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

[PhantomWolf]

Welcome to immigration New Zealand!

I wouldn't be booking your tickets just yet...

So we learned on Tuesday night NZ time that we have a new outbreak outside of the Quarantine.

Auckland is now back to level 3 and as of 1pm today (NZST) there are 17 cases in a single cluster with another probable within that cluster.

The rest of the country is currently at level 2, but no cases outside of that cluster have appeared as of yet.

 

[jimbob]

Sweden has approximately double the population.
We still are not testing really. We can test for antibodies at the Apotek at a price and I don't know if it is included in "Högkostnadsskydd" reductions. Probably not.


But Denmark isn't wearing masks.

This is data that I collected from the ECDC
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide

The only processing I did was to sum the deaths to the date, and use the population listed in the above data to normalise it per 100,000 people.




ETA: Now obviously, this is nearly a month out of date, but it doesn't look to have changed that much yet.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

This is data that I collected from the ECDC
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide

The only processing I did was to sum the deaths to the date, and use the population listed in the above data to normalise it per 100,000 people.


View attachment 42860

ETA: Now obviously, this is nearly a month out of date, but it doesn't look to have changed that much yet.

According to the graph, all of them are "flattening" except for the U.S. which is actually rising.

 

[dann]

ETA: Now obviously, this is nearly a month out of date, but it doesn't look to have changed that much yet.

Only the USA numbers. The USA numbers are changing fast. With 511 deaths per million at this point and 1,386 deaths yesterday and 1,504 the day before, it won't take long for the USA to overtake Sweden's 571 deaths per million.
Considering that some of the states are doing pretty well at this point, others must be like Stockholm when it was worst. And now Trump has hired Scott Atlas to make sure that children can help spread the virus so it will go even faster.

 

[dann]

I wouldn't be booking your tickets just yet...

So we learned on Tuesday night NZ time that we have a new outbreak outside of the Quarantine.

Auckland is now back to level 3 and as of 1pm today (NZST) there are 17 cases in a single cluster with another probable within that cluster.

The rest of the country is currently at level 2, but no cases outside of that cluster have appeared as of yet.

With 4 deaths per million, you will have to work really, really hard on spreading the virus to overtake even Iceland's 29!
I propose a nationwide Kiss-Your-Neighbour campaign or something. We can send you the mistletoe, another thing you don't seem to have down there.
Or how about moving the Sturgis Rally - including Smash Mouth - to NZ next year? If there are still enough bikers left to have one. Considering the age of many of the participants in this year's rally, I predict that there will be a lot of used Harleys for sale in a month or two ...

 

[dann]

I don't know if this article and its copies of several emails will remain open access for long, so you should all download it immediately. In particular those of you who may have doubted that Sweden's strategy was 'herd immunity'. Giesecke was behind it all from the very beginning:
Mejlen som avslöjar Gieseckes indflytande över coronaplanen (Expressen.se, Aug. 11, 2020)

ETA: Tegnell-mejlen: Berättelsen om Johan Giesecke och Folkhälsomyndigheten (EmanuelKarlsten.se, Aug. 11, 2020)

New installment of the article by Emanuel Karlsten:
”Det låter som om man är villig att acceptera sjukdom och död” (Expressen.se, Aug. 12, 2020)
"It sounds as if one is willing to accept disease and death"

 

[dann]

Sweden did NOT flatten their curve, it peaked much higher than that of countries which had a lockdown. Their policy was specifically NOT to flatten the curve, but to go for herd immunity.

No, no, Sweden actually tried to flatten the curve until their idea of herd immunity had been achieved: The idea was that the vast majority of people had to get infected, that there was no way around it, so you might as well do nothing to prevent everybody from getting infected, but you should try to flatten the curve, so the hospitals weren't overwhelmed by a sudden number of Covid-19-sick people that they couldn't possible handle all at once. So by flattening the curve, they wouldn't try to prevent people from getting infected. They would merely prevent almost everybody from getting it at the same time.

The exception this 'strategy' was that old people should be protected while the rest of the population got infected and thus achieved a hypothetical level of immunity.

As we have seen, Sweden did manage to flatten the curve a little, but not nearly enough to prevent the hospital system from becoming overwhelmed; cf. long-distance triage and palliative care, i.e. opiates, I assume. And Sweden also succeeded in having so many people infected in the capital that it is not at all unlikely that Stockholm's R₀ will have been lowered considerably at this point due to the subsequent immunity, whether permanent or temporary, but it is really hard to tell if that's the case, and it probably also depends on the respective neighborhoods you live in since poor neighborhoods in Stockholm with many immigrants had an awful lot of cases, whereas affluent neighborhoods didn't, so they also can't have many people with infection-induced immunity.

And many small communities in the rest of the country probably never had the number of cases that they had in Stockholm, so even the level of partial immunity in the country is probably not equally distributed, i.e. high level in Stockholm and other places with a high death toll, lower in areas with a low death toll.

From the new article in Expressen mentioned above:

Egentligen är det Annika Linde som förklarar det först. Eller kanske bäst? Annika Linde var statsepidemiolog innan Anders Tegnell och den 13 mars publiceras en lång text på Facebook där Linde förklarar att det inte vore så dumt med ”lite långsam spridning bland skolbarn och deras föräldrar för att successivt bygga upp en flockimmunitet”.
Hon tillägger att det är ”i själva verket vår Folkhälsomyndighets strategi”. Anders Tegnell slår tillbaka direkt. Till DN förklarar han att det finns ”absolut inga ambitioner att låta smittan spridas på det sättet”. Målet är i stället en lugn spridning så att inte sjukvården överbelastas.
”Det låter som om man är villig att acceptera sjukdom och död”

It is actually Annika Linde, who explains it first. Or maybe the best? Annika Linde was national epidemiologist before Anders Tegnell, and on March 13, a long text was published on Facebook where Linde explains that it wouldn't be so bad to have "a bit of slow spread. among school children and their parents to build up herd immunity successively."
She adds that it is "actually the strategy of the Public Health Agency." Anders Tegnell reacts immediately. He explains to Dagens Nyheter that there are "no ambitions whatsoever to let the infection spread in this way." The goal is a slow spread so the health care system isn't overwhelmed.

A retired medical doctor then proposes something along the line of pox parties: To use hotels where the uninfected can go to get infected and become immune before they return to society and can no longer infect the vulnerable segments of the population. (Actually much like my own "Modest Proposal" in the Members Forum before we found out that not only old people and the immuno-deficient could get seriously ill and die from this.)

Anders Tegnell skickar vidare mejlet till generaldirektör Johan Carlson, men även till Mika Salminen (Finland's 'Tegnell'). Tegnell bifogar en kort kommentar:
”En poäng skulle tala för att hålla skolorna öppna för att snabbare nå herd immunity”.
(...)
Salminen svarar Anders Tegnell efter någon minut: ”Det har vi också tänkt på. Men under tiden kommer barnen ändå att sprida infektionen...”.

Anders Tegnell forwards the (doctor's) email to Director Johan Carlson and even to Mika Salminen. Tegnell adds a short comment:
"One point would be to advocate keeping schools open to reach herd immunity sooner."
(...)
Salminen answers Anders Tegnell after a minute: "We have considered this, too. But children will spread the infection anyway ..."


Long article, and this is as far as I got so far.

 

[dann]

Up to 6% of England's population may have had Covid, study shows (Guardian, Aug. 13, 2020)

3.4 million. An insane number - but not much if you were hoping for 'herd immunity'.

 

[dann]

111 new cases since yesterday, 44 of them in Aarhus (DR.dk, Aug. 12, 2020) - For the first time nobody is on ventilators, and it’s not because the last two died. There are no new deaths. In spite of this, local politicians won’t cancel the annual festival week beginning on Aug. 28. Researchers warn against it, obviously:

Politikere vil gennemføre Aarhus festuge, der besøges af op mod 500,000 (TV2.dk, Aug. 12, 2020)
Politicians want to go through with Aarhus festival week, which is visited by as many as 500,000

Det aarhusianske kontakttal er tæt på marts-nivesu (DR.dk, Aug. 11, 2020)
The R₀ in Aarhus is close to the level in March

They have now decided to cancel the festival week:

Aarhus Festuge aflyser alle arrangementer (DR.dk, Aug. 13, 2020)
Aarhus Festuge aflyses (TV2.dk, Aug. 13, 2020)
Aarhus Festuge er aflyst efter stigende smitte (EkstraBladet.dk, Aug. 13, 2020)
Lige nu: Aarhus Festuge aflyser alle arrangementer (Aug. 13, 2020)

This morning, the conservative parties didn't want to cancel the festival because 'the business world had done what it was asked to do' and therefore deserved that the city council go through with it, but then they made a U-turn, maybe because of the many warnings from experts.

 

[steenkh]

Venstre vil tvangsindlægge corona-smittede som bryder karantænen (DR.dk, Aug. 12, 2020)
The party Venstre wants to commit people with corona who break the quarantine - There are no indications that anybody does that, but now that it’s come out that many immigrants are infected, the party seems to think that it’s a good idea to make it seem as if immigrants have caused the new clusters and aren’t primarily the victims of them. I don't remember Venstre complaining about ski tourists back in February and March when it would have been a good idea to do so.

If you look at Denmark in nextstrain.org you will find that since some time in April, Denmark has not received any new SARS-CoV-2 strain, while it has developed its own. So it is definitely not immigrants that have carried the latest wave to Denmark. Hoever, the data stop at August 7, so it may changed later.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

THE TRUTH, admit it everyone, is that no one really knows what to do or how to do it. All of these statistics and graphs are just placebos. Everyone ought to know by now that any statistic can be manipulated and hoisted up for a political-socio agenda. It’s all manipulated and very little else.

Pay attention now …… all of this crap we hear from one end to the other is bravado, pretending to actually know something – the answer – but really only stalling time until a cure is found.

I learned an important lesson when I was hitch-hiking around the world from 1975 to 1982: When things are not going very well you must do something, change something. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you do something. That’s what the world is doing today: Doing something.

When it’s all over with everyone will be saying; “See! I told you!” and then they’ll get started in manipulating what they said in order to make it seem that they were right all along. It’s the same old crap with a different problem, different situation, different virus ….. but everyone will be pretending they knew the answer.

 

[Chanakya]

I'm going to repeat the question I'd asked a few days back. I see some posters are now commenting here, who're supporting Sweden's stance, and I'd like to get their perspective on this.

A number of vaccines are at various stages of development, and it is probable that we'll have something in some months' time. Given that, how do you justify what to me seem to be the totally unnecessary deaths caused by what appears to me to be criminally loose policy?

True, if a vaccine is a decade coming, then this kind of thing might make some kind of sense. It might even make some kind of sense in dirt poor countries, where a further weakening of the economy, even for a few months, might, arguably, result in more hardship, perhaps more deaths, than the virus.

But, given that we'll -- probably -- have one or more vaccine/s ready in a few months from now, how do you justify these deaths in economies that aren't exactly hand-to-mouth, deaths that may have been prevented by being more careful for some months, perhaps a year?

 

[Clutch Cargo]

I'm going to repeat the question I'd asked a few days back. I see some posters are now commenting here, who're supporting Sweden's stance, and I'd like to get their perspective on this.

I'm not "supporting Sweden's stance". I am just pointing out the nonsense that both criticize and support it. People read one source and think they know the truth and they are at odds with the people who read the other souce and think it is they who know the truth.

Your question is asking that if a vaccine is expected to be found/created in some months from now is it prudent to be laxed on any measures claimed to prevent people from being infected during the time it takes to accquire that vaccine.

1. There are those who say flatly, NO. Why not try anything to save yourself?

2. It could be that there are those who think being immune is better than any vaccine and that it is better to foster that immunity rather than to create something in the labouratory that will (might) prevent immunity from develping naturlly and so making inoculations necessary generations to come.

I vote for:

3. There are issues & variables that neither you nor I are aware of and everything we have to say is just guessing.

 

[dann]

If you look at Denmark in nextstrain.org you will find that since some time in April, Denmark has not received any new SARS-CoV-2 strain, while it has developed its own. So it is definitely not immigrants that have carried the latest wave to Denmark. Hoever, the data stop at August 7, so it may changed later.

I am not sure that I understand the map: Did we infect Kristiansand or did they infect us? I know some Norwegians refer to Kristiansand as "Little Denmark", but still ...
And how did Norway manage to spread SARS-CoV-2 to some godforsaken place in the middle of the North Sea? Or is that where they got it? Does anybody even live there? An oil rig or a cruise ship?

I think we should consider nuking San Antoine! And maybe the Democratic Republic of Congo as well, just to be on the safe side.

I am relieved to see that the scale of the map doesn't allow Venstre to point out individuals of Somalian descent as responsible for closing down Aarhus Festuge!

 

[dann]

I'm not "supporting Sweden's stance".

'We can't possibly know anything until next year' has been central to Giesecke's version of denialism almost from the beginning of this while at the same time he was claiming to be the only person in the whole world to understand the science of the virus. And Tegnell has been his loyal disciple.

2. It could be that there are those who think being immune is better than any vaccine and that it is better to foster that immunity rather than to create something in the labouratory that will (might) prevent immunity from develping naturlly and so making inoculations necessary generations to come.

They are the ones we usually call anti-vaxxers, but in your version they sound more like representatives of Social Darwinist extremism: We should be born with natural immunity to all diseases, so we better embrace all kinds of infections and expose our children to them, too: polio, TB, smallpox, typhoid, the plague. The ones who die or get crippled weren't worth saving, so only the ones who survive unscathed are worth keeping anyway.

I vote for:

3. There are issues & variables that neither you nor I are aware of and everything we have to say is just guessing.

I suspected you would vote for the nonsensical option:
There actually are "issues & variables that neither you nor I are aware of," and then there are issues and variables that I am very much aware of. But you deny even the possibility of that, no matter how many times they are pointed out to you, because you would rather defend the Swedish strategy by pretending that "everything (!) we have to say is just guessing."
This argument is always wrong and it is always a contradiction in terms: It claims to know something while denying the possibility of knowing anything.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

I suspected you would vote for the nonsensical option.....

Not true. I didn't vote for you.

 

[Chanakya]

I'm not "supporting Sweden's stance". I am just pointing out the nonsense that both criticize and support it. People read one source and think they know the truth and they are at odds with the people who read the other souce and think it is they who know the truth.

Okay, if you say so.

Your question is asking that if a vaccine is expected to be found/created in some months from now is it prudent to be laxed on any measures claimed to prevent people from being infected during the time it takes to accquire that vaccine.

1. There are those who say flatly, NO. Why not try anything to save yourself?

Well, not just anything, it would have to read, Anything that's backed by science. Even if the science only points, for now, at likelihood, not certainty. But no doubt that's what you meant?

2. It could be that there are those who think being immune is better than any vaccine and that it is better to foster that immunity rather than to create something in the labouratory that will (might) prevent immunity from develping naturlly and so making inoculations necessary generations to come.

I was just asking for the other camp's perspective, not fishing for a chance to pick holes, but, pardon me, that sounds a bit wild, and more than a bit on the desperate side, wouldn't you say? (Sure, I get it that this isn't your position, not your "vote".)

I vote for:

3. There are issues & variables that neither you nor I are aware of and everything we have to say is just guessing.

Thanks for clearly spelling that out.

To be clear, you don't buy the droplets/aerosol thing at all, and don't think it's reasonable to say that having an infected person coughing all over you is more likely to infect you, than if they were at a 'safe' distance from you and behind a mask? And that it's far better for your longevity and your well-being to not get infected, than to get the virus inside you?

Sure, there's lots we don't know, but you don't, personally, think we know even that much? As reasonably likely, even if not necessarily with cent per cent certitude?

 

[dann]

Finlands statsminister Sanna Marin sa i dag på en presskonferens att man nu rekommenderar ansiktsskydd i kollektivtrafiken och på allmänna platser, rapporterar Svenska Yle. (SVT.se, Aug. 13, 2020 – 13:26)
Today at a press briefing, Finland’s PM Sanna Marin said that they now recommend face mask on public transport and in public places, according to Swedish Yle.


Thursday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 13, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 572 (5,776) 397* 30 *according to SVT.se.
Denmark: 107 (621) 144* 1 *39 of them in Aarhus
Finland: 60 (333) 41 1
Norway: 47 (257) 34 2
Iceland: 29 (10) 4 1
Iceland has 114 active cases, Faroe Islands 137, New Zealand 36.
The Faroe Islands have 900+ in quarantine, 857 awaiting results from tests.

 

[Klimax]

Finlands statsminister Sanna Marin sa i dag på en presskonferens att man nu rekommenderar ansiktsskydd i kollektivtrafiken och på allmänna platser, rapporterar Svenska Yle. (SVT.se, Aug. 13, 2020 – 13:26)
Today at a press briefing, Finland’s PM Sanna Marin said that they now recommend face mask on public transport and in public places, according to Swedish Yle.


Thursday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 13, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 572 (5,776) 397* 30 *according to SVT.se.
Denmark: 107 (621) 144* 1 *39 of them in Aarhus
Finland: 60 (333) 41 1
Norway: 47 (257) 34 2
Iceland: 29 (10) 4 1
Iceland has 114 active cases, Faroe Islands 137, New Zealand 36.
The Faroe Islands have 900+ in quarantine, 857 awaiting results from tests.

Czech Republic: 391 dead, +330 cases (new number not yet released), 5436 active cases , 131 in hospitals

 

[steenkh]

I am not sure that I understand the map: Did we infect Kristiansand or did they infect us? I know some Norwegians refer to Kristiansand as "Little Denmark", but still ...
And how did Norway manage to spread SARS-CoV-2 to some godforsaken place in the middle of the North Sea? Or is that where they got it? Does anybody even live there? An oil rig or a cruise ship?

The granularity is not good enough to show details below country level. There are loads and loads of parameters you can fiddle with, and I am not sure that the link I posted contains the settings I chose.

Did you use the “play” button? Lines ending in the middle of the sea are most probably remnants of the animated simulation.