Sweden avoiding lockdown

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

My first post on Boards.ie got so many replies, I am committed to responding to all of them. I think biggest question put forward is the 30%, the cases you are quoting are positive cases of people who had symptoms and went to the test centre. It is a known fact that at least 25% of people are asymptomatic.

There is an interview on youtube of Prof. Johan Giesecke who is the adviser to WHO, with over 30 years of experience dealing with virus research, he clearly outlines that there are millions more people who had coronavirus in Sweden and obviously other countries and have recovered and didnt even know they've had it. Think about it, only 3 known facts about this virus is that A - its highly infectious and B - its true mortality rate is in the region of 0.1 - 0.8% and C - unfortunately over 99% of deaths are people in old age with underlying conditions.

If it's highly infectious, and first case known to Chinese government that occurred in China was end of November, you really would be very mislead believing that Sweden's true coronavirus cases is 23k.

If you have doubts about mortality rate, remember that there are 8 billion people on the planet, known deaths as of this moment of people who contracted covid19 (underline the word contracted) and have unfortunately died is 244k, thats 0.003%.

So in other words there is no evidence that 30% of the population of Sweden has been infected, It is based on the presumption of one professor whereas Sweden has, after revising their data put the number at 26% for the epicenter of their outbreak, Stockholm, which accounts for roughly 1/5th. of their population. With Stockholm being the epicenter then it stands to reason that the overall infection rate is lower than 26%

Even if nationally that number was 26%, if Sweden are claiming a Ro number less than 1, then that 60% infection rate you mentioned for herd immunity is a long way off.
That 26% for Stockholm was based on a mathematical programme. On actual blood test results, from 100 blood donors where only 11 showed antibodies present, and even though that report was later withdrawn ,it further suggests to me at least just how far off that 60% is.

Btw, you could underline the words known deaths as well as the word contacted as we really have no idea as to the true figure for known deaths from this virus.
Also Professor Johan Giesecke is not advising the WHO. He is Swedish and is at present an advisor to Anders Tegnell.

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

My first post on Boards.ie got so many replies, I am committed to responding to all of them. I think biggest question put forward is the 30%, the cases you are quoting are positive cases of people who had symptoms and went to the test centre. It is a known fact that at least 25% of people are asymptomatic.

There is an interview on youtube of Prof. Johan Giesecke who is the adviser to WHO, with over 30 years of experience dealing with virus research, he clearly outlines that there are millions more people who had coronavirus in Sweden and obviously other countries and have recovered and didnt even know they've had it. Think about it, only 3 known facts about this virus is that A - its highly infectious and B - its true mortality rate is in the region of 0.1 - 0.8% and C - unfortunately over 99% of deaths are people in old age with underlying conditions.

If it's highly infectious, and first case known to Chinese government that occurred in China was end of November, you really would be very mislead believing that Sweden's true coronavirus cases is 23k.

If you have doubts about mortality rate, remember that there are 8 billion people on the planet, known deaths as of this moment of people who contracted covid19 (underline the word contracted) and have unfortunately died is 244k, thats 0.003%.

Yep, thats why we are doing antibody testing. Have you read about the New York state antibody testing? It has revealed that despite the high number of asymptomatic cases, the level of infection in the community is lower than was initially estimated. It's only 20-25% in New York city, in the state it's only 4-5%. So Stockholm is almost definitely considerably lower than NYC level of infection, And Sweden overall almost definitely considerably lower than NY state overall

Also I think it is not representative to say that because theres only 240,000 deaths, it is tiny compared to the world population. This is from just a few weeks, and 85% of (official )deaths are in the EU and USA, which make up just 10% of the world population. In just 6-8 weeks in the EU and USA , 210,000 deaths is a huge number.

Ginger n Lemon

My first post on Boards.ie got so many replies, I am committed to responding to all of them. I think biggest question put forward is the 30%, the cases you are quoting are positive cases of people who had symptoms and went to the test centre. It is a known fact that at least 25% of people are asymptomatic.

There is an interview on youtube of Prof. Johan Giesecke who is the adviser to WHO, with over 30 years of experience dealing with virus research, he clearly outlines that there are millions more people who had coronavirus in Sweden and obviously other countries and have recovered and didnt even know they've had it. Think about it, only 3 known facts about this virus is that A - its highly infectious and B - its true mortality rate is in the region of 0.1 - 0.8% and C - unfortunately over 99% of deaths are people in old age with underlying conditions.

If it's highly infectious, and first case known to Chinese government that occurred in China was end of November, you really would be very mislead believing that Sweden's true coronavirus cases is 23k.

If you have doubts about mortality rate, remember that there are 8 billion people on the planet, known deaths as of this moment of people who contracted covid19 (underline the word contracted) and have unfortunately died is 244k, thats 0.003%.

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I am not comfortable with the concept that South Korea are the role model for dealing with the virus. It all looks too easy for them, especially considering how some European countries have struggled. I reckon they are massaging their figures at least. Japan are lying also. I find it difficult to believe them given their high population density and ageing population. If you add in the fact that they were trying to keep the Olympics on track back in January I reckon they are spoofing too.

I will add that I would accept that Asian countries may have been better equipped to tackle an outbreak given their proximity to China and their previous experiences with the Sars1 outbreak or Swine Flu or bird flu. I can stomach that, but given how small their numbers are after that I reckon their is something amiss. Culturally it could be the norm in Asia to put on your heaviest and best suit, even if you are sweating inside it. I don't honestly know for sure, but I am comfortable with my instincts. If the CCP are so happy to be so bare faced about the virus I can understand why Japan and South Korea are happy to give the fingers back.

That possibly may be the case for China, but if it is then they are not the only country doing it. There appears to be quite a few in the western world downplaying their numbers for mortality rates from the virus.
South Korea and Japan may also be to an extent, but if they are fairly open societies where I doubt any cover-up of mass mortality rates would go undetected.
One of the reasons I would be inclined to believe South Korea`s figures as relatively accurate, is that even from the low numbers of deaths there in 2015 due to the MERS virus the authorities got a high level of criticism from their populous and rejigs their health care system to respond faster and more efficiently should there be a another similar viral outbreak.

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I am not comfortable with the concept that South Korea are the role model for dealing with the virus. It all looks too easy for them, especially considering how some European countries have struggled. I reckon they are massaging their figures at least. Japan are lying also. I find it difficult to believe them given their high population density and ageing population. If you add in the fact that they were trying to keep the Olympics on track back in January I reckon they are spoofing too.

I will add that I would accept that Asian countries may have been better equipped to tackle an outbreak given their proximity to China and their previous experiences with the Sars1 outbreak or Swine Flu or bird flu. I can stomach that, but given how small their numbers are after that I reckon their is something amiss. Culturally it could be the norm in Asia to put on your heaviest and best suit, even if you are sweating inside it. I don't honestly know for sure, but I am comfortable with my instincts. If the CCP are so happy to be so bare faced about the virus I can understand why Japan and South Korea are happy to give the fingers back.

Yeh it is surprising, Japan released reports just two weeks ago saying their healthcare system was on the brink of collpase because there were so many COVID cases appearing across the country. Still only reporting a few hundred cases and a few dozens deaths per day the last few days

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Over 30% of Swedish population already have had the virus and have recovered. When that number is 60%, their government can officially announce that virus is no longer dangerous to the population and is dying out, encouraging all the population to go back to the offices etc. etc. without any requirement for a vaccine (that A - isnt developed, B - isnt going to be properly tested until 3 - 5 years from development and C - vaccines work 80% of the time at most), masks or awkward social distancing that is going to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs as all the restaurants/bars/entertainment venues going to cut capacity by 50% and lay off 50% of the workforce.

Putting healthy people into quarantine is something that has never been done before, our government are doing something that has never been done before to fight something that hasn't been around for longer than 3 months. Its a very bad combination, and time will tell, and we will all be slating the overreaction for many years to come as 2008 has thought us - poverty/recession takes at least 5 years to turn around.

30% of the Swedish population have not had a virus. Tell me , how could New York state with a population of 20 million have a 15% infection rate and 25,000 deaths while Sweden with a population of 10 million has twice as high a rate of infection and 1/10th of the deaths? Its because its a load of crap, Sweden is nowehere near herd immunity, it's very unlikely that any more than 1-4% of the Swedish population have had the virus

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Over 30% of Swedish population already have had the virus and have recovered. When that number is 60%, their government can officially announce that virus is no longer dangerous to the population and is dying out, encouraging all the population to go back to the offices etc. etc. without any requirement for a vaccine (that A - isnt developed, B - isnt going to be properly tested until 3 - 5 years from development and C - vaccines work 80% of the time at most), masks or awkward social distancing that is going to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs as all the restaurants/bars/entertainment venues going to cut capacity by 50% and lay off 50% of the workforce.

Putting healthy people into quarantine is something that has never been done before, our government are doing something that has never been done before to fight something that hasn't been around for longer than 3 months. Its a very bad combination, and time will tell, and we will all be slating the overreaction for many years to come as 2008 has thought us - poverty/recession takes at least 5 years to turn around.

Sweden to my knowledge has not claimed 30% of its population have already had the virus and recovered.

They issued a report that they estimated 33% of the population of Stockholm had been infected but withdrew that report the following day and later estimated it as 26%.
They made no estimated percentages for the rest of the country to my knowledge, and even if that 26% is correct, with Stockholm being the epicenter of their infections, it stands to reason that the percentage of infections there will be much higher than the rest of the county`s 9 million population.
A long way from 60% infections nationally,and if a another poster here is correct and their Ro number is now below 1, it will be a long time, if ever, that 60% is reached.
When they withdrew that report on infection levels in Stockholm, they also withdrew another that stated 11 out of 100 blood donors had developed antibodies, which as far as I know has not been updated and re-released.

IAMAMORON

charlie14 wrote: »

On testing I imagine when we get our Ro number to a certain level, (one of the aims of this lockdown and which will determine the easing of lockdown restrictions), the priority will be, like South Korea, rapid contact tracing, testing, and if need be quarantine of anyone who came in contact with any new cases

I am not comfortable with the concept that South Korea are the role model for dealing with the virus. It all looks too easy for them, especially considering how some European countries have struggled. I reckon they are massaging their figures at least. Japan are lying also. I find it difficult to believe them given their high population density and ageing population. If you add in the fact that they were trying to keep the Olympics on track back in January I reckon they are spoofing too.

I will add that I would accept that Asian countries may have been better equipped to tackle an outbreak given their proximity to China and their previous experiences with the Sars1 outbreak or Swine Flu or bird flu. I can stomach that, but given how small their numbers are after that I reckon their is something amiss. Culturally it could be the norm in Asia to put on your heaviest and best suit, even if you are sweating inside it. I don't honestly know for sure, but I am comfortable with my instincts. If the CCP are so happy to be so bare faced about the virus I can understand why Japan and South Korea are happy to give the fingers back.

[Deleted User]

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Over 30% of Swedish population already have had the virus and have recovered.

With only 22k infected and only 2.7k deaths with a population of 10m and an apparent (30%) 3 million getting the virus the number of deaths and infected doesn't stack up.

[Deleted User]

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Over 30% of Swedish population already have had the virus and have recovered. When that number is 60%, their government can officially announce that virus is no longer dangerous to the population and is dying out, encouraging all the population to go back to the offices etc. etc. without any requirement for a vaccine (that A - isnt developed, B - isnt going to be properly tested until 3 - 5 years from development and C - vaccines work 80% of the time at most), masks or awkward social distancing that is going to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs as all the restaurants/bars/entertainment venues going to cut capacity by 50% and lay off 50% of the workforce.

Putting healthy people into quarantine is something that has never been done before, our government are doing something that has never been done before to fight something that hasn't been around for longer than 3 months. Its a very bad combination, and time will tell, and we will all be slating the overreaction for many years to come as 2008 has thought us - poverty/recession takes at least 5 years to turn around.

Our health service would collapse if we didn't have these measures in place. These are also measures that most Western countries are following. The global economy has effectively shutdown. So even the likes of Sweden are facing economic collapse from this.

daheff

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Over 30% of Swedish population already have had the virus and have recovered.

Anything to back up that number? From worldometer it's saying they've had 22k cases.

Sweden's population is circa 10m...so 30% would be more like 3m.

Ginger n Lemon

Over 30% of Swedish population already have had the virus and have recovered. When that number is 60%, their government can officially announce that virus is no longer dangerous to the population and is dying out, encouraging all the population to go back to the offices etc. etc. without any requirement for a vaccine (that A - isnt developed, B - isnt going to be properly tested until 3 - 5 years from development and C - vaccines work 80% of the time at most), masks or awkward social distancing that is going to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs as all the restaurants/bars/entertainment venues going to cut capacity by 50% and lay off 50% of the workforce.

Putting healthy people into quarantine is something that has never been done before, our government are doing something that has never been done before to fight something that hasn't been around for longer than 3 months. Its a very bad combination, and time will tell, and we will all be slating the overreaction for many years to come as 2008 has thought us - poverty/recession takes at least 5 years to turn around.

daheff

A couple of things.

We can't 100% judge how well or not a policy is for Sweden at this time. We need to have the pandemic to be over to see who was correct in their actions.

Tomorrow there could be a sick person spread the virus to a huge number of people in Sweden..who onwards pass it again. Or sick people in Sweden may just stay at home and isolate.

Only once it's all over will we know what the right strategy was.

Our lockdown isn't as effective as it should be...there are too many new daily cases (at this stage of things) to say it's working well.

Secondly testing is different in each country. Some are testing everything they can see some aren't. Best way to judge is to see the number of hospital admissions/ICU admissions/deaths for each country.

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Anyone who thinks that "testing" is some sort of an indicator as to how a country is coping or dealing with the outbreak is not thinking clearly and does not fully understand the permutations of having an efficient testing strategy.

The purpose of having a robust testing system ( apart from it slowly turning into a political beating stick ) , is to allow health professionals to quickly carry out a process of contact tracing to isolate any future or current outbreaks.

Far to many wafflers spoofing on about how the lack of testing is some sort of a political cover up, total garbage. There are physically not enough test kits, antibody test kits or facemasks to go around. That's right, they are a scarce resource. Compound that truth with the fact that even if the physical equipment were not a scarce resource, that there is also a scarcity in the recourse of the qualified human labour required to analyse results of testing and you should be seeing a wider picture.

In the area of PPE we have a Donegal company that is producing 1 million face shields a day. Outer protective clothing shortages have been due to some companies in China not producing to the required specifications, but the Chinese government have stamped down on that, so that should help that situation.

On testing I imagine when we get our Ro number to a certain level, (one of the aims of this lockdown and which will determine the easing of lockdown restrictions), the priority will be, like South Korea, rapid contact tracing, testing, and if need be quarantine of anyone who came in contact with any new cases

IAMAMORON

Anyone who thinks that "testing" is some sort of an indicator as to how a country is coping or dealing with the outbreak is not thinking clearly and does not fully understand the permutations of having an efficient testing strategy.

The purpose of having a robust testing system ( apart from it slowly turning into a political beating stick ) , is to allow health professionals to quickly carry out a process of contact tracing to isolate any future or current outbreaks.

Far to many wafflers spoofing on about how the lack of testing is some sort of a political cover up, total garbage. There are physically not enough test kits, antibody test kits or facemasks to go around. That's right, they are a scarce resource. Compound that truth with the fact that even if the physical equipment were not a scarce resource, that there is also a scarcity in the recourse of the qualified human labour required to analyse results of testing and you should be seeing a wider picture.

robinbird wrote: »

Which is why those that want to make Sweden look bad pick countries at the lower end for comparison and those that want to make them look good pick countries from the top.

Very true.
Countries vary greatly in societal attitude,population density, health care capability, family units, geography, climate etc. Any or all of these may have a bearing so you cannot universally compare one country to another.
Best you can do is perhaps compare like with like. Even to do that is still very much in the area of the quote attributed to Chairman Mao when asked about the impact of the French Revolution that it was too early to tell.

storker

wakka12 wrote: »

Very quick to judge. It depends completely on what happens in the future. Maybe Ireland wont experience future waves, while death continue to grow in Sweden slowly but consistently. By the time of the vaccine Sweden may end up with many thousands of deaths more than Ireland. You cant judge two very different policies 6 weeks into a a pandemic which will last another year more if not two.

Not everyone in Sweden is convinced that avoiding a lockdown is the right approach:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-sweden-open-no-lockdown-effects-result-anders-tengell-a9495806.html

.

Blud

Glenomra wrote: »

The 'nuance' is that Sweden called it correctly .

Sweden have higher deaths per million than us in a much less dense population. They have only done about 75% of the tests we have too. Compared to countries they have borders with, Norway and Finland, their deaths and cases are off the charts.

What have Sweden called correctly?

Glenomra wrote: »

The 'nuance' is that Sweden called it correctly .

Very quick to judge. It depends completely on what happens in the future. Maybe Ireland wont experience future waves, while death continue to grow in Sweden slowly but consistently. By the time of the vaccine Sweden may end up with many thousands of deaths more than Ireland. You cant judge two very different policies 6 weeks into a a pandemic which will last another year more if not two.

Glenomra

The 'nuance' is that Sweden called it correctly .

dubrov

It is very hard to compare any countries deaths as they all have vastly different criteria. Some only include hospital deaths where CV was confirmed as the cause of death. Others include all deaths including those not tested but CV was deemed the likely cause. Others again include deaths where the patient had CV but did not die die to it.

The only reliable thing you can extrapolate is the growth rate but even then deaths are announced as they are reported rather than on the date of death.

patnor1011

Memnoch wrote: »

I would say that the context in this case is a bit more nuanced. Sweden has cultural, political, societal and economic attributes that are fairly comparable to its Scandinavian neighbors such as Norway and Denmark. Many of these attributes would affect the spread and impact of Covid no matter which approach is followed.

So picking these countries is not a case of picking countries with low numbers, rather it is trying to account for those unique attributes and variables that probably do not apply in the same way to countries like Ireland, the UK or Italy.

I think to make a direct comparison to Sweden with Ireland while ignoring the comparison with its Nordic neighbors is a mistake. Considering that Sweden's approach has resulted in a fatality rate far greater than that of its neighbors that have adopted an approach closer to Ireland's, I don't think it is an unreasonable hypothesis to say that had Ireland followed Sweden's approach our fatality rate could have been significantly greater and in a similar proportion to the UK or Italy.

Further, Sweden's testing regime has been poor especially at the peak of the pandemic. Therefore, their numbers cannot be considered as reliable. This seems to be, unfortunately, a common pattern with countries that have followed a more open approach. They seem to not want to test and thus it makes it very difficult to establish the true cost of their policies upon their populations.

I do not think that testing or number of tests matters - you can be tested today get negative result and pick virus tomorrow. I think that number of covid related deaths tells more about situation when you want to compare countries.

Memnoch

robinbird wrote: »

Which is why those that want to make Sweden look bad pick countries at the lower end for comparison and those that want to make them look good pick countries from the top.

Breezin wrote: »

Well how about we cut to the chase and just pick us for comparison.

I would say that the context in this case is a bit more nuanced. Sweden has cultural, political, societal and economic attributes that are fairly comparable to its Scandinavian neighbors such as Norway and Denmark. Many of these attributes would affect the spread and impact of Covid no matter which approach is followed.

So picking these countries is not a case of picking countries with low numbers, rather it is trying to account for those unique attributes and variables that probably do not apply in the same way to countries like Ireland, the UK or Italy.

I think to make a direct comparison to Sweden with Ireland while ignoring the comparison with its Nordic neighbors is a mistake. Considering that Sweden's approach has resulted in a fatality rate far greater than that of its neighbors that have adopted an approach closer to Ireland's, I don't think it is an unreasonable hypothesis to say that had Ireland followed Sweden's approach our fatality rate could have been significantly greater and in a similar proportion to the UK or Italy.

Further, Sweden's testing regime has been poor especially at the peak of the pandemic. Therefore, their numbers cannot be considered as reliable. This seems to be, unfortunately, a common pattern with countries that have followed a more open approach. They seem to not want to test and thus it makes it very difficult to establish the true cost of their policies upon their populations.

Breezin wrote: »

Well how about we cut to the chase and just pick us for comparison.

That seems reasonable. We have months more of lockdown to go.
At the moment our per capita death figures are about the same.

Sweden 264 per million
Ireland 260 per million

Breezin

robinbird wrote: »

Which is why those that want to make Sweden look bad pick countries at the lower end for comparison and those that want to make them look good pick countries from the top.

Well how about we cut to the chase and just pick us for comparison.

dubrov wrote: »

The average of those countries is about 300.
At first glance, the death rate seems to be independent of policy chosen

charlie14 wrote: »

From those countries alone the average may be around 300, but there is a massive difference between those at the lower end and those at the higher end for mortality levels.

Which is why those that want to make Sweden look bad pick countries at the lower end for comparison and those that want to make them look good pick countries from the top.

There is no argument that could be made that Sweden is doing 'good', approaching 3000 deaths in 5 weeks certainly is not good.

But they are not doing nearly as bad as we thought they would, and countries in lockdown arent necessarily always doing far better

dubrov wrote: »

The average of those countries is about 300.
At first glance, the death rate seems to be independent of policy chosen

charlie14 wrote: »

From those countries alone the average may be around 300, but there is a massive difference between those at the lower end and those at the higher end for mortality levels.

Which is why those that want to make Sweden look bad pick countries at the lower end for comparison and those that want to make them look good pick countries from the top.

dubrov wrote: »

The average of those countries is about 300.
At first glance, the death rate seems to be independent of policy chosen

From those countries alone the average may be around 300, but there is a massive difference between those at the lower end and those at the higher end for mortality levels.