Sweden avoiding lockdown

frillyleaf · 11-04-2020 11:36am #1

Does Sweden have the right approach to this and how is their healthcare system being able to manage Covid19 cases?

What are the differences between Sweden and Ireland and why can’t we continue similar to how Sweden is managing Covid19?

I’m not suggesting either is right or wrong. I would just like to know how Sweden can continue as normal and other countries can’t. Thanks ðŸ˜Š

Kermit.de.frog · 11-04-2020 11:38am

Is Sweden's healthcare system handling it ok? I'm not sure it is given the number of deaths so far.

Which is officially 870 off just 9,000 + cases.

Salary Negotiator · 11-04-2020 11:40am

Any country can continue as normal if they are willing to accept that many people will die.

Sweden seem to be ok with a higher death than other countries.

completedit · 11-04-2020 11:42am

Look at the end of day we are all going to go the way of Sweden? It made sense at the start when this was new to adopt a back to the wall approach and be like "Human lives matter more than the economy" and they do, but the problem is our whole system is rigged to be in such a way that human lives are so interdependent on this economy for our livelihoods and wellbeing

KiKi III · 11-04-2020 11:43am

They have twice our population but almost four times as many deaths as us so far.

Better health system to start with too.

I know some on here think the economy is more important than keeping the death rate down but to me it’s not one or the other.

If we get to the stage of hundreds of deaths a day, overrun ICUs and younger people dying in greater numbers due to lack of beds/ treatment, who’s going to want to be out and about anyway?

suicide_circus · 11-04-2020 11:48am

its a choice

otnomart · 11-04-2020 11:49am

I had already posted this in the main tread:

Sweden are prioritising patients, those over 80 years of age don't go to ICU
source: https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/s...n-intensivvard

CIARAN_BOYLE · 11-04-2020 11:53am

otnomart wrote: »

I had already posted this in the main tread:

Sweden are prioritising patients, those over 80 years of age don't go to ICU
source: https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/s...n-intensivvard

Is that really so different to here?

The vast majority of deaths are outside the icu environment.

metricspaces · 11-04-2020 11:56am

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Is that really so different to here?

The vast majority of deaths are outside the icu environment.

Age is not the sole criteria in Ireland for getting into ICU. Ireland has not taken this approach, yet.

The Bishop Basher · 11-04-2020 11:58am

otnomart wrote: »

Sweden are prioritising patients, those over 80 years of age don't go to ICU

Same as here then.

We’re just letting them die quietly in nursing homes where the death can be kept out of the official figures.

Salary Negotiator · 11-04-2020 12:00pm

The Bishop Basher wrote: »

Same as here then.

We’re just letting them die quietly in nursing homes where the death can be kept out of the official figures.

Aren’t we one of the few countries including deaths outside hospital in the figures?

niallo27 · 11-04-2020 12:01pm

We are just delaying the inevitable here, we will all end up going this way. People really need to get their heads out of the sand.

JJJJNR · 11-04-2020 12:01pm

Difference is Sweden hasn't been paying a bailout to bondholders for the past 12 years so has a robust health service. Also nordic countries have been stockpiling everything needed since ww2.

Kivaro · 11-04-2020 12:02pm

Certainly an interesting topic.
Is Sweden's stance coming from the same people in power who allowed massive non-EU immigration into their country in the last few years?
Do they believe that their older population is dispensable, I wonder.
Is there a new philosophical approach in Sweden that dictates these policies and decisions?

It is certainly surreal watching reports from Sweden where life appears to be going on as normal in the foreground. In the background, what is the reality?
As I said, an interesting topic.
And a good use-case for the rest of the world to use for Covid baselines etc.

sterz · 11-04-2020 12:02pm

niallo27 wrote: »

We are just delaying the inevitable here, we will all end up going this way. People really need to get their heads out of the sand.

You first.

MizMix · 11-04-2020 12:05pm

Salary Negotiator wrote: »

Aren’t we one of the few countries including deaths outside hospital in the figures?

Yes our deaths in nursing homes have been included in our figures from the beginning unlike a lot of countries

The Bishop Basher · 11-04-2020 12:06pm

Salary Negotiator wrote: »

Aren’t we one of the few countries including deaths outside hospital in the figures?

We’re including some but many are dying while waiting on tests or waiting on results of tests. Many others aren’t being tested at all so there’s no way of knowing.

whippet · 11-04-2020 12:06pm

I have family living in rural Sweden and they are disgusted with the Swedish approach ... the Swedish mentality is that they are smart enough to be able to function as normal and not spread the infection !

It stems from the swede’s culture of generally being very antisocial at the best of times and a condescending view of other cultures.

While my relatives can self isolate and minimise the number of times they have to shop for essentials they still have to send the kids to school.

There is a growing number of People in Sweden who don’t agree with the government’s approach.

ldy4mxonucwsq6 · 11-04-2020 12:07pm

metricspaces wrote: »

Age is not the sole criteria in Ireland for getting into ICU. Ireland has not taken this approach, yet.

Actually this is the exact approach being taken here, you do realise if you catch coronavirus as a resident in a nursing home that you're not going to be taken to hospital?

Most of our deaths have been in nursing homes and not in ICU because nursing home residents are not being admitted to hospital. They are receiving care on site in the nursing home.

Terribly sad state of affairs but that's what's been happening for the last few weeks.

KiKi III · 11-04-2020 12:13pm

niallo27 wrote: »

We are just delaying the inevitable here, we will all end up going this way. People really need to get their heads out of the sand.

The whole point of these restrictions is to delay the inevitable. You say that like it’s a flaw in the plan as opposed to the whole point of it.

plodder · 11-04-2020 12:14pm

Sweden could be doing the rest of us a favour because vaccines will have to be tested in a place where the virus is circulating widely

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0411/1129975-vaccine-coronavirus/

The Bishop Basher · 11-04-2020 12:18pm

I was speaking to an undertaker who’s been in and out of nursing homes and in his words it’s an “absolute ****show”.

When we go back and review how we’ve handled this crisis, nursing homes will be a large stain on our collective conscience.

The fact that Simon Harris couldn’t be arsed responding to Tadhg Daly‘s calls for over 3 weeks, yet he still found the time to tweet about the Easter Bunny kinda spells out where his priorities lie.

Memnoch · 11-04-2020 12:19pm

Without knowing in detail exactly what is going on in Sweden it is still clear that they are severely under testing.

Their total tests have barely moved from yesterday which were just above 54,000. Ireland is testing at twice the rate. Neither are they counting the deaths in the community.

There is no way to know how many people are dying as a result because they are not testing in the community. If they had extensively tested and their mortality rate was still low then I think an argument could be made about whether their model is worth considering.

But a model based on hiding the true mortality rate is not one that anyone should be looking to aspire to.

niallo27 · 11-04-2020 12:24pm

KiKi III wrote: »

The whole point of these restrictions is to delay the inevitable. You say that like it’s a flaw in the plan as opposed to the whole point of it.

Sweden could possibly end up better by just taking the hit now though.

KiKi III · 11-04-2020 12:25pm

niallo27 wrote: »

Sweden could possibly end up better by just taking the hit now though.

Or they could possibly end up a whole lot worse.

JoChervil · 11-04-2020 12:27pm

Sweden has a lot of restrictions and they are also lying.

This is from a week old article (google lame translation):

"The number of infected and dead is much higher than reported by the Swedish authorities," says "Verdens Gang." "For example, on March 25, the Swedish Ministry of Health reported that it had 42 deaths due to coronavirus that day, and later it appeared that the actual number of deaths was 97. The next day it was reported that 66 coronavirus-infected people died in Sweden, while in reality is was 124. Swedish Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell makes no secret that the numbers presented are too low, "we read.
...

"The number of deaths from coronavirus in Sweden may not be 373, according to the Swedes, but even 750" - wrote "Verdens Gang" on Sunday. According to official figures from Tuesday's noon in Sweden with 10 million inhabitants, 7 206 infections and 477 deaths were recorded. In addition, twice as few tests were done there than in Norway (54,700), and yet Sweden has twice as many citizens."

Memnoch · 11-04-2020 12:31pm

For authorities in places like Sweden and the United Kingdom their failure to act has been nothing short of criminal and the only recourse open to them is to now cover-up the extent of the damage by not testing, by leaving people to die in the community and by not counting them in the official statistics.

It is heartbreaking to see this happening in so-called modern Western democracies.

Widdensushi · 11-04-2020 12:41pm

Salary Negotiator wrote: »

Any country can continue as normal if they are willing to accept that many people will die.

Sweden seem to be ok with a higher death than other countries.

probably end up with similar amount of deaths just over a shorter time frame

Pinkpotato · 11-04-2020 12:42pm

I personally don't care what other countries are doing, I'm just doing what my country tells me.
I mean we wouldn't say Oh Look, America is sending the army into (any middle east country) and Britain is helping. We should send ours with them!
If another country brought in gassing its own people as standard practice, we wouldn't just copy.
Sweden want to kill off their population, leave them to it.

Beasty · 11-04-2020 12:46pm

MizMix wrote: »

Yes our deaths in nursing homes have been included in our figures from the beginning unlike a lot of countries

I suspect that in many other countries those in nursing homes testing positive would have been moved to hospital

We are only including those who have tested positive. Holohan made that very clear yesterday

The UK now has a separate total including those who have not tested positive but where it's included as a factor on a death certificate. It takes longer for these figures to come through though

Memnoch · 11-04-2020 12:49pm

Beasty wrote: »

I suspect that in many other countries those in nursing homes testing positive would have been moved to hospital

We are only including those who have tested positive. Holohan made that very clear yesterday

The UK now has a separate total including those who have not tested positive but where it's included as a factor on a death certificate. It takes longer for these figures to come through though

That total is not realiable either. ONS listed only 20 extra deaths. At the same time a care home executive is quoted as estimating around 1000 in their private network.

The Conservative government were caught off guard by the ONS at the outset but have likely corralled it since so it doesn't make a mockery of their numbers.

duffman13 · 11-04-2020 12:52pm

Sweden have been lauded on here by some however there approach of do nothing and ignore is almost criminal.

Even the PM has now admitted they havent done enough

"Throughout the pandemic, Sweden's response to the coronavirus has been an odd one out. Unlike most of Europe, it did not introduce a lockdown - cafes and restaurants remain open, and schools have not closed. Although the government advised against non-essential travel, it has largely been business as usual, albeit a bit quieter.

Now Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has has admitted that Sweden was not properly prepared for the pandemic and that it is "obvious that country has not done enough". Restaurants not observing social distancing should be shut, he told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

In Sweden, 870 people have died from the virus - many more than neighbours Denmark (247) and Norway (113), where lockdowns were introduced in early March."

2 friends of mine told me outside of the capital some communities have introduced their own social distancing policies in shops etc to try and do something about this and there is a lot of unhappiness among the Swedish population with the governments approach

Salary Negotiator · 11-04-2020 12:56pm

Widdensushi wrote: »

probably end up with similar amount of deaths just over a shorter time frame

That’s seems unlikely and suggests that efforts to increase HD and ICU capacity will have no effect on numbers that survive the illness.

Widdensushi · 11-04-2020 1:02pm

Salary Negotiator wrote: »

That’s seems unlikely and suggests that efforts to increase HD and ICU capacity will have no effect on numbers that survive the illness.

I read somewhere that the survival rate for those who have to go on ventilators is 1 in 3 .So while it will make a substantial difference it's not as much as some might think.

Beasty · 11-04-2020 1:04pm

Memnoch wrote: »

That total is not realiable either. ONS listed only 20 extra deaths. At the same time a care home executive is quoted as estimating around 1000 in their private network.

The Conservative government were caught off guard by the ONS at the outset but have likely corralled it since so it doesn't make a mockery of their numbers.

I suspect when this is all over and they do a proper review all countries will be adding significant numbers to what they are reporting now

However I think a lot of this is down to the WHO attempting to standardise "real-time" reporting as in the last pandemic there was a lot more inconsistency than we are seeing now. Hence the "official" figures in pretty much all cases only include those who have tested positive.

accensi0n · 11-04-2020 1:13pm

I heard they're only admitting business owners and those paying huge amounts of tax into ICU.

sydthebeat · 11-04-2020 1:14pm

Sweden has approx 20% more confirmed cases as Ireland, yet has almost 200% more deaths.

If ANYONE thinks that the actions they took were the proper ones then you need to take a long look at yourself and how you value life.

md23040 · 11-04-2020 1:18pm

I heard the State epidemiologist Anders Tegnellthe interviewed and he described Imperial College report as being highly flawed and Sweden has followed its own modelling. It will be interesting to see how Sweden develops in terms of this outbreak but so far based on the IC report and its modelling assertions Sweden should be a lot worse at this stage than it actually is.

There are pockets of Stockholm will higher proportion of virus outbreak within ethnic areas with speculation of primary cause being many not having standard inoculations as infants. Again it will be interesting to note the contagion data in Sweden if it continues its strategy, as in September without a proper antidote there will most likely be a second wave to contend with throughout the EU etc.

Memnoch · 11-04-2020 1:31pm

Beasty wrote: »

I suspect when this is all over and they do a proper review all countries will be adding significant numbers to what they are reporting now

However I think a lot of this is down to the WHO attempting to standardise "real-time" reporting as in the last pandemic there was a lot more inconsistency than we are seeing now. Hence the "official" figures in pretty much all cases only include those who have tested positive.

I'm not sure I agree. At the very first hurdle, the huge amount of inconsistency in testing makes it much more challenging to compare outcomes.

I would submit that where governments have acted negligently and are now severely under testing it will not be in their own interest to accurately update the data. There may be a genuine case to be made for criminal negligence on the part of some of these politicians so we cannot rely on them to tell the truth.

I think there is a clear distinction where countries are being open about their figures and including community fatalities. Coincidentally, these also tend to be countries that are testing extensively.

Nothing to hide, as it were.

Greentopia · 11-04-2020 1:32pm

md23040 wrote: »

I heard the State epidemiologist Anders Tegnellthe interviewed and he described Imperial College report as being highly flawed and Sweden has followed its own modelling. It will be interesting to see how Sweden develops in terms of this outbreak but so far based on the IC report and its modelling assertions Sweden should be a lot worse at this stage than it actually is.

There are pockets of Stockholm will higher proportion of virus outbreak within ethnic areas with speculation of primary cause being many not having standard inoculations as infants. Again it will be interesting to note the contagion data in Sweden if it continues its strategy, as in September without a proper antidote there will most likely be a second wave to contend with throughout the EU etc.

Är du Svensk?
I hate to say it, but I suspect they didn't take it seriously when the initial number of deaths were "only" in multigenerational immigrant mostly Somali families in the poorer suburbs of Stockholm.

I can see the logic of their approach though for their country and think they'll get though it without anything like the number of deaths in Italy and Spain. Stockholm is already levelling off according to SVT news yesterday.

11-04-2020 1:56pm

Sweden (especially Stockholm) is not the most sociable place and inter-generational living is rare -> you certainly don't have grannies and their grand-children living under one roof like can be still fairly common in Italy or even parents and adult children which is very common

There is also a lot respect for government guidelines in Sweden e.g. respecting space unlike again Italy where it was too late before people copped on and the draconian measures had to be implemented.

Cultural factors like this can have a big effect in such circumstances

suicide_circus · 11-04-2020 2:03pm

Sweden has a history of massaging figures for media consumption

11-04-2020 2:03pm

I'd sooner do as we are here. In 3 weeks maybe let non essential work resume. Social distancing mandatory & older folk still more or less cocooning.

Life is precious, we should do all we can to save those at risk from covid19.

11-04-2020 2:04pm

suicide_circus wrote: »

Sweden has a history of massaging figures for media consumption

Indeed.... Rape etc

metricspaces · 11-04-2020 2:11pm

Clark Dry Kidney wrote: »

Actually this is the exact approach being taken here, you do realise if you catch coronavirus as a resident in a nursing home that you're not going to be taken to hospital?

Most of our deaths have been in nursing homes and not in ICU because nursing home residents are not being admitted to hospital. They are receiving care on site in the nursing home.

Terribly sad state of affairs but that's what's been happening for the last few weeks.

Ok. I guess you know better and the Dept of Health lied yesterday when they said that people who needed ICU were not being denied based on age. Never let the facts get in the way of a good drama or conspiracy theory.

Dj Stiggie · 11-04-2020 2:12pm

I live in Denmark so Sweden's approach has been in the news a lot. Usually Danes are very untrusting of the government and prefer minimal involvement (by Northern European standards) and Swedes are more accepting of the Nanny State. This time though, it's the opposite.

Two weeks ago the media here and in Sweden were saying that Easter will be the time that we see who has the right approach as many people will be traveling, and a lot of Sweden has been unaffected as it's so spread out. Since then though their death rate has soared and we're reopening primary schools and some businesses on Wednesday. Also, Denmark has over 1,000 respirators available, with just over 150 being used. I know whose approach I'm happier with.

metricspaces · 11-04-2020 2:18pm

accensi0n wrote: »

I heard they're only admitting business owners and those paying huge amounts of tax into ICU.

Thank God I kept paying my tax into ICU, I was nearly going to give it up during last recession. I should be good so.

11-04-2020 2:19pm

Beasty wrote: »

I suspect that in many other countries those in nursing homes testing positive would have been moved to hospital

We are only including those who have tested positive. Holohan made that very clear yesterday

The UK now has a separate total including those who have not tested positive but where it's included as a factor on a death certificate. It takes longer for these figures to come through though

Serious questions need to be asked. Unfortunately as long as the politicians are hiding behind Holohan that isn’t going to happen.

Diarmuid · 11-04-2020 2:29pm

Widdensushi wrote: »

I read somewhere that the survival rate for those who have to go on ventilators is 1 in 3 .So while it will make a substantial difference it's not as much as some might think.

In NY, 80% of covid19 patients on ventilators are dying . They are even starting to consider if it's making the patient worse

metricspaces · 11-04-2020 2:31pm

sydthebeat wrote: »

Sweden has approx 20% more confirmed cases as Ireland, yet has almost 200% more deaths.

If ANYONE thinks that the actions they took were the proper ones then you need to take a long look at yourself and how you value life.

Since when was 88 200% of 58? I suppose the truth of 52% doesn't sound as dramatic. Nevermind it's just looking at a snapshot in time, where that time is different for both. Rendering comparison meaningless.

niallo27 · 11-04-2020 2:35pm

Question for people though, the fact that Sweden hasnt locked down shouldnt they have thousands dead by now. Any model we have seen shows massive eath rates if nothing is done why hasnt this materialized in sweden.

Sweden avoiding lockdown

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