Sweden avoiding lockdown

Breezin

Our government's feeble response to Swedish criticism of our harsh lockdown and its futile cost.

charlie14

thebaz wrote: »

Equally I could say do you want to go with figures of the Imperial college - ther doomsday figures have not occured - Sweden is at 3,674 deaths - a little over double of Ireland , when its population is double ours -
They will in all probabibility have less deaths from secondary illness and in particular mental health fatalities, that will cripple most of the countrys in mandatory lockdowns :-

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52676981

If you want to believe all the doomsday scenarios related here and in the media , thats your perogative - I'm somehwere in the middle - Believe we have done the right thing up to now, not crippling the health system , but now is time to open other parts of our society so larger percentages of the poplulation can , live , breathe and earn a living and actually enjoy living , and not live in constant fear of virus that has only devasted certain pockets in the world and thankfully has not had the dreaded death rate that many here predicted, I remember figures of 10% were being quoutes, thankfully this has not happened.

That doomsday figure has not occurred because the British Government belatedly abandoned herd immunity in favour of lockdown.
Imperial College figures do have one thing in common with the Swedish strategy though. Unlike the actual research carried out in Spain and France, both are based on mathematical modeling.

Sweden now with 3646 deaths are per population size has deaths 20% greater than Ireland`s with that percentage getting larger by the day. Their deaths to confirmed cases ratio is over 12%, more than twice that of Ireland, and from a post by Biko here, is now the highest deaths to confirmed cases ratio in the world.

Our health service has not been over-run due to lockdown, and tragic as the numbers are, fatalities without lockdown would have been much higher. As would confirmed cases
For people to now say, when we appear to have some control with confirmed cases and fatalities falling, drop the lockdown completely and lets all run free, as if Covid-19 has suddenly just disappeared, to me is insane.

It was that running free with disregard to the advice on preventative measures that caused the lockdown in the first place.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Our government's feeble response to Swedish criticism of our harsh lockdown and its futile cost.

If his crystal ball gazing into the future is on a par with his knowledge of economics I would not worry too much about his prophecies.

Some of those behind the Swedish strategy seem to be getting a bit miffed over their rise up that table of deaths per 100,000 of population.They recently passed both ourselves and the Netherlands, and I seem to recall them having a dig at the Netherlands recently as well.

charlie14

biko wrote: »

Let's compare Sweden to other EU countries with approx 10 million inhabitants.
Greece 160
Czech Republic 295
Portugal 1200
Sweden 3600
Belgium 8959

Belgium's numbers are so incredibly high because they count anyone remotely suspicious as a covid death - overcounting.
Sweden, while having the most deaths in the Nordics by far, are counting low - undercounting.

Our just compare them to the two countries that border them who have the same combined population as Sweden.

Sweden 3646.
Norway/Finland 529.

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

If his crystal ball gazing into the future is on a par with his knowledge of economics I would not worry too much about his prophecies.

Some of those behind the Swedish strategy seem to be getting a bit miffed over their rise up that table of deaths per 100,000 of population.They recently passed both ourselves and the Netherlands, and I seem to recall them having a dig at the Netherlands recently as well.

Nul points for actually addressing what he said.

thebaz

charlie14 wrote: »

For people to now say, when we appear to have some control with confirmed cases and fatalities falling, drop the lockdown completely and lets all run free, as if Covid-19 has suddenly just disappeared, to me is insane.

It was that running free with disregard to the advice on preventative measures that caused the lockdown in the first place.

Whats wrong with asking people to behave sensibly , not everyone at this stage needs a big brother nanny state to tell them what to do - Thats what I like about the Swedish approach, it asks adults to behave sensibly, and the reality is - most will - most will social distance, you will always get the odd idiot , but that happens in all walks of life - lockdown or no lockdown , unforunatly.

wakka12

thebaz wrote: »

Whats wrong with asking people to behave sensibly , not everyone at this stage needs a big brother nanny state to tell them what to do - Thats what I like about the Swedish approach, it asks adults to behave sensibly, and the reality is - most will - most will social distance, you will always get the odd idiot , but that happens in all walks of life, unforunatly.

Unfortunately Swedish approach is not applicable to all cultures. Not saying Ireland is necessarily like the below, but not every country has as polite and conscientious residents on average as Sweden does

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-police-shut-down-494-house-parties-in-four-days-in-greater-manchester-11971032

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Nul points for actually addressing what he said.

Not even for recognising from the headline he was a bit clueless on economics, or a bonus point for ignoring anything printed in Rupert Murdoch`s comics ?

charlie14

thebaz wrote: »

Whats wrong with asking people to behave sensibly , not everyone at this stage needs a big brother nanny state to tell them what to do - Thats what I like about the Swedish approach, it asks adults to behave sensibly, and the reality is - most will - most will social distance, you will always get the odd idiot , but that happens in all walks of life - lockdown or no lockdown , unforunatly.

Nothing whatsoever wrong with asking people to behave sensibly.
That`s what was asked here before the lockdown

.Unfortunately the weekend before it was imposed showed we didn`t just have the odd idiot. We had loads to spare if anywhere else was running short.

JC 3.14159

charlie14 wrote: »

... Their deaths to confirmed cases ratio is over 12%, more than twice that of Ireland, and from a post by Biko here, is now the highest deaths to confirmed cases ratio in the world.

I'm living in the outskirts of Stockholm. When it comes to Sweden, any ratio which relates to confirmed cases is utter nonsense.
The only people tested here are those that are sick enough to warrant a visit to hospital. This is unlike most other countries, where anyone can get a test if they have some, or all, of the Covid symptoms. So a confirmed case here is someone who has the virus, and is badly affected. 70-80% of confirmed cases in other countries will have minimal, or no symptoms. These people would not show up on the Swedish numbers.

Daily admissions to intensive care (about 15/day in the last week from Folkhälsomyndigheten's tracker website, down from ~40/day in April) and deaths per million population (as many have said here, slightly worse than Ireland, and dropping significantly, but a bit slower than Ireland) - these are useful figures.

But the 12% figure above which is getting churned around the internet does not demonstrate anything useful.

Rant over.
I understand that the results of a larger scale (and scientifically rigorous, this time) antibody survey will be released next week here. This will tell an interesting story. The antibody surveys in Spain and France etc are low, but I would expect Sweden's (or at least Stockholm's) to be significantly higher. Places like Madrid have a relatively high rate of infection and deaths, but this is from what - a couple of weeks of the virus spreading, before a strict lockdown kicked in and cut transmission to a minimum.

Stockholm - and to a lesser extent the rest of Sweden, will have maintained a much higher transmission rate. All the time that other countries have been in lockdown, life has more or less carried on here (for everyone except at-risk groups).
This is completely anecdotal, but judging by the absentee rate from school, the amount of teachers who are off sick, etc, the rate of infection in the community seems pretty high.

However -if next week's survey shows that antibody prevalence in Stockholm is low - then every country in the world has a major problem. If the population here have not started to build up immunity, then nowhere is going to.

bb1234567

JC 3.14159 wrote: »

I'm living in the outskirts of Stockholm. When it comes to Sweden, any ratio which relates to confirmed cases is utter nonsense.
The only people tested here are those that are sick enough to warrant a visit to hospital. This is unlike most other countries, where anyone can get a test if they have some, or all, of the Covid symptoms. So a confirmed case here is someone who has the virus, and is badly affected. 70-80% of confirmed cases in other countries will have minimal, or no symptoms. These people would not show up on the Swedish numbers.

Daily admissions to intensive care (about 15/day in the last week from Folkhälsomyndigheten's tracker website, down from ~40/day in April) and deaths per million population (as many have said here, slightly worse than Ireland, and dropping significantly, but a bit slower than Ireland) - these are useful figures.

But the 12% figure above which is getting churned around the internet does not demonstrate anything useful.

Rant over.
I understand that the results of a larger scale (and scientifically rigorous, this time) antibody survey will be released next week here. This will tell an interesting story. The antibody surveys in Spain and France etc are low, but I would expect Sweden's (or at least Stockholm's) to be significantly higher. Places like Madrid have a relatively high rate of infection and deaths, but this is from what - a couple of weeks of the virus spreading, before a strict lockdown kicked in and cut transmission to a minimum.

Stockholm - and to a lesser extent the rest of Sweden, will have maintained a much higher transmission rate. All the time that other countries have been in lockdown, life has more or less carried on here (for everyone except at-risk groups).
This is completely anecdotal, but judging by the absentee rate from school, the amount of teachers who are off sick, etc, the rate of infection in the community seems pretty high.

However -if next week's survey shows that antibody prevalence in Stockholm is low - then every country in the world has a major problem. If the population here have not started to build up immunity, then nowhere is going to.

That will be interesting. It will be nice to get some closure, everything still feels so uncertain.

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

Not even for recognising from the headline he was a bit clueless on economics, or a bonus point for ignoring anything printed in Rupert Murdoch`s comics ?

It was a Newstalk interview.

charlie14

JC 3.14159 wrote: »

I'm living in the outskirts of Stockholm. When it comes to Sweden, any ratio which relates to confirmed cases is utter nonsense.
The only people tested here are those that are sick enough to warrant a visit to hospital. This is unlike most other countries, where anyone can get a test if they have some, or all, of the Covid symptoms. So a confirmed case here is someone who has the virus, and is badly affected. 70-80% of confirmed cases in other countries will have minimal, or no symptoms. These people would not show up on the Swedish numbers.

Daily admissions to intensive care (about 15/day in the last week from Folkhälsomyndigheten's tracker website, down from ~40/day in April) and deaths per million population (as many have said here, slightly worse than Ireland, and dropping significantly, but a bit slower than Ireland) - these are useful figures.

But the 12% figure above which is getting churned around the internet does not demonstrate anything useful.

Rant over.
I understand that the results of a larger scale (and scientifically rigorous, this time) antibody survey will be released next week here. This will tell an interesting story. The antibody surveys in Spain and France etc are low, but I would expect Sweden's (or at least Stockholm's) to be significantly higher. Places like Madrid have a relatively high rate of infection and deaths, but this is from what - a couple of weeks of the virus spreading, before a strict lockdown kicked in and cut transmission to a minimum.

Stockholm - and to a lesser extent the rest of Sweden, will have maintained a much higher transmission rate. All the time that other countries have been in lockdown, life has more or less carried on here (for everyone except at-risk groups).
This is completely anecdotal, but judging by the absentee rate from school, the amount of teachers who are off sick, etc, the rate of infection in the community seems pretty high.

However -if next week's survey shows that antibody prevalence in Stockholm is low - then every country in the world has a major problem. If the population here have not started to build up immunity, then nowhere is going to.

Two thing that 12+% ratio of deaths to confirmed case I have been curious of.

For one it appears that Sweden is not that actively testing for members of the general public who may be infected, and two it look as if Sweden are only reporting deaths of those who have been confirmed before they passed.
Is Sweden possibly not including in their figures those that may have passed due to Covid-19 but were not tested prior ?


The Spanish antibody survey with 70,000 participants that came up with that 5% nationally and that 90% of infections had gone undetected does seem pretty thorough. France independently with 4.4% would give it further credibility.


Sweden`s survey will be interesting.
Your Dr.Tegnell in a video here a week ago estimated 25% for Stockholm, which I found surprising as it was lower than a revised figure of 27% a few weeks earlier.

With half confirmed cases in Stockholm whatever the figure is I would expect that it will be much higher than the rest of Sweden.

With Stockholm making up just 20% of the population, how that translates to the rest of Sweden for a national herd immunity of 70% I`m afraid I just cannot see possible any time soon. Especially with a Ro below 1.

Of course the major problems with immunity is, regardless of how many may be immune, we do not know to what level or for how long it will be effective for.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

It was a Newstalk interview.

Rarely listen to it. Does Denis O`Brien still own it?

Hmmzis

Charlie14, if Re below 1 that means 'heard immunity'. It's the definition of it. Whether that actually is the case for Sweden I can't say, not enough data.

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

Rarely listen to it. Does Denis O`Brien still own it?

All media is owned by someone.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, (Prof) Giesecke said: "I don't think that serial lock-up is a very good solution.

"You are destroying the fabric of your society and your economy and you're pushing the serious cases into the future."

charlie14

Hmmzis wrote: »

Charlie14, if Re below 1 that means 'heard immunity'. It's the definition of it. Whether that actually is the case for Sweden I can't say, not enough data.

If that is the actual case then why would Tegnell say a week ago that his estimate for Stockholm alone was 25% ?

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

All media is owned by someone.

It is indeed, but I prefer to avoid media whose owners have been shown to use that ownership to further their own agendas at times.

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

It is indeed, but I prefer to avoid media whose owners have been shown to use that ownership to further their own agendas at times.

Well I didn't want to turn this into a media discussion, but Newstalk, not my fav outlet by any means, has proven better at providing diversity on the subject than has RTE and other highly-regarded news outlets.

And it is noteworthy that you also found convenient reasons to ignore material from one of the Guardian's less excitable columnists.

You still haven't engaged with the dreadful reality in that interview:

Giesecke said: "I don't think that serial lock-up is a very good solution.
"You are destroying the fabric of your society and your economy and you're pushing the serious cases into the future."

biko

Interesting article from a Covid ward in a Stockholm hospital, and relates to what I posted before about patients not getting all the efforts.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.expressen.se%2Fnyheter%2Fqs%2Fsvett-skrack-och-syrebrist-detta-ar-viruskriget-inifran%2F

Of the patients on MIMA, some have woken up from intubation - that is, from the anesthetic where the body gets oxygen through a plastic tube in the throat. They can be on the road of improvement. Others come from departments with lighter care and now require heavier efforts.

For about half of those admitted to the ward, this is as far as they will go on the care ladder.
The ability to anesthetize them with a tube in their neck indefinitely is considered unwise and inhumane.
Their bodies would not cope with care at IVA, intensive care unit.

They are "IVA zeroed" as it is called.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Well I didn't want to turn this into a media discussion, but Newstalk, not my fav outlet by any means, has proven better at providing diversity on the subject than has RTE and other highly-regarded news outlets.

And it is noteworthy that you also found convenient reasons to ignore material from one of the Guardian's less excitable columnists.

You still haven't engaged with the dreadful reality in that interview:

I really do not know what it is you expect me to engage with.

His own Central Bank and his country`s independent economic think tank, the National Institute for Economic Research, both disagree with him on economics where they both see Sweden`s GDP for the year being no better that other European countries that used lockdown.
From the headline, (which I assume reflects the other main point he made), it is just his own hypothesis.
Being one of the main principals behind the Swedish strategy that is not surprising, but it is a hypothesis that the majority of his own peers disagree with.

biko

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/personal-pa-fler-aldreboenden-larmar-om-brister

"We have to beg to get hand sanitiser"
"It's the same as Berga, it's even worse, says "Anna" who works at Bergsund and wants to be anonymous."

the incredible pudding

biko wrote: »

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/personal-pa-fler-aldreboenden-larmar-om-brister

"We have to beg to get hand sanitiser"
"It's the same as Berga, it's even worse, says "Anna" who works at Bergsund and wants to be anonymous."

The nursing homes here f**ked up big time, no question. I've read loads of anecdotes of people not being able to get the right protective gear and being told to come to work even if a family member is sick / they were showing minor symptoms. The workers are often on short-term contracts so find it harder to avail of the government subsidies of being able to be paid whilst calling in sick - these are private institutions and policies should have been enforced and the recommendations needed to be clearer and stronger. The government should have intervened back in March in this case and they've admitted as much. I'm still a bit weirded out by how they've decided not to officially recommend that people use face masks though you're seeing them a bit more commonly it's still a large minority seemingly.

biko

But Anders Tegnell said 7 years ago that Sweden's preparedness were good and contingency plans had been worked out.
Then when the crisis happens he, and the government, are caught with their pants down.

Have Ireland boasted for years too that they were prepared?

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

I really do not know what it is you expect me to engage with.

His own Central Bank and his country`s independent economic think tank, the National Institute for Economic Research, both disagree with him on economics where they both see Sweden`s GDP for the year being no better that other European countries that used lockdown.
From the headline, (which I assume reflects the other main point he made), it is just his own hypothesis.
Being one of the main principals behind the Swedish strategy that is not surprising, but it is a hypothesis that the majority of his own peers disagree with.

You only read the headline? Even Sun readers are expected to do more than that.
The essential point is that all our lockdown fervour and its associated costs are for nought when, in the absence of a vaccine, all we are doing is delaying the inevitable. Something WHO is admitting lately.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Well I didn't want to turn this into a media discussion, but Newstalk, not my fav outlet by any means, has proven better at providing diversity on the subject than has RTE and other highly-regarded news outlets.

And it is noteworthy that you also found convenient reasons to ignore material from one of the Guardian's less excitable columnists.

You still haven't engaged with the dreadful reality in that interview:

In light of what biko has just posted he could be using his time better addressing the apparent economic driven decisions behind his own strategy rather than making baseless economic criticisms of other states.

the incredible pudding

biko wrote: »

But Anders Tegnell said 7 years ago that Sweden's preparedness were good and contingency plans had been worked out.
Then when the crisis happens he, and the government, are caught with their pants down.

Have Ireland boasted for years too that they were prepared?

That article is solely focused on the agreements for distributions of a vaccine and the medications for preventative measures / help alleviate symptoms for people though. The fact that Sweden's ICUs aren't overrun (they're still stressed, don't get me wrong) despite not engaging in the same lockdowns imposed by other European countries over a month ago at least shows that the health services are prepared (or at least not overrun / terribly ill prepared).

The nursing home situation is somewhat different as they're private and from what I've spoken to with locals here is that there's kind of weird expectation that people & companies will 'do the right thing' without having to be told by law. I think this was obviously a huge mistake to carry that idea with respects to handling how the nursing homes here are operated.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

You only read the headline? Even Sun readers are expected to do more than that.
The essential point is that all our lockdown fervour and its associated costs are for nought when, in the absence of a vaccine, all we are doing is delaying the inevitable. Something WHO is admitting lately.

Do Sun readers actually read headlines?
I thought they just went directly to page 3. Or whatever the equivalent is nowadays.

The WHO when it comes to vaccines will always err on the side of caution. They are also very sceptical on herd immunity, yet some here seem to believe that herd immunity is a given and we should all drop every other alternative approach and just go for it.
What would your alternative be if both a vaccine and herd immunity did not prove viable.

the incredible pudding

charlie14 wrote: »

In light of what biko has just posted he could be using his time better addressing the apparent economic driven decisions behind his own strategy rather than making baseless economic criticisms of other states.

Where have they stated that they're economically driven decisions? I don't buy that. I mean they don't want people's livelihoods to be destroyed but most of the press conferences (which I have translated for me by kind colleagues) usually stress the idea that they're trying to create something more sustainable over the long term for how people actually live day to day to prevent greater social unrest. People keep talking about herd immunity but that's something Trump said about Sweden's strategy which was immediately refuted here by the officials.

Polls here show that most people are pretty happy with how it's still working out. I was terrified for the first few weeks (and still am in certain parts of the city where I don't think people are showing appropriate precautions) but am slowly coming around to the idea that it might be the best approach if this is to last for another half/full year or more. That being said, I don't know and won't know this until we see this all pans out especially when we see other countries relaxing restrictions.

charlie14

the incredible pudding wrote: »

Where have they stated that they're economically driven decision? I don't buy that is. I mean they don't want people's livelihoods to be destroyed but most of the press conferences (which I have translated for me by kind colleagues) usually stress the idea that they're trying to create something more sustainable over the long term for how people actually live day to day to prevent greater social unrest. People keep talking about herd immunity but that's something Trump said about Sweden's strategy which was immediately refuted here by the officials.

Polls here show that most people are pretty happy with how it's still working out. I was terrified for the first few weeks (and still am in certain parts of the city where I don't think people are showing appropriate precautions) but am slowly coming around to the idea that it might be the best approach if this is to last for another half/full year or more. That being said, I don't know and won't know this until we see this all pans out especially when we see other countries relaxing restrictions.

From what biko has posted recently there appears to be a lot of penny pinching when it comes to even attempting to safeguard staff and while I am sick and tired of repeating this, both Sweden`s own Central Bank and Institute of Economic Research do not see Sweden`s strategy being any more economically favourable than that of any other European country that used lockdown as their strategy.

People were looking at Sweden`s strategy as herd immunity long before Trump elbowed onto the bandwagon.
If the strategy is not primarily driven by a belief in herd immunity, it is difficult to see what else it is. They are doing very little testing for infections in the general population but are, according to a poster here, now carrying out a major testing survey on immunity.
To early to tell, but so far some of those countries that used lockdown to get their fatality and new case rates down to a low level seem to be doing ok after easing restrictions.