Sweden avoiding lockdown

thebaz

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Glenomra

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

no doubt their government were so brave and made the right calls rather than reacting to hysteria.

Memnoch

Glenomra wrote: »

no doubt their government were so brave and made the right calls rather than reacting to hysteria.

No doubt their government has stopped testing. I've been only looking at their testing numbers for 3 days now. But they have not moved up from 54,700 in the last 3 days...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Joe_ Public

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Could be they've miraculously and suddenly passed over the peak (which would be great) or could be they just report lower numbers over the weekend and will 'catch up' early in the week.

Memnoch

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Because they are not testing. Stuck at 54,700 tests for three days now.

ninebeanrows

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Well the fact all the countries around them virtually shut down also has resulted in a de facto lockdown there anyway, it is just a little looser than we have here.

We will be living in a similar way post May 5th.

coastwatch

The new deaths number looks like a weekend counting issue too.

Memnoch

Don't know how many times I need to say it...

Their death rate was climbing fast last week. Then it looks like they just stopped testing. (54,700 total tests - unmoved for 3 days now)

Of course mortality statistics are going to fall if you don't test any more people...

Jim_Hodge

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Their deaths recorded drop every Sunday. Have a look over the pas month.

thebaz

Memnoch wrote: »

Don't know how many times I need to say it...

Their death rate was climbing fast last week. Then it looks like they just stopped testing. (54,700 total tests - unmoved for 3 days now)

Of course mortality statistics are going to fall if you don't test any more people...

Fair eneogh, did not realise they had stopped testing , just looked at cases and deaths which struck me as much lower than i or many would have expected .
Seams crazy not to test every day.
But not testing should not effect the death rate, which to me seams surprisingly low given circumstances.

thebaz

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Maybe they have less of the types being discussed in this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbYv0FcOjQ8

dubrov

In fairness, the way the numbers are recorded in each country varies widely.
So hard to compare.

No one will know what the correct strategy is until long after this crisis has dissipated.

Jim_Hodge

thebaz wrote: »

Fair eneogh, did not realise they had stopped testing , just looked at cases and deaths which struck me as much lower than i or many would have expected .
Seams crazy not to test every day.
But not testing should not effect the death rate, which to me seams surprisingly low given circumstances.

Their deaths figure are not low. Death today dropped as they don't collect figures at the weekend but they have 89 deaths per million.

Idbatterim

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

Agreed, you would just have to assume, that the most vulnerable arent idiots and isolating as much as practical! the nursing home thing here, was an obvious one too. With the very quick testing when it comes about, would it be practical, for the nursing homes to be locked down in effect and staff only comes and go maybe once or twice a week and after being tested for it on re-entry?

Downlinz

Sweden have a very socially independent culture with one of the lowest population densities in Europe, they were social distancing before they even heard of the virus. If anyone could continue operations with reasonable success it's them.

Unfortunately we have a pub culture and an overcrowded capital city in the middle of a housing crisis so it's not especially relevant how well Sweden are coping since we can't really copy them without massive restrictions.

eddie73

Work backwards from mortality rates to get the full picture. Waiting for tests etc means that we dont know the true numbers, ever. If you assume the mortality rate is 1% and there are 200 deaths in a week, multiply by 100 to give you the true case numbers of the 1st day, not the last day of the week sample. That would mean there would likely be 20000 cases on day one of the sample week.

This also assumes the best case scenario of optimum treatment where icu isn't over run.

Jim_Hodge

Noris Bohnson wrote: »

Once all the elderly Swedes are dead they can be replaced with imported Africans. It's a very progressive policy from the Swedish government.

Bye...……...

Jim_Hodge

Noris Bohnson wrote: »

Sadly it's eldery Sven who'll be saying goodbye soon.

Do you get a kick from this infantile behaviour? Seems a sad existence.

marilynrr

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.

I really don't think that that is true at all. My understanding of it is that they used to take the nursing home patients to hospital to try to avoid the spread of it in the nursing home, but that now unless they need to go to hospital then they are staying in the nursing home isolated from other patients who do not have covid-19. I've seen nothing to say that those who need hospital treatment in nursing homes are not being taken to hospital.

Also this article from Friday says "Of the 288 people who have died so far in the outbreak, 156 had been living in nursing homes prior to their deaths (54%), Dr Tony Holohan said.

Most of those deaths occurred in hospital settings."

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/nursing-home-residents-make-up-more-than-half-of-irelands-covid-19-toll-993501.html

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.

It's a very black and white way of looking at it though. Lives will be lost the other way too. Suicides, murder suicides etc. There are victims of abuse locked in with their abusers. Cancer patients who have had treatment cancelled. People are not seeking hospital treatment for other things even though they should and are at increased risk of death from that. There are so so many different people and situations being affected by this and i'm sure we'll be horrified by a lot of the stories of lockdown when this is all over.

Also if this goes on for months and months there will be elderly dying from other age related illnesses who spent their last bit of time without even a hug from their family members, completely isolated and lonely, Some of them would have rathered just take their chances instead of being cocooned. Some people wouldn't want to be just kept alive for the sake of it!!

It's just not nearly as black and white as you are making out.

People are allowed to discuss the approach that Ireland are taken without being shut down by being told to take a long hard look at themselves. It's a lazy argument designed to shut down any debate about it!

Greentopia

Rvsmmnps wrote: »

We are pretty much over it. Things feeling normal again. We never did full lockdown either (Norway)
Not very much sensational news outlets here either

Even in Sweden where cases are higher the newspapers online are full of other news stories as well as corona I noticed and there's none of the sensational doomsday hysteria there about it as in other countries. Not even in Expressen or Aftonbladet.

Spook_ie

plodder wrote: »

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/

To test a vaccine you need a pool of uninfected people, to test drugs you need infected people.

Greentopia

thebaz wrote: »

Swedish figures released today :-

332 new cases
12 new deaths

Again , given experts predictions, why are these figures not so much higher ?
They are asking its citizens to behave in an adult manner, and social distance , maybe they actually are, without need for police enforcement and complete economic shutdown.

The vast majority are. Their PM told them they needed to take these measures and they did so because there is a high degree of trust in Sweden in the government and even more so for the health experts who are actually the ones who are driving these policies, not the Govt. They simply apply the measures the experts call for.

Here's what Anders Tegnell the state epidemiologist has said about why his country has chosen the path they have:
“Locking people up at home won’t work in the longer term. Sooner or later people are going to go out anyway.” He’s also repeatedly said it would be good for the Swedish population to gain immunity to the disease, even if he doesn't call it herd immunity.

He's taking a long term outlook on it as the best strategy for protecting the health of their citizens and saving their economy as much as possible. It's a Swedish middle way if you like between the madness of UK herd immunity and full lockdown. This way the economy is not entirely crippled and life can continue with some degree of normality until a vaccine is found.

Greentopia

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Could be they've miraculously and suddenly passed over the peak (which would be great) or could be they just report lower numbers over the weekend and will 'catch up' early in the week.

Could well be increased numbers next week yes, but they have acknowledged the numbers are lower over the weekend themselves.

timsey tiger

Spook_ie wrote: »

To test a vaccine you need a pool of uninfected people, to test drugs you need infected people.

To test a vaccine you need uninfected people yes, but you also need them to be exposed to the risk, so actually you need both.

mariaalice

Greentopia wrote: »

The vast majority are. Their PM told them they needed to take these measures and they did so because there is a high degree of trust in Sweden in the government and even more so for the health experts who are actually the ones who are driving these policies, not the Govt. They simply apply the measures the experts call for.

Here's what Anders Tegnell the state epidemiologist has said about why his country has chosen the path they have:
“Locking people up at home won’t work in the longer term. Sooner or later people are going to go out anyway.” He’s also repeatedly said it would be good for the Swedish population to gain immunity to the disease, even if he doesn't call it herd immunity.

He's taking a long term outlook on it as the best strategy for protecting the health of their citizens and saving their economy as much as possible. It's a Swedish middle way if you like between the madness of UK herd immunity and full lockdown. This way the economy is not entirely crippled and life can continue with some degree of normality until a vaccine is found.

Why are they keeping emergency legislation in reserve then? its kinda wanting it both ways to me it says we are trying this for the moment but if it dose not work we have something else. It is not saying we know for certain this is the correct approach.

Sweden has reached cross-party agreement on sweeping emergency powers to close shops, restaurants and schools in response to the coronavirus crisis – but the governnment has no immediate plans to use them.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/coronavirus-sweden-to-enact-crisis-powers-but-hold-them-in-reserve-1.4223367

KiKi III

Maybe if Irish people had listened to the government when told to self-isolate instead of immediately flocking to the beach/park/ mountains together, our government wouldn't have needed to introduce a lockdown either.

Flyer1

KiKi III wrote: »

Maybe if Irish people had listened to the government when told to self-isolate instead of immediately flocking to the beach/park/ mountains together, our government wouldn't have needed to introduce a lockdown either.

A lockdown was always going to happen. There's no question about that

Spencer Brown

KiKi III wrote: »

Maybe if Irish people had listened to the government when told to self-isolate instead of immediately flocking to the beach/park/ mountains together, our government wouldn't have needed to introduce a lockdown either.

It's this really, we're a country of free spirits who don't like rules much.

2u2me

KiKi III wrote: »

Maybe if Irish people had listened to the government when told to self-isolate instead of immediately flocking to the beach/park/ mountains together, our government wouldn't have needed to introduce a lockdown either.

I recall things somewhat differently. This post from a few days ago sums it up for me a lot better.

Boggles wrote: »

The majority of businesses had decided to close or introduced complete work from home measures before the government acted. Also Paddy's Day was cancelled at council level before the government decided to cancel. Also "No issue" with 10,000 people going to a race meeting in the UK, etc, etc.

The idea the government and HSE are getting this right is farcical. Our testing plan has been a complete and utter failure by any metric and 20% of our PPE would be perfect if we had uoompa loompas on the front line.

It's people and the measures they are implementing as well as business to be fair that are halting the surge.

Hmmzis

Until a treatment or vaccine is found, comparing death rates between countries is a bit misleading I think.
The virus is being spread faster with more people interacting, slower with less people interacting. It will still be spread unless all physical interaction between humans stops. Since that's not possible, we can only influence the speed of infection (that R0 if you will).

With that in mind, faster spread gives you a higher death rate per day, slower spread gives you a lower death rate per day, but at the end of the whole thing it's still going to be the same totals per capita. The assumption here is that we do not exceed the hospital and ICU capacities. The exact same number of people will die, in one case it'll be slower, in the other it'll happen faster.

The advantage of the faster approach is that you get the survivors back to normal life faster.
The advantage of the slower approach is that it gives time for reseaechers to find a treatment that reduces mortality and improves overall outcomes. Therfore reducing the total fatality rate compared to the faster approach.

Sweden is going with the fast option.
We are going with the slower approach hoping for a timely treatment option to become available.

In both cases it's a gamble of sorts.