Sweden avoiding lockdown

wakka12

Gary kk wrote: »

Kind looks like they have pretty much stopped testing with only 81 new cases in the last twenty four hours.

That was just one update, cases for the last 24 hours are now at 500

Danno

Danno wrote: »

How nice to pick Saturday's 8,000 tests - the only day we ever managed a decent amount since the crisis unfolded. We were doing fifteen hundred a day up to that. We closed some of our fifty testing centres cause there wasn't enough people or tests.

As of yesterday .....There have now been 365 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.......... a total of 10,647 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Mortality rate of 3.4%.

Approx 75,000 tested .......... 14% test positive.

Testing can be improved, no doubt. But we as a nation are doing very well.

biko

If we consider Diamond Princess a perfect Petri dish (712 infected and 12 dead) that gives us 1.69% deadliness

3.4% was cited by the WHO for a while.

Sweden is currently at 9.28% death rate
11536 cases
1071 dead


To compare
Italy death rate 12.84
Spain 10.56
UK 13.03
Ireland 3.42
USA 4.05

biko

biko wrote: »

If we consider Diamond Princess a perfect Petri dish (712 infected and 12 dead) that gives us 1.69% deadliness

3.4% was cited by the WHO for a while.

Sweden is currently at 9.28% death rate

If anything that's an overestimate as people who go on cruises tend to be older or with underlying conditions.

STB.

STB. wrote: »

Absolute deaths are the only numbers that count and the universal way of presenting them. You cannot look at numbers on a cold per million basis. This is not a stock check, its the lives of people lost.

919 people are dead in Sweden, that's more than all the other Nordic countries combined.

I don't want to sound callous but the way some people are talking about this situation you would think nobody ever died before.

We will all die. There is no magic formula that stops people dying.

The logic of "if it saves one life" or "we must save lives at all costs" is never used in normal circumstances by responsible governments. In fact the only place it IS used is in private healthcare, particularly in the US, where vast amounts of money are spent keeping people alive for months or if lucky a year or two at the end of their lives.

On the broader point of Sweden, Ireland, the UK and indeed the rest of the world: it will all come out in the wash.

At the moment many countries are struggling with reporting and it is hard to 'trust' any numbers (although ours are likely to be more accurate simply because the scale is less).

We won't know what impact this had and what the accurate numbers are until mortality rates can be compared (this is how deaths to flu are attributed). It is a fantasy to pretend otherwise.

Based on data from the UK it looks like the 'excess' mortality is about 5-6K per week at the moment. You'd need to see figures for the whole year for every country before you'd make any judgements.

The current obsession over numbers is both massively premature (we are not out of it yet) and also putting too much store against inaccurate data.

BTW, rather than hoping the Swedes fail (which is the poorly concealed desire of many on this thread) we should be desperately hoping they succeed.

It is far, far better to have over-reacted, been 'wrong', and learn that we can safely loosen restrictions than discovering we are going to be in this for a year at least and there is no way out. The Swedish approach may help teach us a lot about what does and does not contribute to the spread of the virus.

Widdensushi

topdecko wrote: »

the rest of Nordic countries have around 16 million people vs Sweden 10 million.

my bad,I didn't regard Denmark as nordic but a quick Google educated me

Widdensushi

biko wrote: »

Other European countries with 10 million inhabitants each are Greece and Portugal.
Sweden 976 dead
Greece 99 dead
Portugal 535 dead, neighbour to Spain with an enormous 15000 dead

I just think that the death rate will have to be judged over a longer period as the swedish approach seems to be to build up immunity faster which of course will lead to more casualties early on.

biko

Deleted User wrote: »

It is far, far better to have over-reacted, been 'wrong', and learn that we can safely loosen restrictions than discovering we are going to be in this for a year at least and there is no way out.

While we "overreacted" they have hardly reacted at all.
There is still no lockdown, and people are free to go about their business as usual (provide they mingle is smaller groups than 50.

Sweden had all the info from China and Italy but chose to do nothing, and are still going in a different direction. And they have been getting updates every day fro other countries.
That's a huge gamble with citizen's lives - I really hope it pays off, but tbh it looks like they will sacrifice old and infirm to maintain their way of life.

The sensible thing when a huge threat like this Corona is approaching is to be as cautious as possible in the beginning, and then loosen restriction - not what Sweden is doing which is starting loose and then tightening restrictions when your citizens start dying.

Kermit.de.frog

114 new deaths in Sweden reported today. 1,033 total.

(20 new deaths yesterday)

Joe_ Public

As i understand it, what a country like ireland hopes to do is slow the transmission rate, delay the spread to buy as much time as possible to allow for ongoing technology developments in terms of testing and/or potential treatments or vaccines.

It is not being portrayed as a cure all solution. If and when restrictions do have to be relaxed then we just might be in a better position, having learned from our own and others situations, to implement it in a way that further lessens the risks. Well, that's the theory anyway.

I wish sweden all the very best. Truly hope it all works out eventually. From the limited knowledge i have, I'm just more comfortable with the approach we're taking. Thats all really.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

IHME are making it up as they go along.

These were the people predicting 66,000 deaths in the UK. hastily amended to 23,000, ie divided by 3 in the space of a week.

They are predicting fewer deaths in Italy than have already taken place, assuming that there is a degree of under-reporting in every major European country.

They don't have a huge amount of credibility on this topic, I am amazed people are still quoting their predictions as if they mean something.

Its called amending the model as more data becomes available. This exercise by IHME is a purely data driven exercise, and does make a lot of assumptions. Each country and regional circumstance is different so the model will prove very inaccurate at times. But with each day more data will drive the model to a more accurate result over time. UK wasn't hastily amended, the new data just had a lower peak and still has a worst case of more than 50k. And given what we know about the UK's reporting of deaths, maybe the original model was accurate

loyatemu

Deleted User wrote: »

The logic of "if it saves one life" or "we must save lives at all costs" is never used in normal circumstances by responsible governments.

I haven't heard anyone in authority saying those things now either. Whatever we do, people will die; but we have to take some measures or the health service will be overwhelmed and many more will die unnecessarily.

sydthebeat

the way sweden are reporting their cases makes it very hard to see any trend.

they announced 114 deaths last tuesday........after a 15, 28, 76 weekend

today they also announced 114 deaths.... after a 17, 12, 20 weekend

are the tuesday figures simply a backlog from the weekend that they have not processed?

looking at their graphs the only pattern is that they have mid-week peaks and mid-weekend troughs.... however the mid-week peaks have been higher for each of the last 3 weeks.....

I think its only when these midweek figures level out or drop can we say that they will have passed their peak

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Again they quote absolute deaths as opposed to deaths per 1M of population. On this metric, they are still in trouble, at 91, whereas Ireland are not far behind at 74.

I wonder do they count deaths in the dishonest way they do in the UK, excluding care homes, which account for over half the deaths here, and doing minimal testing which means that many who die from corona weren't tested so therefore aren't included in the stats?

Deaths per million is meaningless until the virus is gone. For Ireland, a country of 5 million, the virus will spread through the population at a proportionately higher rate than a larger country - i.e it only has to hit just under 50,000 people here to impact 1% of the population, but it has to infect 3 million Americans to do the same. But the incubation and R0 are the same in both countries, therefore it will reach 1% much quicker here without any constraints. Other factors such as population density also come in to it. The true measures we should be looking at are rates of change of the key indicators of hospitalisations, ICU numbers and deaths

wakka12

Deleted User wrote: »

If anything that's an overestimate as people who go on cruises tend to be older or with underlying conditions.

Why would a person with underlying conditions be more likely to go on a cruise? If anything, it would be the opposite. A person in poor health would be much less likely to go on a long trans continental trip than a healthy person

biko

biko wrote: »

While we "overreacted" they have hardly reacted at all.
There is still no lockdown, and people are free to go about their business as usual (provide they mingle is smaller groups than 50.

Sweden had all the info from China and Italy but chose to do nothing, and are still going in a different direction. And they have been getting updates every day fro other countries.
That's a huge gamble with citizen's lives - I really hope it pays off, but tbh it looks like they will sacrifice old and infirm to maintain their way of life.

The sensible thing when a huge threat like this Corona is approaching is to be as cautious as possible in the beginning, and then loosen restriction - not what Sweden is doing which is starting loose and then tightening restrictions when your citizens start dying.

Just to be clear I am not saying we have over-reacted. We don't know yet, and I agree there is nothing wrong with being cautious. It's the best course of action if you can make it stick, and if things change medically or the virus is seasonal then it will 100% have been the right thing to do.

Also Sweden has not done nothing, it has done less. My point is that if there is no massive spike in Sweden we may learn that sensible and not overly draconian measures can be enough to control the spread and flatten the curve enough.

My personal opinion is that we can't get rid of the virus so we should forget about that, it's about management and delay. We need to know what is required to deliver meaningful delay and we don't really know yet. I think in most European countries it was too far gone before the full lockdown so it is useful to see what happens in a halfway house like Sweden.

Crocked

wakka12 wrote: »

Why would a person with underlying conditions be more likely to go on a cruise? If anything, it would be the opposite. A person in poor health would be much less likely to go on a long trans continental trip than a healthy person

Having an underlying condition doesn't mean you are in poor health. Asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc are underlying conditions. None of them mean you are in poor health

loyatemu

wakka12 wrote: »

Why would a person with underlying conditions be more likely to go on a cruise? If anything, it would be the opposite. A person in poor health would be much less likely to go on a long trans continental trip than a healthy person

cruise passengers skew older; older people are more likely to have diabetes, heart conditions, etc.

Going off-topic, good article here basically saying that if this kills off the mega-cruise industry, good riddance.

cgcsb

Sweden is basically in lockdown all the time. There's no point looking at from an Irish perspective. We have a party culture here, socialising is everything. In Dublin on a Saturday night walk from Rathmines northwards for about 4km and you'll hardly get through the crowds. There is nothing like that in Sweden. After 8 everything is closed anyway and the few night clubs are hard to find, mostly empty and clandestine in set up. Young Swedish people are to be found at home with a bottle of anti depressants and ultra grey scale tv drama.

Un1corn

cgcsb wrote: »

Sweden is basically in lockdown all the time. There's no point looking at from an Irish perspective. We have a party culture here, socialising is everything. In Dublin on a Saturday night walk from Rathmines northwards for about 4km and you'll hardly get through the crowds. There is nothing like that in Sweden. After 8 everything is closed anyway and the few night clubs are hard to find, mostly empty and clandestine in set up. Young Swedish people are to be found at home with a bottle of anti depressants and ultra grey scale tv drama.

I get what you are saying actually. My wife is from Taiwan which has 300 cases and 25 million people. Exceptional really. Sure they reacted immediately and have experience in Taiwan. But when I think of the people there all they do is sit at home year-round anyway. The virus has no chance.

biko

cgcsb wrote: »

Sweden is basically in lockdown all the time

Have you even been to Sweden?
Where did you go?

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

My personal opinion is that we can't get rid of the virus so we should forget about that, it's about management and delay.

Thankfully C-19 decisions aren't based on someone's hunch or personal opinion but rather scientific evidence and research.

Joe_ Public

Forget his name but there was a retired doctor/scientist on sky yesterday, based in Cumbria, and he was asked how relieved he was to be in such a nice and remote part of the country. He replied that actually Cumbria was one of the worst hit areas outside London. Why? Dont think anyone can be sure but one factor could be people outside big conurbations dont see the risks so much and are invested with a false sense of security. Not saying thats necessarily applicable to Sweden, just found it interesting.

dk1982

biko wrote: »

Have you even been to Sweden?
Where did you go?

He's bang on with that assesment. My brother and family (his wife swedish) live there 7 years and I've visited plenty and cant argue with that.

alwald

alwald wrote: »

Thankfully C-19 decisions aren't based on someone's hunch or personal opinion but rather scientific evidence and research.

Well to the best of my knowledge the only virus we've eliminated is smallpox and that took decades of global public health measures, is less contagious than this coronavirus, and not contagious when asymptomatic.

I don't believe any country on the planet so far has suppressed coronavirus and kept it suppressed.

It might be possible for an island nation to do this but it would involve eliminating ALL international travel (including for trade) so it seems very unlikely.

As it stands and based on what we know of the science to date the only thing that will get rid of it is herd immunity via vaccination, and we don't know when that might happen, or if it can happen.

biko

dk1982 wrote: »

He's bang on with that assesment. My brother and family (his wife swedish) live there 7 years and I've visited plenty and cant argue with that.

He may as well be describing Mullingar (no offence Mullingarians)

I'm thinking maybe you both have been to smaller towns where there isn't much action.
Go out in one of the cities and you'll find a thriving pub and club life.

Widdensushi

biko wrote: »

Have you even been to Sweden?
Where did you go?

as said on here before Sweden comes alive in the summer months, they are lucky enough to get proper seasons ,restaurant s etc the seating is nearly all outside, quick pleasure craft spin to Denmark to load up on cheap booze.

Spencer Brown

Widdensushi wrote: »

as said on here before Sweden comes alive in the summer months, they are lucky enough to get proper seasons ,restaurant s etc the seating is nearly all outside, quick pleasure craft spin to Denmark to load up on cheap booze.

Ferry to Helsingor

Loafing Oaf

Deleted User wrote: »

Well to the best of my knowledge the only virus we've eliminated is smallpox and that took decades of global public health measures, is less contagious than this coronavirus, and not contagious when asymptomatic.

I don't believe any country on the planet so far has suppressed coronavirus and kept it suppressed.

It might be possible for an island nation to do this but it would involve eliminating ALL international travel (including for trade) so it seems very unlikely.

I believe New Zealand has come pretty close. Of course 'keeping it suppressed' remains to be seen...

dk1982

biko wrote: »

He may as well be describing Mullingar (no offence Mullingarians)

I'm thinking maybe you both have been to smaller towns where there isn't much action.
Go out in one of the cities and you'll find a thriving pub and club life.

Been to Malmo, Gothenburg, Helsinborg and Trollhattan (where they live) and havent found the nightlife particularly thriving. Granted some of those places I would have been there midweek. Theyre moving back here in July. They love alot about Sweden but compared to Ireland they miss having friendly neighbours and the bit of craic etc. Anyway I've gone way off topic.

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Well to the best of my knowledge the only virus we've eliminated is smallpox and that took decades of global public health measures, is less contagious than this coronavirus, and not contagious when asymptomatic.

One of the closest viruses to C-19 is the Spanish flu and yes it was eliminated and isolation/social distancing were measures amongst others that contribute to it.

alwald

alwald wrote: »

One of the closest viruses to C-19 is the Spanish flu and yes it was eliminated and isolation/social distancing were measures amongst others that contribute to it.

That's completely untrue.

"Spanish flu" disappeared due to a combination of herd immunity and probably mutation. It was absolutely NOT eliminated by human actions, certainly not by the limited social distancing that took place.

biko

dk1982 wrote: »

Been to Malmo, Gothenburg, Helsinborg and Trollhattan (where they live) and havent found the nightlife particularly thriving. Granted some of those places I would have been there midweek. Theyre moving back here in July. They love alot about Sweden but compared to Ireland they miss having friendly neighbours and the bit of craic etc. Anyway I've gone way off topic.

Yeah, Ireland (Galway, Cork, Dublin) really is different from Sweden when it comes to the nightlife.
The harsh Swedish winters do cause people to become more isolated and more prone to go to house parties rather than out.

But for instance in Gothenburgh and Malmo the winters aren't as bad and usually the people go out a lot.

Go out on a payday weekend, every place will be mobbed

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That's completely untrue.

"Spanish flu" disappeared due to a combination of herd immunity and probably mutation. It was absolutely NOT eliminated by human actions, certainly not by the limited social distancing that took place.

Probably and perhaps aren't scientific evidence so can you link a reputable scientific research to support your untrue and incomplete post.

alwald

alwald wrote: »

One of the closest viruses to C-19 is the Spanish flu and yes it was eliminated and isolation/social distancing were measures amongst others that contribute to it.

Spanish Flu was not eliminated, it ran its course and is still with us. Spanish flu is H1N1 which also caused the swine flu pandemic. A combination of residual immunity and the tendency of viruses to select for lower severity over time lessened the impact. Still has the potential to flare up such as in 2009

alwald

alwald wrote: »

Probably and perhaps aren't scientific evidence so can you link a reputable scientific research to support your untrue and incomplete post.

So what you are saying is tat you demand scientific evidence for others to back up thier posts, but your assertions need no support what so ever. A simple google search will tell you spanish flu was not eliminated

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Spanish Flu was not eliminated, it ran its course and is still with us. Spanish flu is H1N1 which also caused the swine flu pandemic. A combination of residual immunity and the tendency of viruses to select for lower severity over time lessened the impact. Still has the potential to flare up such as in 2009

This post is full of inaccuracies that it hurts just reading it.
Spanish flu was eliminated and the 2009 pandemic was caused by a transmission from a pig to human and not H2H.
You make it look like the virus was amongst humans for almost a century and then flared up again.

Gary kk

alwald wrote: »

This post is full of inaccuracies that it hurts just reading it.
Spanish flu was eliminated and the 2009 pandemic was caused by a transmission from a pig to human and not H2H.
You make it look like the virus was amongst humans for almost a century and then flared up again.

Lol your right it was not h2h

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

So what you are saying is tat you demand scientific evidence for others to back up thier posts, but your assertions need no support what so ever. A simple google search will tell you spanish flu was not eliminated

same goes to you for googling social distancing during the Spanish flu.

alwald

Gary kk wrote: »

Lol your right it was not h2h

Lol read well to understand that's the origin and not the aftermath

alwald

alwald wrote: »

This post is full of inaccuracies that it hurts just reading it.
Spanish flu was eliminated and the 2009 pandemic was caused by a transmission from a pig to human and not H2H.
You make it look like the virus was amongst humans for almost a century and then flared up again.

Spanish FLu was H1N1. Swine Flu was H1N1. There were numerous outbreaks of H1N1 influenza viruses throughout the 20th century. Swine Flu was a variant of the same virus that caused Spanish Flu. There was no elimination of Spanish Flu, it just retreated into the background as it ran out of people to infect through herd immunity. Suppression on the scale being implemented now was not done for Spanish Flu. Subsequent flare ups may or my not have been descendants of the same strain, but they all belong to the same virus family and have a common origin

Gary kk

alwald wrote: »

Lol read well to understand that's the origin and not the aftermath

Ah sorry you meant human to human thought you meant to say H1N1.

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Spanish FLu was H1N1. Swine Flu was H1N1. There were numerous outbreaks of H1N1 influenza viruses throughout the 20th century. Swine Flu was a variant of the same virus that caused Spanish Flu. There was no elimination of Spanish Flu, it just retreated into the background as it ran out of people to infect through herd immunity. Suppression on the scale being implemented now was not done for Spanish Flu. Subsequent flare ups may or my not have been descendants of the same strain, but they all belong to the same virus family and have a common origin

That's better but let's break it into pieces:
1- Spanish flu was eliminated but the real cause for its elimination is not certain and most studies suggest that a combination of factors led to its suppression
2- H1N1 didn't retreat into the background as you make it look like if it was hiding in humans.
3- There is no scientific evidence of herd immunity but rather theories if you understand the difference between both

I can go on but that's enough as you can Google the rest yourself.

alwald

alwald wrote: »

That's better but let's break it into pieces:
1- Spanish flu was eliminated but the real cause for its elimination is not certain and most studies suggest that a combination of factors led to its suppression
2- H1N1 didn't retreat into the background as you make it look like if it was hiding in humans.
3- There is no scientific evidence of herd immunity but rather theories if you understand the difference between both

I can go on but that's enough as you can Google the rest yourself.

This is what happens when people get their 'knowledge' from Twitter threads.

alwald

alwald wrote: »

This is what happens when your brain blocks and can't contribute anymore.

I'll say it one more time.

Spanish flu was NOT "eliminated"

That is an active sentence that assumes that someone or some organisation or humanity as a whole "eliminated" it. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.

We eliminated smallpox. We did not eliminate Spanish Flu.

Like a lot of viral diseases it goes through the population and then either comes up against herd immunity or mutates into something less dangerous.

Social distancing helped curb some of the potential impact of the disease, it did not eliminate the virus.

ush

biko wrote: »

He may as well be describing Mullingar (no offence Mullingarians)

I'm thinking maybe you both have been to smaller towns where there isn't much action.
Go out in one of the cities and you'll find a thriving pub and club life.

Swedes look out the peephole before leaving their apartment, so as to avoid meeting neighbours on the stairs.

maninasia

Un1corn wrote: »

I get what you are saying actually. My wife is from Taiwan which has 300 cases and 25 million people. Exceptional really. Sure they reacted immediately and have experience in Taiwan. But when I think of the people there all they do is sit at home year-round anyway. The virus has no chance.

Taiwan recorded NO cases today.
Total of six deaths and never any lockdown.

But Taiwan has very strict quarantine systems for incoming people, also contract tracing and very high mask use amongst the population .

Taiwan is the opposite of Sweden as Taiwan is hyper densely populated it should be full of the virus but it's not due to early and serious action and being well prepared.

Sweden has a lot more space and many people live on their own . Is Sweden doing well though ?


Taiwan has 22 million population and just six deaths. Taiwan can function mostly normally with no lockdown .

Sweden is obviously going for a very high risk strategy involving thousands of deaths.

People in Taiwan don't sit at home lol, people are active there in general, huge busy cities, mountains for hiking, night markets, shops , cycling and running are very popular...Taiwan is only slightly less busy than normal now....It's still a busy place just no foreign tourists , no big festivals or meetings or sports events etc.

alwald

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'll say it one more time.

Spanish flu was NOT "eliminated"

That is an active sentence that assumes that someone or some organisation or humanity as a whole "eliminated" it. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.

We eliminated smallpox. We did not eliminate Spanish Flu.

Like a lot of viral diseases it goes through the population and then either comes up against herd immunity or mutates into something less dangerous.

Social distancing helped curb some of the potential impact of the disease, it did not eliminate the virus.

This is better than your previous post.
So you agree that there are studies showing that social distancing was a contributor, just like isolation, to curb/eliminate the H2H transmission.

As per elimination yes the H2H transmission was eliminated but the H1N1 was found 90 years later in pigs and infected humans again.

niallo27

First mention in Google.

By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.

https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic#section_13