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

[dann]

I agree. I use Danish public transport in the Copenhagen area every day, and people do not keep distance at all, buses are overcrowded, and in a full bus, you might only find two people wearing masks.

However, that may change. Last Thursday I was passed by by a bus, and it might be because it was crowded (and because it only runs once per hour, I was forced to walk for half an hour to the station). And in the train I would say that 1 in 10 was now using masks, which might be because it is now possible to buy them in the shops.

As of Monday, masks are compulsory, so the number of people wearing masks will of course go up to 100% - if they can get hold of masks.

No, outside of the regions I have mentioned before where it is already mandatory to wear face masks, you should not expect it to change dramatically till next Saturday. It doesn't become mandatory till then. But you will probably see a growing number of people with face masks starting Monday. Coop's were already sold out on Saturday: Coop til unge og bilister: Vent med at købe mundbind (DR.dk, Aug. 16, 2020)

In April, people could still be seen keeping distance when waiting to get into a shop, or waiting to pay, but by June, this was ignored by all, except for the old people like me. Young people act in every way as if COVID-19 does not exist, and they hug and kiss their friends.

In Frederiksberg people are still waiting outside and shops have posters in the windows telling people that more than two customers are not allowed inside at the same time. With few exceptions, the markings on the floor before you get to the cashier are respected.

I have not been in Sweden since last summer, so I cannot know how the Swedes behave. Today, I traveled through Germany to Austria, and in Germany everybody use masks inside trains and shops. But people also do not keep distance, and they got angry when I refused to let them into a crowded lift.

Lifts are usually well ventilated and the ride is short, so it's not the place I would choose to take a stand. However, in Frederiksberg Centret, which is only three or four stories high, only two are allowed in a lift at the same time.

I have only been in Austria for a few hours, but it is very evident that people are more relaxed about the masks. Some people here seem to think that it is OK if they just hold the mask in their hand, and more people than in Germany had their nose free of the masks. The next days will tell if this was typical.

It depends on the situation. I see some people get upset about people wearing the masks below their noses outdoors where face masks don't serve much purpose anyway. Indoors, in shops or on public transport, is a different matter, but I can see why you wouldn't want to use face masks 'properly' until then.
And some anti-maskers and other pandemic deniers will probably continue to wear them below their noses as a protest: We know that it is now mandatory, but this is our way of showing that we don't care.
There appears to be several of those in the USA already.

 

[dann]

Lockdown is useless according to the report made by Dr. Bodo Schiffmann. If you actually watch and listen you will learn something.

So now promoting quacks has become comme il faut at ISF.

I gave you a list comprehensive FACTS. Can you dispute them? No.

You presented a list of irrelevant definitions of words and concepts. You aren't very good at facts.

Whatever. You trying to tell me how DSB runs its reservation seating system is like telling an Army sergeant how to tie his boots. DSB claims that the obligatory (but free of charge) seat reservation is because of the Corona virus but they assign you (not allow you any choice) a specific seat next to and facing other passengers .... and no one is wearing a face mask.

No, I'm not telling you how DSB runs anything. I gave you a link to DSB's rules and regulations on reservations in order to avoid crowded trains. That you don't understand it, unlike army sergeants tying their boots, is your problem.

Did you not understand what I wrote? I am telling you that no one is using it

You are the one who is unable to understand that when Denmark has made wearing masks mandatory in some areas, those are the areas you will expect to see people wearing masks. But I guess that your anecdotal evidence of not having seen anybody wearing masks proves that nobody does.
I could turn your poor excuse for an argument into a joke about Swedish logic - and I might if I weren't aware that many other Swedes understand the world so much better than you. People in Aarhus deserve a good laugh: Krav om mundbind i offentlig transport: Her er reglerne (TV2ostjylland.dk, Aug. , 2020)
(You can just ignore the photo of people at the Aarhus Railway Station. They are obviously crisis actors pretending to be ordinary people wearing masks.)

No pretense. I am telling you that I go there often. I am so close that I can see Denmark from my window. People ARE NOT wearing face masks.

I very much doubt that you can see the Jutland municipalities where face masks are already mandatory. So much for your anecdotal evidence and eye-witness reports.

 

[dann]

The behaviour of Swedes and Danes may be similar, but as far as I remember, there was a huge difference in what was locked down, and what was not. And this difference resulted in a huge difference in the number of deaths in the two countries.

That wasn't very nice of you, Steen! You completely ruined his story:

I said: Denmark is doing the same thing as Sweden is doing. You said, no.

So I guess now you will be accused of lying, too.

 

[dann]

Thank you, C.E.

Intelligent, non-dramatic, presentations impress me more than raised voices and sensationalist accusations.

Fact checking Bodo Schiffmann: #Faktenfuchs: Die Thesen des Corona-Youtubers Bodo Schiffmann (BR.de, May 15 to July 27, 2020)
Google's German-to-English translation is OK.

From a German skeptics blog: Bodo Schiffmann (Psiram.de)

Times of uncertainty such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, are fertile ground for the spread of conspiracy theories and unproven claims. Communication used to take days to reach remote communities. Now social media can spread misinformation globally within a few minutes.
(...)
Dr. Bodo Schiffmann, a general practitioner in the small town of Sinsheim, Germany, has created a new political party, Widerstand 2020, (Resistance 2020.) Dr. Schiffman posts numerous videos on YouTube positing that the Covid-19 is milder than the seasonal flu, and that special precautions such as social distancing and lockdowns are completely unnecessary. Dr. Schiffmann does present certain medical facts, but he takes them out of context and combines them with unproven claims and untested ‘cures.’ Matthias Quent, director of the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society explains that the initiators of Widerstand 2020 represent a diverse pool, “the enemies of science meet conspiracy theorists, right-wing populists and left-wing anti-vaccine opponents.” To show the widespread support for Querfront and Widerstand 2020, protesters are asked to wear bracelets made of aluminum foil*.
Rina Caldari: The "Corona Rebels" - Conspiracy Theories from the Far Right (Romea.cz, June 5, 2020)

ETA: *I saw a photo from one of the German rallies where a guy was wearing an actual aluminum-foil hat.

 

[dann]

In Sweden, researchers criticize the Tegnell idea that children don't transmit the infection to any significant degree:

26 forskare: Vi uppmanar till en ansvarsfull skolöppning och ger här konkreta förslag på hur detta kan genomföras.
Folkhälsomyndighetens hållning är att barns smittsamhet är låg, och att de inte blir allvarligt sjuka. Tillgängliga data visar dock en annan bild. För att minimera risken för våra barn, och personer i deras omgivning, att få covid-19 behöver en rad åtgärder vidtas.
”Coronaoron inför höstens skolstart är befogad” (DagensNyheter.se, Aug. 15-16, 2020)

26 researchers: We call for a responsible opening of schools and present specific suggestions for how it can be done.
The Public Health Agency has the attitude that the level of transmission of the virus in low in children, and that they can’t get seriously ill. But available data show another picture. To minimize the risk that our children, and people in their surroundings, get Covid-19, a number of precautions need to be taken.
”Corona anxiety before schools reopen this fall is justified”

Swedes are confused by the lax attitude of the Swedish media to the number of cases in Sweden:

Varför är det en nyhet att nya Zeeland har 7 nya smittade när vi i Sverige har flera hundra per dag smittade?
100>7

Hej. Nya Zeeland har inte haft ett enda inhemskt smittofall på 100 dagar fram till nu, nyheten är därför att smittan blossar upp på nytt. Dessutom har myndigheter ännu inte lyckats spåra var smittan kom ifrån.
SVT · Vendela Bolin
Senaste nytt om coronaviruset (SVT.se, Aug. 15, 2020 – 15:13)

Why is it news when New Zealand has 7 new cases when we have several hundred in Sweden?
100>7
Hi there. New Zealand hasn’t had a single domestic case of infection for 100 days until now, so the news is that the infection is flaring up again. Besides, the authorities still haven’t managed to trace it back to its source.
SVT Vendela Bolin

Another reader wonders why the reaction in Sweden to high numbers of infection is so different from Greece:

Hej varför framgår det inte att vi har hög smittspridning? 442 nya mellan torsd och fred. Grekland hade 261 nya fall och tar till store restriktioner
Marie

Why doesn’t it say that we have high spread? 442 new cases from Thursday to Friday. Greece had 261 new cases and introduces major restrictions.
Marie

In Denmark:
Virolog: Mundbind har en stor psykologisk effekt på os (DR.dk, Aug. 15, 2020)
Virologist: Face masks have a big psychological impact on us

Danskerne gør sig klar til mundbind: ’Vi skal jo passe på hinanden’ (DR.dk, Aug. 15, 2020)
The Danes are getting ready for face masks: ’We have to take care of each other’


Saturday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 15, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 572 (5,783) 442* 31 *according to SVT.se Sweden doesn’t register until Monday.
Denmark: 107 (621) 104 0 No patients in ICU according to TV2.dk
Finland: 60 (333) 41 1
Norway: 47 (257*) 68 2 *the four deaths yesterday must have been a mistake! They have been removed again.
Iceland: 29 (10) 4 1
Iceland has 114 active cases, Faroe Islands 145, New Zealand 36.
The Faroe Islands have 900+ in quarantine, 28 tests from Aug. 14 awaiting results.

 

[jimbob]

Are you reading the thread? It's all about the numbers if "no action", namely no insane lockdown was taken, and the numbers are 572 per million.

Where do you get 572 per million deaths?

Looking at the UK, as an example of somewhere where I have the figures fairly easy to hand and which did have a peak in deaths about three weeks after lockdown started, with the 67,000 deaths so far, that suggests that 117-million people in the UK have been infected.

Which is somewhat silly. It's under 4-million, according to the latest sereological survey

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/201893/largest-study-home-coronavirus-antibody-testing/

The findings, available in a non-peer-reviewed report submitted to medRxiv, show that slightly under 6% of the population had antibodies to the virus and had likely previously had COVID-19 by the end of June, an estimated 3.4 million people. London had the highest numbers at over twice the national average (13%), while the South West had the lowest (3%).

This is with a lockdown, and a peak in deaths about 3-weeks after lockdown, which is in line with the lockdown restricting the spread.

ETA: And deaths are only the tip of the iceberg. About 10% suffer severe illness for at least 3 weeks with maybe 5% suffering long term lifechanging health effects. Really not good.

 

[dann]

Where do you get 572 per million deaths?

Her example is obviously from Sweden, where they had 572 deaths per million on Friday:

Saturday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 15, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 572 (5,783) 442* 31 *according to SVT.se

And the comparison with the UK is one that she loves because:
Sweden: no lockdown
The UK: lockdown (no need to mention that lockdown didn't happen until Boris had made sure that the virus had been spread to every corner of the British isles)

It's why Swedish anti-maskers and corona deniers cherry pick their comparisons. The other Nordic countries can't be used because ... reasons. The UK and Belgium, however, prove that Tegnell was right!

 

[jimbob]

Her example is obviously from Sweden, where they had 572 deaths per million on Friday:




And the comparison with the UK is one that she loves because:
Sweden: no lockdown
The UK: lockdown (no need to mention that lockdown didn't happen until Boris had made sure that the virus had been spread to every corner of the British isles)

It's why Swedish anti-maskers and corona deniers cherry pick their comparisons. The other Nordic countries can't be used because ... reasons. The UK and Belgium, however, prove that Tegnell was right!

Sweden, a country with built-in social distancing due to having a large proportion of the population living in single-person households.

 

[Pixel42]

Her example is obviously from Sweden, where they had 572 deaths per million on Friday:

And the comparison with the UK is one that she loves because:
Sweden: no lockdown
The UK: lockdown (no need to mention that lockdown didn't happen until Boris had made sure that the virus had been spread to every corner of the British isles)

It's why Swedish anti-maskers and corona deniers cherry pick their comparisons. The other Nordic countries can't be used because ... reasons. The UK and Belgium, however, prove that Tegnell was right!

https://vac-lshtm.shinyapps.io/ncov_tracker/

Finland: 60 per million
Norway: 48 per million
Denmark: 107 per million

For the record.

 

[dann]

Yeeees, but ... you know ... for comparisons with Sweden, nothing beats Belgium!

 

[dann]

In Sweden, researchers criticize the Tegnell idea that children don't transmit the infection to any significant degree:
(...)
26 researchers: We call for a responsible opening of schools and present specific suggestions for how it can be done.
The Public Health Agency has the attitude that the level of transmission of the virus in low in children, and that they can’t get seriously ill. But available data show another picture. To minimize the risk that our children, and people in their surroundings, get Covid-19, a number of precautions need to be taken.
”Corona anxiety before schools reopen this fall is justified”

– Det finns en risk att sprida mycket oro inför skolstarten och det tycker jag är onödigt, säger han till SVT Nyheter.
Tegnell svarar på kritiken inför skolstarten: ”Barn driver inte pandemin” (SVT.se, Aug. 16, 2020)

- There is a risk of spreading much anxiety before schools open and I think that's unnecessary, he tells SVT News.
Tegnell responds to the criticism: "Children don't drive the pandemic"



The Public Health Agency's attitude is based on their own report where they conclude that there was only a low level of transmission at schools before they closed down for the summer holidays, i.e. at a time when Sweden only tested people when they were going to be hospitalized.

Any sane researcher can tell Tegnell & Co. that you can't really say anything about the schools' role in the transmission of the virus unless you have actually tested and contact traced. What we do know is that there was widespread contagion in densely populated areas, but neither students, teachers, parents or grandparents were tested unless they got seriously ill and since there was no contact tracing, who's to say how Grannie got infected?

With no contact tracing, Sweden was flying blind, and the same people who were responsible for the 'herd immunity' strategy then are now in charge of writing reports about it based on their own ignorance and bias about what happened.

 

[Childlike Empress]

From a German skeptics blog: Bodo Schiffmann (Psiram.de)

Psiram (.com, not .de) is not a "skeptics blog", it is a smear campaign that is waiting to go up in flames when finally it is unveiled who is putting so much effort into staying anonymous while slandering and libeling people who don't fit their agenda (pharma lobbying). Which will be soon. Law suits will be abundant.

 

[Childlike Empress]

And the comparison with the UK is one that she loves because:
Sweden: no lockdown
The UK: lockdown (no need to mention that lockdown didn't happen until Boris had made sure that the virus had been spread to every corner of the British isles)

It's why Swedish anti-maskers and corona deniers cherry pick their comparisons. The other Nordic countries can't be used because ... reasons. The UK and Belgium, however, prove that Tegnell was right!

I don't "love" the fact, I only point it out because it runs completely contrary to your whining. And your cherry-picking is legendary here. What's with old uncle Luka?

And my argument is that none of those numbers - be it 48 or 572 per million - justify the insane "measures" that have taken place and will have huge consequences going into the future. From ruined businesses to lost jobs to traumatized children to elderly who lost their will to life because they have to stay alone, all the way to suicides. A bizarre amount of fear was induced into society, and that is literally a crime against humanity. And your whining about how your neighbours handled the thing is distasteful.

 

[Childlike Empress]

The ultimate proof that this is indeed a "psychosis" like uncle Luka said is that there aren't mountains of dead bodies in India and Africa where "social distancing" simply isn't possible. Instead we have the WHO crooks getting kicked out of Tanzania f.e. - you know about the positive Papaya, don't you? This is the president of Tanzania, a chemist:

 

[jimbob]

Yeeees, but ... you know ... for comparisons with Sweden, nothing beats Belgium!

If you want to compare a country with itself - try Israel.

It got cases down to ~ 10/day with increasing restrictions, relaxed and cases rose to more than 1000/day. it reimposed restrictions and cases have peaked again. My centred 7-day averages (date ±3 days) based on data from

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publi...graphic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide

This image is for August 16th so last centred date is 12th August.

 

[Childlike Empress]

As you could have learned from Dr. Schiffmann, this data is meaningless if you don't correlate it with the number of tests. And LOL at the scale of the graph.

 

[bruto]

As you could have learned from Dr. Schiffmann, this data is meaningless if you don't correlate it with the number of tests. And LOL at the scale of the graph.

The scale of the graph is odd, but isn't it in your favor, in a sense? If it were proportional, it would show a far steeper and more telling change. As it is now, it minimizes the enormousness and the suddenness of the change. If it were proportional, the only printable form would show the lower end as virtually flat, since the graph would have to be over 1000 units high.

 

[jimbob]

As you could have learned from Dr. Schiffmann, this data is meaningless if you don't correlate it with the number of tests. And LOL at the scale of the graph.

You would have a point if the lines were noisy, but they are pretty smooth - with clear trends over say a couple of months.

Also with the log plot you can see the relationship between the cases and the later deaths.

 

[Gavin]

Her example is obviously from Sweden, where they had 572 deaths per million on Friday:




And the comparison with the UK is one that she loves because:
Sweden: no lockdown
The UK: lockdown (no need to mention that lockdown didn't happen until Boris had made sure that the virus had been spread to every corner of the British isles)

It's why Swedish anti-maskers and corona deniers cherry pick their comparisons. The other Nordic countries can't be used because ... reasons. The UK and Belgium, however, prove that Tegnell was right!

You keep say they but can’t explain why they have flattened the curve

The number of new cases per 100,000 people in Sweden reported over the last 14 days since July 29 dropped by 54 percent from the figure reported over 14 days prior to then, according to the latest report Wednesday from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Meanwhile, other parts of Europe have reported large spikes in new cases over the same period, including Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands, which have seen increases between 40 and 200 percent over the last month, according to the latest WHO report Wednesday.

The seven-day rolling average of Sweden's daily new cases has been dropping consistently since June 29. Its daily case count has been mostly decreasing since June 24, when it reported 1,803 new infections, its largest single-day spike since the outbreak began, according to data compiled by Worldometer.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new deaths in Sweden has also been declining since around April 15, when it reported a record daily death count of 115. The country's latest seven-day rolling averages for daily new cases and daily new deaths stand at 154 and 2.

https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-whi...OItPSmlTVLLjNbfP872ZbnTu8ql_w84CHmAvs-DfW9XS0

Also there deaths below average

 

[jimbob]

I've updated my comparison of Scandinavia and the US with the ECDC data from today.




Still not sure Sweden is a model to follow