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Sweden avoiding lockdown

frillyleaf

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

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Bit cynical

Breezin wrote: »

That's because they know and accept that their strategy implies more cases in the short term. That is the essential difference.

Higher daily stats now does not indicate failure.

I think the policy could be considered failure in the event that effective treatments become available earlier than expected. The Swedes are playing it safe by not assuming that will happen and therefore relying on sustainable curve flattening measures.

Other countries, for example, Ireland have unsustainable lockdowns and are relying on the development of effective treatments and relatively early availability of a vaccine which will allow restrictions to be lifted without a resurgence of the disease and before the money runs out or people start ignoring guidelines.

Breezin

Greentopia wrote: »

Yes they had a Professor of Political Science explaining the boost for the Soc Dems and he said it was for that reason also.

Their higher death toll than neighbouring countries doesn't seem to have impacted on that.

That's because they know and accept that their strategy implies more cases in the short term. That is the essential difference.

Higher daily stats now does not indicate failure.

Greentopia

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Tories support is up in the UK, in a time of crisis the incumbent gets a boost out of some sort of gesture for being in power during a time of crisis.

Yes they had a Professor of Political Science explaining the boost for the Soc Dems and he said it was for that reason also.

Their higher death toll than neighbouring countries doesn't seem to have impacted on that.

Bit cynical

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Sweden keeps increasing in daily new cases, hopefully they are prepared for what comes next

Leveling off and decline?

Harry Palmr

Greentopia wrote: »

Whatever we think about Sweden's handling of this it seems Swedes are still by and large supportive of their government's measures.

For the second month in a row the Social Democrats have seen a rise in support for them to 30% according to SVT reportage, while the Sweden Democrats far right populist party have seen a small drop in support.

This in spite of the news from the Swedish Finance Minister that unemployment can rise to 11% this year and GDP fall by 7%.

That's exactly half the projected unemployment figure for Ireland this year and also less than the possible GDP fall of 13.8% IF economic activity only recovers in the fourth quarter of this year.

Those are still very alarming figures in Sweden but compared to us it looks like they're getting off lightly economically. So far anyway.

Tories support is up in the UK, in a time of crisis the incumbent gets a boost out of some sort of gesture for being in power during a time of crisis.

Greentopia

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Their economy - and employment, is structured in a very different way to ours.

That is not to say that comparison isn't appropriate, just to say that don't arrive at conclusions too quickly.

Some of the recent David McWilliams podcasts touch on the subject if you are interested.

Yes I know there are differences, Ireland is a more open economy and we're a lot more dependent on foreign multinationals, but out of work is out of work whether it's here or any other country. Supports and unemployment entitlements differ though. You can't compare A-Kassa to the dole here for example.

Thanks I'll check him out.

jesus_thats_gre

Greentopia wrote: »

That's exactly half the projected unemployment figure for Ireland this year and also less than the possible GDP fall of 13.8% IF economic activity only recovers in the fourth quarter of this year.

Those are still very alarming figures in Sweden but compared to us it looks like they're getting off lightly economically. So far anyway.

Their economy - and employment, is structured in a very different way to ours.

That is not to say that comparison isn't appropriate, just to say that don't arrive at conclusions too quickly.

Some of the recent David McWilliams podcasts touch on the subject if you are interested.

Greentopia

Whatever we think about Sweden's handling of this it seems Swedes are still by and large supportive of their government's measures.

For the second month in a row the Social Democrats have seen a rise in support for them to 30% according to SVT reportage, while the Sweden Democrats far right populist party have seen a small drop in support.

This in spite of the news from the Swedish Finance Minister that unemployment can rise to 11% this year and GDP fall by 7%.

That's exactly half the projected unemployment figure for Ireland this year and also less than the possible GDP fall of 13.8% IF economic activity only recovers in the fourth quarter of this year.

Those are still very alarming figures in Sweden but compared to us it looks like they're getting off lightly economically. So far anyway.

Mic 1972

Roger_007 wrote: »

I think everyone else is beginning to realise that the Swedes have got it right and most others, including us, have got it wrong. There is precious little evidence that the countries that have gone into full lockdown have fared any better than Sweden. You can point to some countries that seem to have fared better but you can also point to many that have done worse.
The best comparison would be with the UK because they both started at the same time with the same strategy but then the UK panicked because the ‘best scientists in the world’ at Imperial College said it was going to be a disaster.

Stockholm has less than 1 million population, it's the biggest city in Sweden
Many countries in Europe have high density cities that are a lot more challenging to manage during an outbreak.
Whether Sweden did the right thing or not will depend on how they handle the emergency when it happens there

Mic 1972

Sweden keeps increasing in daily new cases, hopefully they are prepared for what comes next

coastwatch

Hector Savage wrote: »

Weeks ago people were saying it would be absolute carnage in Sweden by now, well today they have approx 600 new cases and 40 new deaths.

I work for a Swedish company in Barcelona, so a lot of my colleagues are SWedish, and they are living the same lives as us at the moment, staying at home and just making trips to the shops.
The difference is they do it out of choice, they aren't forced to by a thug police state like in Spain/Italy/UK...

That has a massive difference on people's mental well being, but fair play to Sweden they seem to have nailed it - you can still go to the park and be responsible and don't have to infect 50 people.

MEanwhile week 8 of lockdown here and only slight slight improvements.

The SS stazi nazi thug police walking around just dying to issue fines, even if you are totally alone and have receipt for the food in your bag.

<snip>

Still looks a bit like carnage compared to their neighbour Norway, which announced just 30 new cases and only 2 deaths today.

Hmmzis

manonboard wrote: »

Im not aware of this, could you explain more? Couldnt a mutation make it stronger? more contagious? airborne? etc

Sure, not quickly though. Coronaviruses just do not mutate that fast.
This one is about 80% similar to SARS and about 60ish % similar to HCoV types.
None are airborne, SARS is deadlier, HCoVs are near harmles unless you have serious health issues and very elderly.

MERS is contained and on its way out. Very deadly, very severe symptoms, didn't spread far due to incapacitating hosts, so never had a high R0 value. Survivors seem to have developed long lasting immune responses. Over 2000 people infected since 2012.

SARS got erradicated and didn't spread much as it was quite deadly, caused severe symptoms preventing the hosts from getting far to infect a lot of people. Most infections were related to hospitals and other healthcare settings. This also induced long lasting immune responses in survivors. Over 8098 people infected.

HCoVs are almost everywhere you go, some portion of the worlds population will be infected by them at any given moment in time. They're responsible for about a third of Common Cold cases worldwide. Quoting "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy", they're "Mostly harmless" while being quite infectious. For some types of these the human body can produce cross protecting antibodies as well. The antibodies for these are short lived, about a year or so. But due to some cross protecting abilities of the antibodies, you're not likely to get he same HCoV every year, more like every 2-3 years. Billions of people infected and counting.

SARS-cov-2 is between SARS and HCoVs. See the pattern here?

IAMAMORON

manonboard wrote: »

Im not aware of this, could you explain more? Couldnt a mutation make it stronger? more contagious? airborne? etc

It is common sense. See link, give it a read.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/virus-mutation

It gets subjective. But everything existing in the universe can mutate, for better or worse.

I accept the first link can get heavy, if it does try this one, it is a nicer read anyways.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0690-4

[Deleted User]

Hector Savage wrote: »

Weeks ago people were saying it would be absolute carnage in Sweden by now, well today they have approx 600 new cases and 40 new deaths.

I work for a Swedish company in Barcelona, so a lot of my colleagues are SWedish, and they are living the same lives as us at the moment, staying at home and just making trips to the shops.
The difference is they do it out of choice, they aren't forced to by a thug police state like in Spain/Italy/UK...

That has a massive difference on people's mental well being, but fair play to Sweden they seem to have nailed it - you can still go to the park and be responsible and don't have to infect 50 people.

MEanwhile week 8 of lockdown here and only slight slight improvements.

The SS stazi nazi thug police walking around just dying to issue fines, even if you are totally alone and have receipt for the food in your bag.

<snip>

Bug difference in how the Swedes live their daily lives normally, also now they are far more likely to observe the restrictions without needing enforcement.
That's the difference between Ireland & Sweden.
Irish people seem to think it's the guards job to stop people jollying around, no self awareness.

charlie14

Bit cynical wrote: »

The mortality rate is indeed much higher among some groups but naively dividing deaths by confirmed cases does not give you that figure; it just gives you an unrealistically high number for the whole population. Then when people work out that it is a bogus statistic, they will ignore it and rightly so.

The number you require can only be got by full testing of the entire population or failing that testing of a properly random sample of the population.

I never claimed that representing deaths by a percentage of confirmed cases at 12% was or would be representative of an overall population mortality rate.

But neither will a 1% mortality rate be representative of the mortality rate for certain age groups or those with certain underlying conditions.

manonboard

Roger_007 wrote: »

I think everyone else is beginning to realise that the Swedes have got it right and most others, including us, have got it wrong. There is precious little evidence that the countries that have gone into full lockdown have fared any better than Sweden. You can point to some countries that seem to have fared better but you can also point to many that have done worse.
The best comparison would be with the UK because they both started at the same time with the same strategy but then the UK panicked because the ‘best scientists in the world’ at Imperial College said it was going to be a disaster.

I thought Norway and Finland are good examples? They share a land border, alot of overlap in culture, and all got hit at the same time. The Finns have a much lower rate of infection and death. Per capita, the neighboring lock down countries look alot better if im reading them right.

Over here (in Finland) we are concerned about the higher infection rate from our neighbors. We're are all taking it really seriously, and moved to WFH very quickly (it was largely supported in typical day to day society before), and our numbers appear excellent. We have a population the size of ireland (where im from) and have much better numbers than back home.

manonboard

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Mutations will also weaken a virus.

Im not aware of this, could you explain more? Couldnt a mutation make it stronger? more contagious? airborne? etc

Bit cynical

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

There's a significant lag in the Swedish data, which other countries don't seem to have picked up on. Been reading a former epidemiologist from the country on Twitter, David Steadson, and he reckons things are much worse than the official figures show:

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1252719126591803393

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1252720324547874817

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1252725378596122629

He commented earlier today that their rolling 7 day average is moving towards a 100 deaths a day.

If this is the case, then it's too soon to label them a success story. Need to see how the picture look as we head into May.

I think there's still an upward trend. If we look at reported deaths per day we ssee peaks getting higher each time.

These are the reported deaths per million on the day they are reported rather than when the deaths occurred.

Ronan|Raven

Hector Savage wrote: »

Weeks ago people were saying it would be absolute carnage in Sweden by now, well today they have approx 600 new cases and 40 new deaths.

I work for a Swedish company in Barcelona, so a lot of my colleagues are SWedish, and they are living the same lives as us at the moment, staying at home and just making trips to the shops.
The difference is they do it out of choice, they aren't forced to by a thug police state like in Spain/Italy/UK...

That has a massive difference on people's mental well being, but fair play to Sweden they seem to have nailed it - you can still go to the park and be responsible and don't have to infect 50 people.

MEanwhile week 8 of lockdown here and only slight slight improvements.

The SS stazi nazi thug police walking around just dying to issue fines, even if you are totally alone and have receipt for the food in your bag.

<snip>

SS Stazi thug police.. some ****ing bull**** there lad. You should be ****ing glad you never got to experience the true SS you ****ing drama queen.
You sound like the type who roar into a cops face and then run crying to the media if they told you to cop on. What age are you? 16?

wakka12

Hector Savage wrote: »

Weeks ago people were saying it would be absolute carnage in Sweden by now, well today they have approx 600 new cases and 40 new deaths.

I work for a Swedish company in Barcelona, so a lot of my colleagues are SWedish, and they are living the same lives as us at the moment, staying at home and just making trips to the shops.
The difference is they do it out of choice, they aren't forced to by a thug police state like in Spain/Italy/UK...

That has a massive difference on people's mental well being, but fair play to Sweden they seem to have nailed it - you can still go to the park and be responsible and don't have to infect 50 people.

MEanwhile week 8 of lockdown here and only slight slight improvements.

The SS stazi nazi thug police walking around just dying to issue fines, even if you are totally alone and have receipt for the food in your bag.

F'cking pigs

I dont know about Spain/Italy etc but personally I think in Ireland unless there was orders to stay inside youd have thousands out and about not taking heed of the social distancing advice

Pubs and bars were packed right up until the closing orders were issued, this was when news was already circulating that an epidemic has begun in Ireland. Sweden simply has a different culture and are more reponsible in this regard

Hector Savage

Weeks ago people were saying it would be absolute carnage in Sweden by now, well today they have approx 600 new cases and 40 new deaths.

I work for a Swedish company in Barcelona, so a lot of my colleagues are SWedish, and they are living the same lives as us at the moment, staying at home and just making trips to the shops.
The difference is they do it out of choice, they aren't forced to by a thug police state like in Spain/Italy/UK...

That has a massive difference on people's mental well being, but fair play to Sweden they seem to have nailed it - you can still go to the park and be responsible and don't have to infect 50 people.

MEanwhile week 8 of lockdown here and only slight slight improvements.

The SS stazi nazi thug police walking around just dying to issue fines, even if you are totally alone and have receipt for the food in your bag.

<snip>

Bit cynical

charlie14 wrote: »

There are two ways of looking at those percentages in fairness.
While the overall mortality figures may actually be around 1%, the higher percentage figure of deaths to confirmed case will be more likely to give people pause for thought when it comes to social distancing.

charlie14 wrote: »

But what are the realistic figures ?
1% may or may not be the realistic figure for the overall population, but it is not the realistic figure for those that this virus is mainly dangerous too, the elderly and those with underlying conditions.

Some here are complaining about the 12% mortality rate of confirmed case in Sweden not being realistic are correct in the context of the overall population, but as these confirmed cases are not all elderly or have underlying conditions, then does it not follow for those that were the percentage was actually higher than 12% ?

As I said earlier, while that figure is not the overall mortality rate, it is no great harm in that it will make those that are the really vulnerable be extra careful when it comes to social distancing for their own sake, and those that are not in that group more careful for the sake of others.

The mortality rate is indeed much higher among some groups but naively dividing deaths by confirmed cases does not give you that figure; it just gives you an unrealistically high number for the whole population. Then when people work out that it is a bogus statistic, they will ignore it and rightly so.

The number you require can only be got by full testing of the entire population or failing that testing of a properly random sample of the population.

Mr.Nice Guy

There's a significant lag in the Swedish data, which other countries don't seem to have picked up on. Been reading a former epidemiologist from the country on Twitter, David Steadson, and he reckons things are much worse than the official figures show:

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1252719126591803393

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1252720324547874817

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1252725378596122629

He commented earlier today that their rolling 7 day average is moving towards a 100 deaths a day.

If this is the case, then it's too soon to label them a success story. Need to see how the picture look as we head into May.

charlie14

Roger_007 wrote: »

I think everyone else is beginning to realise that the Swedes have got it right and most others, including us, have got it wrong. There is precious little evidence that the countries that have gone into full lockdown have fared any better than Sweden. You can point to some countries that seem to have fared better but you can also point to many that have done worse.
The best comparison would be with the UK because they both started at the same time with the same strategy but then the UK panicked because the ‘best scientists in the world’ at Imperial College said it was going to be a disaster.

I don`t know, if as you say, everyone is beginning to realise that the Swedes have got it right. Or indeed if anyone has.
I think most see it as much too early for a definitive one way or the other.

Roger_007

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Some there still seem pretty confident that they are doing the right thing (from Thursday night):

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1253423416511655942

I think everyone else is beginning to realise that the Swedes have got it right and most others, including us, have got it wrong. There is precious little evidence that the countries that have gone into full lockdown have fared any better than Sweden. You can point to some countries that seem to have fared better but you can also point to many that have done worse.
The best comparison would be with the UK because they both started at the same time with the same strategy but then the UK panicked because the ‘best scientists in the world’ at Imperial College said it was going to be a disaster.

charlie14

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Mutations will also weaken a virus.

It often will, but not necessarily.

Outlaw Pete

Some there still seem pretty confident that they are doing the right thing (from Thursday night):

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1253423416511655942

Wibbs

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Mutations will also weaken a virus.

Dead right Iam and from the virus's evolutionary point of view being less fatal is far better for it. The "ideal" virus would have near zero fatalities, minimal symptoms, a high R0 number and the ability to "hide" in the host's body(like the various Herpes strains). That would guarantee its survival.

IAMAMORON

charlie14 wrote: »

Any mutation of a virus, and especially one we know so little about, is never good and would suggest to me at least, that regardless of how much or how little herd immunity gives a vaccine will still be an ongoing requirement.

Mutations will also weaken a virus.

Not in Kansas

As the home is now the main environment non health care workers are likely to get the virus, it seems to me we couldn't replicate Sweden's approach. Their single biggest advantage is the high level or one person dwellings.