlos III Public Health Institute on antibody`s, it`s an approach that is going nowhere in the real world

wakka12

normanoffside wrote: »

Doesn't it take a month after Infection to start to show antibodies?
Surely in a few more weeks, Spain will show a higher level of them.

Not as High as might have been hoped though.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/serology-testing.html
1-3 weeks.

Lockdown started in early March in Spain, definitely a large majority of cases would have occurred and developed antibodies by the time of the testing which happened in late April

charlie14

the incredible pudding wrote: »

ICU numbers in Sweden have dropped again, to the lowest since before April which is positive. I'm still not sure how to feel about the situation tbh, I don't think there'll be a clear picture for months.

Recent findings on antibody`s have more or less rubbished the Swedish immunity theory, and their new cases are still on average 600 a day with their ratio of fatalities to confirmed cases still over 12%.
Unless there is a sudden change very soon that picture is not going to look pretty for those months

the incredible pudding

charlie14 wrote: »

Recent findings on antibody`s have more or less rubbished the Swedish immunity theory, and their new cases are still on average 600 a day with their ratio of fatalities to confirmed cases still over 12%.
Unless there is a sudden change very soon that picture is not going to look pretty for those months

The rate of new cases in Sweden is impossible to gather as the amount of testing that's been done has been incredibly variable (were doing pretty much no testing other than people that work in the hospitals / very sick until very recently so we just really can't read too much into that figure - it's just not that simple. The number of people in ICU is accurate and easier to trust though, which is why it's good to see it drop - it shows a curve that is measurable.

You wouldn't expect the rate of infection in Spain to be that high given the early lockdown - going by that study - the % of those with antibodies in high population areas such as Madrid being around being around 13.5% isn't surprising and is imo relatively high for a region that has entered lockdown so I'd argue you're inferring something that may or not be true based on that 5% figure.

Breezin

is_that_so wrote: »

FWIW killing oldies is a fairly big social issue and usually best avoided as a public health exercise. Your own engagement was here's a link to some journalist who might be credible.

Which you clearly didn't read but still felt entitled to be listened to sounding off on it.

PhoenixParker

niallo27 wrote: »

What you mean by no sign of an exit, what is our exit here. We have 300 dead per million with a full lock-down and 28% unemployed. Do you think once our timetable is complete the virus will just disappear.

We're one of the few countries with a pretty clear post lock down plan - test, contact trace and then test some more.

The idea is keep infections to a very low level so normal life can proceed.

Breezin

PhoenixParker wrote: »

We're one of the few countries with a pretty clear post lock down plan - test, contact trace and then test some more.

The idea is keep infections to a very low level so normal life can proceed.

Aspiration, not plan.

Those running the lockdown can't even agree on the volume of testing that is viable. Our turnaround for tests are a joke, and our contact tracing probably will be too, given the quality of organization on display thus far.

The degree of buy-in to the official spin in this country at this time is quite astonishing. London has a better R than us, and their public representatives are pilloried daily.

ElTel

tobefrank321 wrote: »

There is no harm in discussing the herd immunity theory which is different to advocating it.

The Swedes are engaged in a large scale experiment. There may be something to be learned from it, there may not be. What countries might learn is that their approach was the wrong one. Alternatively, it may prove in the end they got it right. We simply don't know at this stage.

Personally speaking, I'm interested in the science behind covid 19 and the different approaches taken by different countries.

The herd immunity approach is interesting in theory but hard to make work in the real world. So it will be interesting to see how it ends up for the Swedes.

You could say that Sweden is following standard pandemic procedures and the rest of the world is experimenting with locking down the fit.

Yeah, they assumed that infection and recovery gives immunity which was reasonable imo. I think for SARS/MERS immunity lasts 2/3 years on average so together with the assumption that covid19 would be seasonal (like flu) their mitigation plan is feasible for 2 years (say) and then we have a vaccine. (fingers crossed)

The antibody studies suggesting only 5% of populations have them for such an infectious disease is a kick in the nuts but is there a chance that a "recovered body" will remember having had the disease if it's attacked again even if they don't test well for antibodies? This has something to do with memory B cells but I've a poor understanding of all this.

I think (assuming immunity and seasonality above) that when all is said and done the excess mortality due to covid19 for 2020 will be similar to a bad flu year or double but I'm more concerned with the prognosis for recovered people and any long term unknown effects.

thebaz

Havnt posted here in a long time - back when Sweden was getting hammered for persuing a Herd immunity strategy - people calling it genocide - and mortality rates of 10% were being advised.

Dr. Cambell , who seams a pretty balanced Doctor , now suggests that Herd immunity is the only real cure for Covid-19 .
Meanwhile the author of the esteemed Imperial college report that was suggesting 100s of thousands of deaths , is on gardening leave for , not obeying his own extereme lockdown measures - meanwhile WHO are saying maybe the Swedish plan is the actual way forward - What a crazy world - Is it any wonder many of us are extremly sceptical of what we are being preached by our supposed betters, that extereme lockdown and backward tracing is the only cure for eliminating a virus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kab6c8CNZOI

charlie14

the incredible pudding wrote: »

The rate of new cases in Sweden is impossible to gather as the amount of testing that's been done has been incredibly variable (were doing pretty much no testing other than people that work in the hospitals / very sick until very recently so we just really can't read too much into that figure - it's just not that simple. The number of people in ICU is accurate and easier to trust though, which is why it's good to see it drop - it shows a curve that is measurable.

You wouldn't expect the rate of infection in Spain to be that high given the early lockdown - going by that study - the % of those with antibodies in high population areas such as Madrid being around being around 13.5% isn't surprising and is imo relatively high for a region that has entered lockdown so I'd argue you're inferring something that may or not be true based on that 5% figure.

I was not inferring anything.
Their daily new confirmed cases are over 600 per day for 5 days of the last week. The perceived knowledge by some here weeks ago was that Sweden were entering a phase where those tests would reduce the ratio of confirmed cases to fatalities, yet it is still over 12%


Spain`s population is 4.5 times that of Sweden. Comparing like for like Sweden`s total confirmed cases of 29,000 equate to 60,000 in Spain and Sweden`s fatalities of 3,646 equate to 6,000 in Spain.


That 5% is not my figure. It`s that of Spain`s Carlos III Health Institute based on 70,000 blood samples from which they deduced that only 5% of the population have developed antibody`s. A figure in line with the findings of France`s Pasteur Institute.
!3.5% from one particular highly effected area is not only a long long way off herd immunity, it is irrelevant for national herd immunity when the overall national antibody figure is just 5%

bb1234567

ElTel wrote: »

You could say that Sweden is following standard pandemic procedures and the rest of the world is experimenting with locking down the fit.

Yeah, they assumed that infection and recovery gives immunity which was reasonable imo. I think for SARS/MERS immunity lasts 2/3 years on average so together with the assumption that covid19 would be seasonal (like flu) their mitigation plan is feasible for 2 years (say) and then we have a vaccine. (fingers crossed)

The antibody studies suggesting only 5% of populations have them for such an infectious disease is a kick in the nuts but is there a chance that a "recovered body" will remember having had the disease if it's attacked again even if they don't test well for antibodies? This has something to do with memory B cells but I've a poor understanding of all this.

I think (assuming immunity and seasonality above) that when all is said and done the excess mortality due to covid19 will be similar to a bad flu year or double but I'm more concerned with the prognosis for recovered people and any long term unknown effects.

Certainly does not look to be greatly affected by seasonal weather. It is 23-25C in Sao Paulo , Brazi's epicentre, and Brazil is on course to reach almost 100,000 deaths by August in a best case scenario. It may be affected by warmer weather in a minor way. But certainly nowhere near as much as influenza, influenza activity is literally zilch in warm weather, COVID is clearly capable of sustained exponential growth in tropical climate.

Given that it is more infectious, and the IFR is now largely established as around 1%, it would be extremely optimistic to say the total would be anywhere near that of common influenza.

Charles Babbage

Sweden with more deaths today than France. They didn't start off especially bad, but are not reducing quickly and it does add up.

Harry Palmr

Anyone who has any sort of a notion should be able to predict the shape of the Swedish curve. It's going to look a bit like Table Mountain or Benbulben

worldometers.info stats as of May 13th. Updates in bold

Sweden pop 10.23m (2019 est)
Ireland pop 4.904m (2019 est)

Sweden total known cases 27,909 (29,207 15/5)
Ireland total known cases 23,401

Sweden Tests per million 17,576
Ireland Tests per million 52,414 (3 times the rate of Sweden)

Sweden total deaths using official criteria 3,460 (only includes cases confirmed in a laboratory) (3,646 15/5)
Ireland total deaths using official criteria 1,497 (numbers include presumed/suspected cases)

Sweden moving five day deaths 285
Ireland moving five day deaths 68

Sweden Active Cases 19,478 (15/5 20,590)
Ireland Active Cases 2,434

jimmycrackcorm

thebaz wrote: »

What a crazy world - Is it any wonder many of us are extremly sceptical of what we are being preached by our supposed betters, that extereme lockdown and backward tracing is the only cure for eliminating a virus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kab6c8CNZOI

How many times does it have to be repeated?
Our approach has been oriented towards making sure our health service wasn't getting overwhelmed, and that we didn't turn out like northern Italy.

MadYaker

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Anyone who has any sort of a notion should be able to predict the shape of the Swedish curve. It's going to look a bit like Table Mountain or Benbulben

worldometers.info stats as of May 13th. Updates in bold

Sweden pop 10.23m (2019 est)
Ireland pop 4.904m (2019 est)

Sweden total known cases 27,909 (29,207 15/5)
Ireland total known cases 23,401

Sweden Tests per million 17,576
Ireland Tests per million 52,414 (3 times the rate of Sweden)

Sweden total deaths using official criteria 3,460 (only includes cases confirmed in a laboratory) (3,646 15/5)
Ireland total deaths using official criteria 1,497 (numbers include presumed/suspected cases)

Sweden moving five day deaths 285
Ireland moving five day deaths 68

Sweden Active Cases 19,478 (15/5 20,590)
Ireland Active Cases 2,434

For the Sweden advocates how is that in any way better than our situation? It would’ve been even worse here because we have way less ICU capacity. They’re only reporting hospital deaths and doing fcuk all testing so the numbers are not only worse than ours they are also under reported.

Bit cynical

thebaz wrote: »

Is it any wonder many of us are extremly sceptical of what we are being preached by our supposed betters, that extereme lockdown and backward tracing is the only cure for eliminating a virus.

Extreme lockdown, of course, does work. Whatever way the virus is transmitted, physically separating people will hinder its spread, though costs are such that famine is likely in some poorer parts of the world.

The tracking, tracing and isolation strategy I'm not sure is that effective with this virus given the presence of non-symptomatic spreaders. The countries that employ it also have other measures in place that curb the virus. Ireland tried track and trace early on and quickly ran out of capacity. Those that complain about lack of evidence for herd immunity seem to lend a lot of credibility to tracking and tracing despite there not being much evidence for its effectiveness. It was recommended at the outset as a way of dealing with the virus when very little was known at the time.

The same people also put a lot of hope into an effective vaccine in the future even though vaccination programmes themselves employ the concept of herd immunity as a cornerstone.

Mike3287

Doesn't seem so bad there

Im pretty suprised with those figures

Thought it was like a warzone, with bodies all over the place with them getting such negativity

60 deaths under 50 in 5 months from Covid19

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

They've had nearly 1000 die over 90 year

wakka12

Mike3287 wrote: »

Doesn't seem so bad there

Im pretty suprised with those figures

Thought it was like a warzone, with bodies all over the place with them getting such negativity

60 deaths under 50 in 5 months from Covid19

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

They've had nearly 1000 die over 90 year

Jaysus that is ollldddd. Was surprised to see over 1% of Sweden's population is over 90 though

charlie14

Mike3287 wrote: »

Doesn't seem so bad there

Im pretty suprised with those figures

Thought it was like a warzone, with bodies all over the place with them getting such negativity

60 deaths under 50 in 5 months from Covid19

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

They've had nearly 1000 die over 90 year

Doesn`t seem so bad anywhere if that is the yardstick you are using.

The world could have saved it`s self a lot of effort time and money by just shooting all those over 90 years. getting them to stand close together would even have saved on bullets :rolleyes:

Mike3287

wakka12 wrote: »

Jaysus that is ollldddd. Was surprised to see over 1% of Sweden's population is over 90 though

That means 5% of Sweden's over 90 population died of covid in the last two months

Amazing alright

Must be one of the highest in the world

Mike3287

charlie14 wrote: »

Doesn`t seem so bad anywhere if that is the yardstick you are using.

The world could have saved it`s self a lot of effort time and money by just shooting all those over 90 years. getting them to stand close together would even have saved on bullets :rolleyes:

Ah man if your over 90 youve done well

No need for the bullet talk

fash

ElTel wrote: »

I think (assuming immunity and seasonality above) that when all is said and done the excess mortality due to covid19 will be similar to a bad flu year or double .

Not a chance of that. The attack rate for flu is 10% of the population and the IFR of flu is around 0.025% (this is as being strict about it as one is about Covid IFR- and can be higher with bad flus) and of Covid seems to be settling around 1.2-1.3% - assuming the health care system doesn't get overwhelmed but also that treatment doesn't radically improve.

So that is an annual flu death rate of about 0.0025% of the population while with Covid, assuming you are seeking herd immunity at around 70% (although I've seen estimates of 80% needed), you are looking at a total mortality rate of 0.84% or 336 times worse - and that is for round 1 only.

tabby aspreme

Are there any figures to compare the ratio of deaths from residents of care homes, relative to death's in the general population, between Ireland and Sweden, you would think Sweden should have a higher rate, among the general population, without a lockdown.

MadYaker

tabby aspreme wrote: »

Are there any figures to compare the ratio of deaths from residents of care homes, relative to death's in the general population, between Ireland and Sweden, you would think Sweden should have a higher rate, among the general population, without a lockdown.

Not sure. But based on their overall numbers id say deaths in the general population would be higher as well since both countries have had around 50% of deaths in care homes. Their health system also has a much higher capacity than ours.

YFlyer

Sweden's deaths per known positive cases are approximately twice that compare to Ireland.

Danzy

Going by Massachusetts, which has a half million less than Ireland's full population, 10% with antibodies and near 6k dead.

That's a shocking amount of dead to reach herd immunity, nevermind the deaths from other things as the health system crashed.

Economically it would finish things, people would be shell shocked for months and saying we had herd immunity now wouldn't change that.


Every place is different.

ElTel

bb1234567 wrote: »

Certainly does not look to be greatly affected by seasonal weather. It is 23-25C in Sao Paulo , Brazi's epicentre, and Brazil is on course to reach almost 100,000 deaths by August in a best case scenario. It may be affected by warmer weather in a minor way. But certainly nowhere near as much as influenza, influenza activity is literally zilch in warm weather, COVID is clearly capable of sustained exponential growth in tropical climate.

Given that it is more infectious, and the IFR is now largely established as around 1%, it would be extremely optimistic to say the total would be anywhere near that of common influenza.

I think because SARS-CoV-2 is new it's fair to say it hasn't had time to reveal it's seasonality.
It's evolution to begin with in China/SK/Japan/Iran/Italy/Seattle/N Cali all lie in a similar band of latitude so it seems to like 15 degrees C and 50% humidity (guesstimates) and it then moved to the southern hemisphere as they come into their winter.

Of course the connectivity of the modern world and it's infectiousness means it can be a problem anywhere once it gets a foothold. I agree that warm weather doesn't dent it much but maybe in the future with border checks and a better understanding likely outbreaks can be better predicted. Humidity is a big factor too for coronaviruses.

I agree with your last point and I'm going to amend my OP and insert 'for 2020' instead of 'due to covid19'.

ElTel

fash wrote: »

Not a chance of that. The attack rate for flu is 10% of the population and the IFR of flu is around 0.025% (this is as being strict about it as one is about Covid IFR- and can be higher with bad flus) and of Covid seems to be settling around 1.2-1.3% - assuming the health care system doesn't get overwhelmed but also that treatment doesn't radically improve.

So that is an annual flu death rate of about 0.0025% of the population while with Covid, assuming you are seeking herd immunity at around 70% (although I've seen estimates of 80% needed), you are looking at a total mortality rate of 0.84% or 336 times worse - and that is for round 1 only.

I've amended the part of my post about excess mortality because I was imprecise. I could debate your numbers and say the IFR for Covid19 is only X10 higher (.4 and .04) and that restrictions/lockdowns means there's not a full population for it to attack but appreciate the point your making.