Sweden avoiding lockdown

At the end of the day, the success or failure of your strategy is determined by deaths per million and Sweden continues to fall down that table. Currently 23rd, they'll be 25th sometime next week and about 30th by Christmas, replaced in the meantime by countries like Hungary, Poland and Switzerland.

greyday wrote: »

Its never too late to expand your knowledge although I do accept you have difficulties dealing with facts regarding Sweden.

How confirmed deaths are presented for Sweden
COVID-19 deaths are reported by the Swedish government by the date on which the death occurred.

Since there is a lag between the time a person dies and the time the death is reported, the death counts for the most recent period are always incomplete. They are often most incomplete for the latest 2 to 5 days, but can be incomplete for 10 days or more. This undercount in recent days means that they often appear to be falling; but when this is later completed, data shows that more deaths were occurring during that period.

This means that for the last 10 days of data, death counts in Sweden must only be interpreted as incomplete measures of mortality.

As an example, this chart shows what confirmed deaths looked like for the period from October 20 to October 29, when the data was first published on October 30 (red series), and once many more death certificates had been added on November 12 (blue series).

One day after October 29, it looked as if deaths had peaked on October 27 and then started to fall, but in reality that’s not what happened over this period. What actually happened is shown by the blue series: deaths increased steadily.

This also means that each day, the Swedish government will add new deaths for multiple days in the past—mostly on recent days, but on average up to 10 days in the past, and sometimes even more, if deaths have been reported with a long delay.

Our source for COVID-19 deaths, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, updates its figures for Sweden directly from the Swedish government’s data. This means that these daily changes affecting the historical data will be visible on our charts.

Sweden is the only country for which the European CDC currently applies this method for the reporting of deaths. It is also important to note that this does not apply to confirmed cases, but only to confirmed deaths.

It doesn't matter - what matters is the overall total. Counting the death on the day the person died or when it was notified doesn't make a blind bit of difference at the end of the day, as long as its added to the total.

Idiots are all over the place, Sweden are trying to copy Ireland's strategy by reducing infections with lockdowns and then hoping to return to some normality, the first time they tried letting it rip they had the highest death rate in the world but are very slow learners as their lockdown now is at best stabilising infections at very high rates due to the messaging from their public heath to not be too concerned about the virus at the beginning of the pandemic, Tegnell has now admitted he doesn't and never did have a clue about the transmission of this virus as he see's the carnage coming his way before this is over.

greyday wrote: »

Idiots are all over the place, Sweden are trying to copy Ireland's strategy by reducing infections with lockdowns and then hoping to return to some normality, the first time they tried letting it rip they had the highest death rate in the world but are very slow learners as their lockdown now is at best stabilising infections at very high rates due to the messaging from their public heath to not be too concerned about the virus at the beginning of the pandemic, Tegnell has now admitted he doesn't and never did have a clue about the transmission of this virus as he see's the carnage coming his way before this is over.

They only had the highest rates in the world because everywhere else was in a hard lockdown where people were barely allowed leave their homes. Once those lockdowns were lifted, those countries caught up again and Sweden fell back into mid table.

Really its a tortoise and hare type situation. Some countries doing well, keeping infections low, relaxing everything completely, then falling behind. But over the long run they are actually doing far worse. Maybe a F1 car that speeds off into the distance and then its engine blows up is a better analogy. Those countries couldn't sustain their lockdowns.

At the end of the day the Swedes will be about 30th in deaths per million, regardless of who followed what strategy.

ArthurDayne wrote: »

But they clearly didn’t “let it rip”.

Predictions of Sweden’s death toll, similar to death toll predictions elsewhere, seem to have driven an assumption that anything less than lockdown was invariably “letting it rip”. This was not a correct assumption.

If the Swedes had “let it rip”, we might have seen them approaching the kind of death tolls that were projected (up to 96,000 dead by July as Uppsala University predicted at one point) — but we didn’t.

Ahhhhhh. Thats a classic there. I thought it was from Imperial college?

In any case, that prediction is as good as "Arsenal are gonna win the league" :rolleyes:

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I thought I was on ignore? :rolleyes:

Who are these idiots? Ireland is currently copying their strategy, as are the UK.

If you are referring to some european countries, I don't believe that is the case. Those countries see-saw between hard lockdown and opening everything up including parties, large sports crowds, protests, etc.

Even the Swedes didn't go that far, they have a limit of 50 at sports events. The UK plan to allow 1000 or 2000 at soccer matches. This is a clear example of tighter restrictions in Sweden than several other countries.

And they are unlikely to be higher than 30th. Other countries are far outstripping their deaths, up to 5 times in some cases.

Ireland is copying Sweden`strategy !

Sweden are now using lockdown. Much more a case of the opposite where Sweden are now copying more or less everyone else`s strategy.


As another example of just how out of touch their Public Health Authority is on the 22nd October they recommended raising the numbers for public events from 50 to 300. The regional authorities showing a bit of sense ignored them and kept it at 50.


November 16th. the government scrapped the 300 Public Health Authority recommendation and announced a law under the Public Order Act subject to fines or imprisonment of up to six months for violations.

This law limits numbers at public gatherings, including sports matches, to a maximum of 8 people.

the incredible pudding wrote: »

You're gonna have to provide a source for that one. The only thing I could get near that after doing some searches in Swedish were reports from them stating that Sweden was the only country with growing unemployment in the Union in 2019 and that it expected it to drop further (whilst pushing for fiscal reform that would benefit them of course) and more recently an article from them where they said it was outperforming their expectations.

I did not bookmark that report when I first saw it and after attempting to find it again I can see why you failed as well. That site is a maze.
It was not the only report on how furlough was skewing the unemployment figures. Bloomberg prior to that also published an article estimating the true level as 17%.
Sweden if 100% of its workforce was in employment would have 5.5 milion employed, (countryeconomic.com). In June the official number unemployed was 9.2%. (NordicLabourJournal.org) which would amount to 506,000.
May 14 Sweden`s Minister for Finance Magdalena Andersson said that there were 420,000 on furlough which to that date had cost 2 Billion Euro.

That 420,000 plus the 506,000 gives a total of 926,000.
As a percentage of the total workforce that is 17% which was the Bloomberg figure then.
That I believe is a truer reflection on Sweden`s real unemployment figure in June and I would doubt it has improved of late with the rising numbers and further restrictions.

charlie14 wrote: »

I did not bookmark that report when I first saw it and after attempting to find it again I can see why you failed as well. That site is a maze.
It was not the only report on how furlough was skewing the unemployment figures. Bloomberg prior to that also published an article estimating the true level as 17%.
Sweden if 100% of its workforce was in employment would have 5.5 milion employed, (countryeconomic.com). In June the official number unemployed was 9.2%. (NordicLabourJournal.org) which would amount to 506,000.
May 14 Sweden`s Minister for Finance Magdalena Andersson said that there were 420,000 on furlough which to that date had cost 2 Billion Euro.

That 420,000 plus the 506,000 gives a total of 926,000.
As a percentage of the total workforce that is 17% which was the Bloomberg figure then.
That I believe is a truer reflection on Sweden`s real unemployment figure in June and I would doubt it has improved of late with the rising numbers and further restrictions.

I don't think those numbers show what the furlough system is though. You can't just add the numbers together. The furloughing scheme was hugely used in companies where people had their hours cut but weren't necessarily unemployed, tourism and industry were very badly hit and thus cost saving measures had to be put into place. It in effect allowed workers to still be paid a large part of their wages whilst allowing for hours to be cut. The amount supplemented depending on the #hours cut. e.g. you could work 80% of your prior contracted hours and the government would pay 17% of your salary so your loss of earnings wouldn't be too badly affected though lower percentages of hours results in less subsidisation. My girlfriend runs a business here and has filled me in on the details of it as they applied for it but were all still working. Unemployment still grew during the period and many businesses did close but it's disingenuous and a gross over simplification to conflate the two figures.

Sweden is now following the strategy of virtually every other country and using lockdown.

It's not though, things are still open, people are still moving about. You have the freedom to move 5km away from where you live, go to the gym, get a haircut, meet (7 of) your friends in a bar etc. You're being asked sternly not to and thankfully more are taking it seriously after what was a bit of a lull in terms of following the guidelines.

Sweden have closed all their high schools again.

What an attack on their civil liberties

fisgon wrote: »

Seems like the Swedes are joining the rest of the world.....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/03/sweden-anti-lockdown-covid-deaths

In a survey of Swedes, "More than 80% of those surveyed said they were either “somewhat” or “very worried” that Sweden’s health service would not be able to cope with the challenge".

“It is quite clear that the increased rate of infection, combined with the measures the authorities have taken, have led to a sharp increase in concern,” Nicklas Källebring of the Ipsos polling agency told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

Sweden last month introduced tougher restrictions, cutting its limit on attendance at public gatherings to eight people and announcing that bars and restaurants would not be allowed to serve alcohol after 10pm until the end of February."

That's the best news I've read about Sweden all year. Hopefully that will put pressure on the gov to put some people who know what they're doing in place.

I don't think any less of the Swedes. I think we'd have had a similar experience if we'd had the misfortune to have had a tegnell figure as CMO.

the incredible pudding wrote: »

I don't think those numbers show what the furlough system is though. You can't just add the numbers together. The furloughing scheme was hugely used in companies where people had their hours cut but weren't necessarily unemployed, tourism and industry were very badly hit and thus cost saving measures had to be put into place. It in effect allowed workers to still be paid a large part of their wages whilst allowing for hours to be cut. The amount supplemented depending on the #hours cut. e.g. you could work 80% of your prior contracted hours and the government would pay 17% of your salary so your loss of earnings wouldn't be too badly affected though lower percentages of hours results in less subsidisation. My girlfriend runs a business here and has filled me in on the details of it as they applied for it but were all still working. Unemployment still grew during the period and many businesses did close but it's disingenuous and a gross over simplification to conflate the two figures.


It's not though, things are still open, people are still moving about. You have the freedom to move 5km away from where you live, go to the gym, get a haircut, meet (7 of) your friends in a bar etc. You're being asked sternly not to and thankfully more are taking it seriously after what was a bit of a lull in terms of following the guidelines.

Up until the 14th May from the Minister`s statement we know that this furlough scheme cost to the Swedish exchequer was 2 Billion euro, so I do not see where there is much difference to the PUP scheme in Ireland which posters here have included in unemployment figures when making comparisons.

I have said before that there is no such thing as a universal definition as to lockdown. You could not compare the Wuhan lockdown with Ireland`s. That does not mean Ireland is not using lockdown, same as it does not mean Sweden is not using lockdown now. The freedom to travel 5kms is an element in one of our lockdown levels as well, and I see in Sweden schools for over 16`s are now closed.
Nobody could credibly claim that we did not have lockdown recently because ours were not.

https://twitter.com/LoneClaw/status/1334072894771634176?s=19

Ah Now, even the Swedish Prime Minister nearly raised his voice when telling people not to travel, work from home, dont go to Gym or cinema..........its the end of the world over there when the PM feels he has raise his voice.....while Tegnell tells people to carry on as normal as he is learning a lot about transmission.........read Tegnells latest interviews, he is practically admitting he got it very very badly wrong.

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Swedes arent listening to their govt health advice?

But arent 50%+ posts in this thread tell us how different they are to us - Irish?? :pac:

Enough Swedes are not listening to make a difference and of course the advise for the most part helped the spread until the recent lockdown, now we see they can just about stabilise the numbers rather than suppress them.

the incredible pudding wrote: »

That doesn't address anything I said at all. Whether or not you consider the approach equitable with the Irish system or not isn't relevant, nor is its cost. It's not the same as unemployment here (which separately grew and shrank over the past year). They're different systems and were also in place in the rest of Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. Throwing them together is a gross simplification of a very complex issue. If you want to use it for point scoring but can't produce a source then well, good luck with that.



I'm not going to begin to engage with further whataboutism with using Wuhan as some measuring stick of what a lockdown is. I would question the wisdom of using declaring something is in a state when you don't have a definition for that state. However, If closing schools for the 16-18 age group falls in your definition for a lockdown then you'd have to also fall into the thinking that Sweden was in lockdown back I'm spring and summer when they were also closed? Or was it "let rip" then? What other evidence is there that there's a lockdown in Sweden currently? It certainly doesn't feel like there's one and I wouldn't have been against it if it had been introduced.

Don't expect anything in the way of consistent replies on these questions.
Its blatently obvious Sweden never let it rip and had numerous restrictions in place such as school closures for over 16s, working from home, crowds no more than 50, nursing home vist restrictions and many more. Its amusing watching some posters trying to square a circle.

I think you said you live in Sweden - you'll have to forgive the many Irish armchair Sweden experts.