Sweden avoiding lockdown

tobefrank321

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Giesecke is of the opinion that there is very little can be done to stop the spread so why bother trying when it will eventually spread anyway.

Which is at odds with the approach of almost every other country, and hes essentially throwing in the towel and taking a gamble on those high risk categories. Thats a hell of a gamble to take, let people die from this now, dont bother trying to stop it because they will eventually get it.

He is basing his predictions on this - "I expect that when we count the number of deaths from COVID-19 in each country in one year from now, the figures will be similar, regardless of measures taken," he added

Thats a hell of a gamble to take, let people die from this now, dont bother trying to stop it because they will eventually get it anyway. It gives no consideration to a therapeutic or a vaccination being available, it gives no consideration to hospital capacity.

I think you are misreading what he is saying. I've no doubt the Swedes are trying their best to keep it out of nursing homes like many other countries, but its a very difficult virus to keep out.

For example in Ireland, our current strategy is test nursing home staff and residents. By the time they are tested and show as positive its likely they already have spread the virus in the nursing home. This shows how difficult it is.

His point is you could lockdown indefinitely and old people dying from this will still happen. You will eventually reduce the deaths. But what happens when you open up again? The virus goes away? Or comes in another wave.

If we had followed the Swedish approach, given they have twice our population, we'd be looking at close to 2000 deaths. Not a huge difference to where we are now.

It calls into question those who say, if we didn't lockdown we'd have tens of thousands of deaths. Nope, if we had followed the Swedish model, at most we'd have had 500 more deaths at this point. And that's yet to account for a second wave. So Giesecke may well be proved right.

lawrencesummers

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I think you are misreading what he is saying. I've no doubt the Swedes are trying their best to keep it out of nursing homes like many other countries, but its a very difficult virus to keep out. Its not as if they are deliberately killing their old people.

For example in Ireland, our current strategy is test nursing home staff and residents. By the time they are tested and show as positive its likely they already have spread the virus in the nursing home. This shows how difficult it is.

His point is you could lockdown indefinitely and old people dying from this will still happen. You will eventually reduce the deaths. But what happens when you open up again? The virus goes away? Or comes in another wave.

If we had followed the Swedish approach, given they have twice our population, we'd be looking at close to 2000 deaths. Not a huge difference to where we are now.

It calls into question those who say, if we didn't lockdown we'd have tens of thousands of deaths. Nope, if we had followed the Swedish model, at most we'd have had 500 more deaths at this point. And that's yet to account for a second wave. So Giesecke may well be proved right.

Im not misreading anything he is saying, its very simple and clear.

The sweeds are not trying their best to keep anything at bay, read what he has said. They are taking the stance that its not possible to keep it at bay.

Its been acknowledged that Nursing homes here have not been handled correctly. They now represent one of two areas where clusters are active, wide spread community transmission has been all but eliminated.

Comparisons between Ireland and Sweden are impossible to make, different country, geography, housing, schooling, structures, public transport, culture, health etc etc, and predictions on deaths is equally pointless.

It may transpire that our approach wasnt the best, that we were to cautious when the figures are accurate enough to tell, but that cant possibly be judged now.

Mic 1972

is_that_so wrote: »

Because it was new and we didn't know how to deal with it. We know a lot more now and in a 2nd wave it is far more likely to be controlled quickly.

how do you control it? lockdown is not longer an option, we are slowly getting out of it and not going back

PhoenixParker

If we had followed the Swedish approach, given they have twice our population, we'd be looking at close to 2000 deaths.

This is categorically wrong. Dublin has very strong connections to London and New York both world leading hotspots of this virus. It also has strong connections to Madrid, Northern Italy and around Europe. Culturally we have strong intergenerational ties, smallish personal bubbles, big weddings, big funerals, like to sing and are more prone to attending religious services. These are all things that would contribute to Ireland having a higher initial R and k value than Sweden and thus a more rapid spread in the early phase of the epidemic.

If we had followed Sweden's approach our result would have been closer to what happened in the UK (which initially was going a more open version of the Swedish route) than what happened in Sweden.

Denmark had a similar early phase to Sweden and is culturally similar. If Sweden had followed Denmarks path they would be below 100 deaths per million.

tobefrank321

PhoenixParker wrote: »

This is categorically wrong. Dublin has very strong connections to London and New York both world leading hotspots of this virus. It also has strong connections to Madrid, Northern Italy and around Europe. Culturally we have strong intergenerational ties, smallish personal bubbles, big weddings, big funerals, like to sing and are more prone to attending religious services. These are all things that would contribute to Ireland having a higher initial R and k value than Sweden and thus a more rapid spread in the early phase of the epidemic.

If we had followed Sweden's approach our result would have been closer to what happened in the UK (which initially was going a more open version of the Swedish route) than what happened in Sweden.

Denmark had a similar early phase to Sweden and is culturally similar. If Sweden had followed Denmarks path they would be below 100 deaths per million.

The flights are a different issue. You can restrict flights and quarantine passengers - its not really the same as locking down the entire country. Had we restricted flights and quarantined returnees from Italy, UK etc, we would not have had to go down the full lockdown route, because all our cases originally came from this foreign travel.

Regards cultural differences, 25% of Sweden's population is made up of people not born in Sweden - Somalis, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians to name but a few - all sharing similar cultural aspects as you describe about us - Religious/Mosque gatherings, intergenerational ties, close living quarters, even more so in Sweden.

LuckyLloyd

So the Swedes have the highest death rate, are still suffering economically, without achieving particularly high or protective levels of immunity in the population:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_WhatsApp

So what now? Seems like they’re just killing people for no reason.

tobefrank321

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

So the Swedes have the highest death rate, are still suffering economically, without achieving particularly high or protective levels of immunity in the population:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_WhatsApp

So what now? Seems like they’re just killing people for no reason.

You realise countries have to come out of lockdown eventually right?

Sweden's current unemployment rate is about 10%. Ireland's is about 25% during lockdown.

lawrencesummers

tobefrank321 wrote: »

The flights are a different issue. You can restrict flights and quarantine passengers - its not really the same as locking down the entire country. Had we restricted flights and quarantined returnees from Italy, UK etc, we would not have had to go down the full lockdown route, because all our cases originally came from this foreign travel.

Regards cultural differences, 25% of Sweden's population is made up of people not born in Sweden - Somalis, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians to name but a few - all sharing similar cultural aspects as you describe about us - Religious/Mosque gatherings, intergenerational ties, close living quarters, even more so in Sweden.

/
Is this opinion of yours proven to have worked in any other county? What about ferry travel, north south travel by road and rail? Would they have been quarantined???

lawrencesummers

?

tobefrank321 wrote: »

You realise countries have to come out of lockdown eventually right?

Sweden's current unemployment rate is about 10%. Ireland's is about 25% during lockdown.

And what will they both be in 6 months?

alchemist33

tobefrank321 wrote: »

You realise countries have to come out of lockdown eventually right?

Sweden's current unemployment rate is about 10%. Ireland's is about 25% during lockdown.

Unemployment after lockdown will be a better guage. It'll be interesting to see how Sweden does economically in the longterm

quokula

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Regards cultural differences, 25% of Sweden's population is made up of people not born in Sweden - Somalis, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians to name but a few - all sharing similar cultural aspects as you describe about us - Religious/Mosque gatherings, intergenerational ties, close living quarters, even more so in Sweden.

At the risk of going off topic, your figures are way out. 19% of people in Sweden are foreign born, and the bulk of those are Finnish or other European. The nationalities you name combine to make up about 4%, which is a long way from the implied 25%.

tobefrank321

lawrencesummers wrote: »

/
Is this opinion of yours proven to have worked in any other county? What about ferry travel, north south travel by road and rail? Would they have been quarantined???

Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and several others.

Without flight restrictions and/or a proper mandatory quarantining system, you can lock down for eternity but it won't make much difference in the long run.

NI aren't doing too badly these days actually.

tobefrank321

quokula wrote: »

At the risk of going off topic, your figures are way out. 19% of people in Sweden are foreign born, and the bulk of those are Finnish or other European. The nationalities you name combine to make up about 4%, which is a long way from the implied 25%.

I didn't say those nationalities made up 25%. I said they make up some of the non Swede minority. Almost 25% are born abroad or born to parents who were born abroad. I accept your figure of 19% born abroad. The demographic situation is complicated in Sweden.

charlie14

Mic 1972 wrote: »

how do you control it? lockdown is not longer an option, we are slowly getting out of it and not going back

You do what South Korea did. Testing results contact tracing and quarantine within a maxim of 72 hours. Ideally 48.

tobefrank321

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I didn't say those nationalities made up 25%. I said they make up some of the non Swede minority. Almost 25% are born abroad or born to parents who were born abroad. I accept your figure of 19% born abroad. The demographic situation is complicated in Sweden.

You drastically exaggerated it to blame them for the high figures. I imagine Denmark is pretty similar but still doesn't have extraordinarily high numbers.

PhoenixParker

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I didn't say those nationalities made up 25%. I said they make up some of the non Swede minority. Almost 25% are born abroad or born to parents who were born abroad. I accept your figure of 19% born abroad. The demographic situation is complicated in Sweden.

It is. My husband is a born abroad Swede.

While his Iranian Swedish friends are somewhat closer to Irish cultural behaviour than the Swedes themselves, what I said would still hold true of the Iranian community in his city. Their weddings, funerals etc would be on average bigger than Swedes but not approaching Irish levels. There are strong community bonds but again not like there would be in either Iran or Ireland. Also just by their very nature immigrants have smaller family circles in the vicinity than non-immigrants since the family is split geographically. Community replaces that to a small extent but there aren't the same level of links as a community that goes back generations.

Also those communities are typically pretty non-religious. That's one of the main motivators why they leave their very religious homelands.

tobefrank321

Deleted User wrote: »

You drastically exaggerated it to blame them for the high figures. I imagine Denmark is pretty similar but still doesn't have extraordinarily high numbers.

Drastically exaggerated? Nope I said 25% of Sweden's population is first or second generation non Swede.

They also have a far higher population from the BAME group than Ireland for example.

The BAME group death and covid 19 rates have been a feature in several countries. They are between 2 and 4 times as likely to die depending on age and socio economic circumstances.

Breezin

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

So the Swedes have the highest death rate, are still suffering economically, without achieving particularly high or protective levels of immunity in the population:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_WhatsApp

So what now? Seems like they’re just killing people for no reason.

Does anyone seriously believe Sweden is killing its own people for no reason?

Tegnell was on BBC 4 Today this morning. You have to admire the man's patience, as he's said this so many times at this point, but many people have their ears plugged and are still asking faux naively what their policy is, or else spreading the lie that their policy is herd immunity.

The key point is sustainability of the policy.

Varadkar has admitted today in his Newstalk interview that the strongman act of near-total lockdown is not sustainable and has flagged that the easing will be fast-tracked. He has turned towards Sweden. I'm sure he is not contemplating killing Irish people for no reason.

From the UK Independent:

Anders Tegnell, the country’s state epidemiologist, previously argued Sweden might weather a second wave of the virus better than other countries, because its measures can be kept in place for longer than the harsher lockdowns implemented throughout the world.
“We also have measures that we can keep on doing for a long time,” he said during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “So I think that’s the other part of our reasoning, that we want to have something sustainable if we need to continue this suppression and mitigation that we are doing right now.
“We can go on doing this for a long time since our schools are still open, most of our society is working but on an adapted level. So if it looks like we’re going to get a second wave in the autumn with a lot of cases, we could easily continue doing what we’re doing today.”

PhoenixParker

Varadkar has admitted today in his Newstalk interview that the strongman act of near-total lockdown is not sustainable and has flagged that the easing will be fast-tracked. He has turned towards Sweden. I'm sure he is not contemplating killing Irish people for no reason.

But having had a lockdown we will far fewer people than if we hadn't. The Swedish experience helps prove that.

Their R value is close to 1, thus they have a steady rate of infection/ICU/deaths. That steady rate is quite high.

We can come out of lockdown and let our R value rise to approximately 1 too. However having had the lockdown our resulting levels of infection/ICU/deaths will be at a much lower rate than Sweden's.

jibber5000

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

So the Swedes have the highest death rate, are still suffering economically, without achieving particularly high or protective levels of immunity in the population:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_WhatsApp

So what now? Seems like they’re just killing people for no reason.

The highest death rate over a 7 day period?

You're making it out that they've the highest death rate overall which is clearly not true.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Does anyone seriously believe Sweden is killing its own people for no reason?

Tegnell was on BBC 4 Today this morning. You have to admire the man's patience, as he's said this so many times at this point, but many people have their ears plugged and are still asking faux naively what their policy is, or else spreading the lie that their policy is herd immunity.

The key point is sustainability of the policy.

Varadkar has admitted today in his Newstalk interview that the strongman act of near-total lockdown is not sustainable and has flagged that the easing will be fast-tracked. He has turned towards Sweden. I'm sure he is not contemplating killing Irish people for no reason.

From the UK Independent:

No it is killing people because of a misguided strategy based on economics and immunity.

Economically Sweden`s own Central Bank and independent think tank forecasts that they will fare no better than countries that used a lockdown strategy.
Their antibody results are no better than countries that used lockdown.
Last week Sweden had the highest deaths per million of population from Covid-19 in Europe.
Comparative to their neighbouring countries of Norway,Finland and Denmark their death rate from Covid-19 per 100,000 of population is 3.5 times greater that all three combined.
Their deaths from Covid-19 is also 22% greater than Ireland with that percentage increasing daily.

As to Varadkar turning towards Sweden, from any of the above why would he.
Our strategy unlike Sweden is doing what it set out to do. Because of that their is a timetable for lifting restrictions which will be speed up or slowed down depending on the data. Nothing to do with "turning towards Sweden"

tobefrank321

lawrencesummers wrote: »

?

And what will they both be in 6 months?

Who knows?

But will Sweden have borrowed tens of billions to cover massively increased spending and loss of tax revenue? And that's just from one lockdown period.

Fair enough if there was a huge difference in deaths between the countries, but there isn't.

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

As to Varadkar turning towards Sweden, from any of the above why would he.
Our strategy unlike Sweden is doing what it set out to do. Because of that their is a timetable for lifting restrictions which will be speed up or slowed down depending on the data. Nothing to do with "turning towards Sweden"

Well his spin team are hardly going to admit it now, are they?

But he clearly is messaging to abandon the hard act and buying into the sustainability route.

tobefrank321

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Drastically exaggerated? Nope I said 25% of Sweden's population is first or second generation non Swede.

They also have a far higher population from the BAME group than Ireland for example.

The BAME group death and covid 19 rates have been a feature in several countries. They are between 2 and 4 times as likely to die depending on age and socio economic circumstances.

You referenced specific demographics which amount to a much smaller portion of the population. And I'll repeat, why aren't you comparing them to Denmark? It's a far more relevant comparison.

charlie14

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Who knows?

But will Sweden have borrowed tens of billions to cover massively increased spending and loss of tax revenue? And that's just from one lockdown period.

Fair enough if there was a huge difference in deaths between the countries, but there isn't.

With their GDP predicted to be no better best case scenario than other EU countries they most likely will have to unless they have a massive rainy day fund.

Their is a huge difference in deaths between them and their neighbours. 3.5 times greater per 100,000 than Norway, Finland and Denmark combined.

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Well his spin team are hardly going to admit it now, are they?

But he clearly is messaging to abandon the hard act and buying into the sustainability route.

Whatever you are having yourself, but I would be more inclined to go with what the timetable is, than imaginary mystic messaging

Breezin

charlie14 wrote: »

Whatever you are having yourself, but I would be more inclined to go with what the timetable is, than imaginary mystic messaging

Varadkar doesn't do spin?


And your planet's name is?

charlie14

Breezin wrote: »

Varadkar doesn't do spin?


And your planet's name is?

I didn`t say he didn`t do spin. I asked with all I had listed why would he be "turning towards Sweden" ?
To do that would take more than spin. Mass hypnosis and magic would not even do it.

biko

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/langtidssjuka-isabel-behover-lakarvard-nekas-av-vardcentralen

Isabel needs extensive blood tests, but is not allowed to go to any medical facility because of her long-term covid infection.

Isabel is not alone. When we ask the question in a facebook group for coronas infected, we get overwhelming response.
A nurse testifies there are many patients in the same position and nursing staff agree with the confusion about the directives.

As a result, many coronary patients are at risk of life-long problems as a result of a prolonged period of illness.

seamus

Breezin wrote: »

I'm not so sure I need to feel anxious about being taken seriously by someone who can't parse the notion of order of magnitude.

You should probably feel anxious that you have absolutely no measure of success, and it's just whatever nonsense you pluck from you head.

Apparently now Sweden is only doing worse than Ireland if their death rate is several multiples of ours? I saw that word in your post but reckoned you couldn't possibly be that irrational.

The fact is that you have decided that lockdown is wrong, and you will defend Sweden's approach to the death because it suits your agenda, even as they fail to meet every measure of success of that you invent for them.