Sweden's liberal pandemic strategy questioned as Stockholm death toll mounts

[Arcade22]

By the way, one of the reasons why there's a delay in the reporting of Swedish deaths is because they have to test those who are suspected to have been infected at the time of death. They are generally not going to prioritize the testing of the dead so there ends up being a backlog.

It's not as if they are supposed to stay as "suspected" deaths forever. They are either going to be confirmed to have been infected and then subsequently reported in to the FHM or they are confirmed not to have been infected.

The statistics show the number of people with confirmed covid-19 who have died, regardless of the cause of death.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hello?

You must be new here!

Welcome to the ISF.

Shh... don't scare him off. I hear icerats are an endangered species.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yeah, but Denmark is now talking about allowing public gatherings of up to 500 people. Apparently it's now okay if more people get infected. It's suddenly okay if more people die.

I am so confused about your position on this, but no worries, carry on.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There has however been nothing at all stopping Folkhälsomyndigheten issuing "Allmänna råd" (a strange kind of "binding advice" with limited actual legal power) that simply says #STAYATHOME

They have not done that. As the Giesecke interview makes extremely clear, the strategy here is to aim for herd immunity as quickly as possible while trying to keep health care demand under control and protecting the vulnerable.

The approach assumes several things -

(a) the virus can't be stopped using suppression and mitigation ("the hammer and the dance")
(b) there will be no vaccine prior to herd immunity being achieved naturally
(c) there will be no treatment available to significantly decrease mortality until herd immunity is achieved
(d) immunity of some type is actually achievable
(e) the vulnerable can be protected

I consider this approach ethically indefensible, especially combined with the acknowledged refusal to actually model potential deaths using this approach

No one in this state is arresting or even fining anyone. The governor and mayors have announced the importance, maybe a few parking tickets were given out in closed state parks, and a cruiser might park at a crowded city beach to encourage people to stop crowding.

They did arrest a preacher in another state for holding a crowded service but he was out the next day.

You don't need to drag everyone to jail (China) or beat them back into their hovels (South Africa) to get people to comply.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The problem here is that you ONLY compare Sweden to Scandinavian countries. That's called cherry picking.

I'm pretty sure it's called ruling out other variables, or at least trying to.

 

[Arcade22]

I'm pretty sure it's called ruling out other variables, or at least trying to.

I've not seen anyone ruling out any other variables at all. The only thing people have done is fixate on one very visible difference that has been exaggerated quite heavily in foreign press.

 

[icerat]

Well it must be because there's an incredible conspiracy by the FHM to deceive the government, parliament and the public.

Hanlon's razor. Or my version of it - never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

You did follow today's debacle?

 

[icerat]

By the way, one of the reasons why there's a delay in the reporting of Swedish deaths is because they have to test those who are suspected to have been infected at the time of death.

What? They're doing post-mortem testing? Source?

 

[applecorped]

it lives!!!

 

[icerat]

it lives!!!

#fakenews

 

[William Parcher]

OMG, an icerat sighting. More rare than Bigfoot.

 

[icerat]

OMG, an icerat sighting. More rare than Bigfoot.

and never seen together either ... make your own conclusions.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

What they neglect to mention is that the largest hospital network in Stockholm instituted a policy of not placing the elderly into ICU, and despite them being a higher percentage of reported infections in April cf March, they dropped to less than half the March rate in percent of ICU beds.

Whether this policy is (or was) wider spread is unclear, however there's been numerous media reports from people claiming it has happened to them (or their loved ones)

Is this enough to have stabilised the ICU demand? Unfortunately the data that would make it possible to analyse isn't available, but I suspect it is.

That would certainly be significant.

Personally i think the biggest argument is treatment improvements rather than a vaccine. Potential treatments can be in place orders of magnitude faster than a vaccine, and there are several extremely promising ones already on the horizon.

Sure, either way. The point is that I think for it to be demonstrated that Sweden's policy is wrong it'd need to be established that the net loss of life (or harm to life, including long-term decreased quality of life) is greater.

 

[dann]

I mean that is what you are alleging is occurring, because on one hand "the Swedish strategy" is supposedly about infecting as many people as possible and get herd immunity and yet they are calling on people to "stay at home at the slightest sign of illness, keep away from others and being careful about hand hygiene". That damn Anders and his conspiratorial co-conspirators are subjecting Sweden to a terrifying experiment and they are not even honest about it!

This call was excusable at the time when it was assumed that the stage of contagion was when people were showing symptoms of Covid-19. At this point, it is well known that people infected with the virus are actually contagious even in the early stage when they don't yet show any symptoms at all - and that some people never show any symptoms, which doesn't prevent them from passing the infection on to others.
That is also why the testing of people (and not just the ones showing symptoms), isolating those tested positive, and tracing down and testing people they had come into contact with has been the most successful approach to slowing down (or even putting a stop to!) the spreading of the disease: Færøerne!
So you are right about the dishonesty of Anders Tegnell and his co-conspirators. At the beginning of the pandemic, they could be excused. Now they no longer can.


ETA: And even after the symptoms have disappeared, there is no reason to assume that you are no longer contageous. Only testing can tell: COVID-19 Coronavirus: How Long Are You Contagious And Do Symptoms Last? (Forbes, April 21, 2020)

 

[bruto]

This call was excusable at the time when it was assumed that the stage of contagion was when people were showing symptoms of Covid-19. At this point, it is well known that people infected with the virus are actually contagious even in the early stage when they don't yet show any symptoms at all - and that some people never show any symptoms, which doesn't prevent them from passing the infection on to others.
That is also why the testing of people (and not just the ones showing symptoms), isolating those tested positive, and tracing down and testing people they had come into contact with has been the most successful approach to slowing down (or even putting a stop to!) the spreading of the disease: Færøerne!
So you are right about the dishonesty of Anders Tegnell and his co-conspirators. At the beginning of the pandemic, they could be excused. Now they no longer can.


ETA: And even after the symptoms have disappeared, there is no reason to assume that you are no longer contageous. Only testing can tell: COVID-19 Coronavirus: How Long Are You Contagious And Do Symptoms Last? (Forbes, April 21, 2020)

Unless that recommendaton was made a long time ago, I have to question this a little, since it seems to have been known for quite a long time that one can be an asymptomatic carrier.

 

[dann]

Unless that recommendaton was made a long time ago, I have to question this a little, since it seems to have been known for quite a long time that one can be an asymptomatic carrier.

It wasn't. That's my point!

Latest news from Sweden:

Sverige har så mange døde, at de er nødt til at hævde, at de var tæt på målet om flokimmunitet, lyder kritikken fra dansk professor.
Sverige trækker to corona-rapporter tilbage: De retfærdiggjorde deres strategi, siger dansk professor (TV2.da, April 22, 2020)

Swede has so many deaths that they had to claim that they were close to the goal of herd immunity, says a Danish professor criticizing the reports.
Sweden withdraws two coronavirus reports: They justified their strategy, Danish professor says

Adspurgt om hvorvidt den svenske strategi har resulteret i ekstraordinært mange dødsfald, siger han:
- Det er et svært spørgsmål, og jeg har ikke svaret, og jeg ved ikke, om vi nogensinde får svaret.
Svensk epidemiolog erkender fejlvurdering af dødstal – men forsvarer strategien (TV2.da, April 24, 2020)

Asked about if the Swedish strategy has resulted in an extraordinary number of deaths, he says:
- That is a difficult question, and I don’t have the answer, and I don’t know if we will ever have the answer.
Swedish epidemiologist acknowledges false estimate of the number of deaths – but defends the strategy
= I don’t want to know the answer, and I will continue to dispute the obvious answer!

– Det är absolut inte så att vi ser någon nedgång, säger Anders Wallensten, biträdande statsepidemiolog, under torsdagens presskonferens.
Över 2 000 coronasmittade döda i Sverige (SVT.se, April 23, 2020)

- We are definitely not seeing the numbers go down, says Anders Wallensten, deputy national epidemiologist, in the press briefing on Thursday.
More than 2,000 corona-infected have died in Sweden[/urll]


Folkshälsomyndigheten drar tillbaka rapport[url=https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/folkhalsomyndigheten-drar-tillbaka-rapport] (SVT.se, April 22, 2020)
Public Health Agency of Sweden withdraws report

SVT har frågat över 100 kommuner om de informerar anhöriga om coronaviruset sprids på det äldreboende där deras närstående bor. Nästan 16 procent svarar att de inte informerar boende och anhöriga. Lika många svarar att de inte vet.
Stor oro när kommuner inte informerar om corona på boenden (SVT.se, April 24, 2020)

SVT asked more than 100 municipalities if they inform relatives about coronavirus spreading at the nursing home where their elderly relatives live. Almost 16 percent answer that they inform neither the elderly themselves nor their relatives. The same number answer that they don’t know.
Much concern when municipalities don’t inform about coronavirus at nursing homes

 

[angrysoba]

There was a BBC report on this in which the reporter spoke to politicians and to Anders Tegnell about this policy. He also talks to the critics of the policy.

It seems everything thinks they called it correctly (although Anders does admit that maybe more have died than should have done):

 

[angrysoba]

And yet Sweden is most similar - from what I can see - to Japan. Maybe the two big differences with Sweden and Japan is that Japan has closed schools and just about everybody wears face masks.

I took a bike ride round the town today (first time in a few weeks although I usually walk around the neighbourhood with my son on his bicycle). I went to pick up lunch today from MacDonalds (we ordered online, received a number on a smartphone and just turned up to pick it up off the counter).

I would say that most shops appeared to be open. Clothes shops, hairdressers, bakeries, convenience stores, fast food restaurants, a coffee shop, a shoe shop, drugstores, electronic goods shops, etc... Some had created "social distancing theatre" with people on the door admitting customers in sporadically, although the cash registers still had lines of people that doubled back on themselves as they snaked to the front with very little consideration for how the customers could keep themselves apart. There are see-through plastic curtains at the cash registers of some shops, and most shops have doors open to get the air to circulate.

Overall, though, Japan is far less locked down than most European countries as far as I know with the possible exception of Sweden. Japan now has around 300 deaths, so things are still growing here, but not at a breakneck speed.

I think it remains pretty mysterious why things are not worse here yet.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

For those who are interested, the podcast The Bunker Daily yesterday was talking about Sweden's approach to this. I didn't actually listen to much of it because, well, some guests are more interesting than others, but anybody particularly interested in the subject might find it worth listening to.

 

[dann]

What? They're doing post-mortem testing? Source?

I don't have a source for you about testing in Sweden, but the first death from coronavirus in Denmark was discovered post mortem.