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

[dann]

I could and I did. And I quoted another nurse very recently. You also ignore that I wrote:
"What she says doesn't seem to be dictated by her party's agenda, and I have read other similar stories, so I consider it to be corroborating evidence against the lie that Sweden's hospitals weren't overwhelmed.".

 

[uke2se]

I could and I did. And I quoted another nurse very recently. You also ignore that I wrote:
"What she says doesn't seem to be dictated by her party's agenda, and I have read other similar stories, so I consider it to be corroborating evidence against the lie that Sweden's hospitals weren't overwhelmed.".

My point is that you don't need corroborating evidence from a member of a neo-Nazi party to make the case that Swedish doctors and nurses are extremely unhappy with the situation. I am simply trying to get you to not normalize or platform a very toxic and dangerous political movement in Sweden. I would have thought you, if anyone, would appreciate that.

 

[dann]

I am not platforming anybody or normalizing anything. And if Swedes start wearing masks on public transport and in other crowded spaces, it will be a step in the right direction. The opposition to wearing face masks normalized by Tegnell & Co. is the problem.
I have no idea what Tegnell's political point of view is, and I don't really care.

 

[dann]

One of the crazies in Denmark: Facebook photo. The sign says: "Corona? Yes, please - Corona isn't dangerous and we need to get infected to maintain immunity"

 

[uke2se]

I am not platforming anybody or normalizing anything. And if Swedes start wearing masks on public transport and in other crowded spaces, it will be a step in the right direction. The opposition to wearing face masks normalized by Tegnell & Co. is the problem.
I have no idea what Tegnell's political point of view is, and I don't really care.

It's not the problem we are discussing right now. And you are platforming and normalizing a view point from a neo-Nazi, simply because you agree with it, despite there being similar viewpoints expressed by people who aren't neo-Nazis.

 

[dann]

The White House now seems to have gone full Swedish herd-immunity strategy:

A senior White House official brushed off concerns about the lack of social distancing, telling CNN that “everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.”
(CNN, newsletter, Aug. 28, 2020)

In a shift that perplexed some doctors, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its Covid-19 testing guidelines to say some people without symptoms may not need to be tested, even if they've been in close contact with someone known to have the virus.
(…)
A senior federal health official close to the process tells CNN the sudden change in CDC Covid-19 testing guidance was the result of pressure from the Trump administration. When asked by CNN whether the CDC was responding to pressure from the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, the senior official said, "It's coming from the top down."
Updated CDC guidelines now say people exposed to coronavirus may not need to be tested (CNN, Aug. 26, 2020)

 

[dann]

It's not the problem we are discussing right now. And you are platforming and normalizing a view point from a neo-Nazi, simply because you agree with it, despite there being similar viewpoints expressed by people who aren't neo-Nazis.

You seem to be in denial of the fact that I have already several times referred to, linked to and quoted those "similar viewpoints expressed by people who aren't neo-Nazis."
Latifa Löfvenberg said it too, and she said it very well. Feel free to tell us what makes you think that she did so for nefarious reasons. I can't think of any. I also can't think of any good reason why so many Swedes, of whatever political persuasion they may be, prefer to be in denial about Swedish hospitals getting overwhelmed and old people in Sweden infected with coronavirus being left to die with no attempts to save their lives.

 

[dann]

Friday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 28, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 576 (5,821) 60* 21 *according to SVT.se
Denmark: 108 (624) 73 2
Finland: 60 (335) 23 1
Norway: 49 (264) 23 1
Iceland: 29 (10) 5 0
Iceland has 118 active cases, Faroe Islands 50, New Zealand 131.

The Faroe Islands have 90 in quarantine, 2 hospitalized, and all tests from yesterday analyzed.

When Russian trawler Yantarnyy arrived in Kollafjørður, Faroese authorities were told that two crew members displayed Covid-19 symptoms.
This led to the entire crew of 77 being tested yesterday, and 29 of them tested positive, reports corona.fo.
The crew have been banned from leaving the ship.The two crew members who displayed Covid-19 symptoms are currently receiving treatment in a Faroese hospital.
A week with no new Covid cases - All of yesterday’s 1,087 tests showed negative results(KVF.fo, Aug. 28, 2020)
A Russian trawler with at least 29 Covid-infected crew members is docking in the port of Kollafjørður (KVF.fo, Aug. 24, 2020)

The trawler was docking close to the two ships, Russian and Lithuanian, mentioned earlier in this thread: Russian sailors seen wandering streets of Klaksvík (KVF.fo, July 27, 2020)
I assume the harbor area is heavily guarded thist time …
Two Slovakian soccer players are currently quarantined in the Faroe Islands:
Slovak champions suffered a 0-3 technical defeat after yesterday’s qualifying-round clash with KÍ in Klaksvík was cancelled due to Covid infection (KVF.fo, Aug. 22, 2020)

 

[dann]

You seem to be in denial of the fact that I have already several times referred to, linked to and quoted those "similar viewpoints expressed by people who aren't neo-Nazis."
Latifa Löfvenberg said it too, and she said it very well. Feel free to tell us what makes you think that she did so for nefarious reasons. I can't think of any. I also can't think of any good reason why so many Swedes, of whatever political persuasion they may be, prefer to be in denial about Swedish hospitals getting overwhelmed and old people in Sweden infected with coronavirus being left to die with no attempts to save their lives.

Post 1967 included a link to a post that is now in AAH, but the relevant part of that post was this quotation from a Swedish hospital nurse:

'We were told not to send them in'
"They told us that we shouldn't send anyone to the hospital, even if they may be 65 and have many years to live. We were told not to send them in," says Latifa Löfvenberg, a nurse who worked in several care homes around Gävle, north of Stockholm, at the beginning of the pandemic.
"Some can have a lot of years left to live with loved ones, but they don't have the chance... because they never make it to the hospital," she says. "They suffocate to death. And it's a lot of panic and it's very hard to just stand by and watch."
Ms Löfvenberg, a local politician with the nationalist Sweden Democrats, is now working on a Covid-19 ward in a major hospital in the Swedish capital, where she says the demographic of patients she's treating is further evidence that the elderly are being kept away. "We don't have many older people. It's a lot of younger people born in the 90s, 80s, 70s."
Coronavirus: What's going wrong in Sweden's care homes? (BBC News, May 19, 2020)

 

[dann]

Saturday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 29, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 576 (5,821) 60* 21 *according to SVT.se No new data till Monday
Denmark: 108 (624) 79 4
Finland: 60 (335) 7 1
Norway: 49 (264) 29 1
Iceland: 29 (10) 8 0
Iceland has 111 active cases, Faroe Islands 49, New Zealand 137.
The Faroe Islands have 80 in quarantine, 2 hospitalized, and all tests from yesterday analyzed.

Yesterday’s 1,102 Covid-19 tests showed no positive results, reports corona.fo.
One more person has recovered, bringing the total number of active cases down to 49. This figure includes 27 sailors on board Russian trawler Yantarnyy, docking at the Port of Kollafjørður, and two Slovakian footballers, who are quarantined in Klaksvík.
Two people are currently undergoing Covid-19 treatment at the National Hospital. None are in intensive care.
Eight days have now passed since the last domestic Covid-19 case was registered (KVF.fo, Aug. 29, 2020)

 

[dann]

95% of Danes ”think their country has handled Covid-19 well,” according to American study of 14 countries. In Sweden, it’s 71%. It did not look at Finland, Iceland and Norway:
Most Approve of National Response to COVID-19 in 14 Advanced Economies (PewResearchCenter, Aug. 27, 2020)
Danmark topper amerikansk liste – USA ligger selv helt i bund (TV2.dk, Aug. 28, 2020)
Denmark tops American list - the USA is at the bottom

Another study of 20 countries by the Imperial College London says that Danes have had more guests and parties than other people in other nations:
Danskere har været mest selskabelige under coronakrisen (TV2.dk, Aug. 29, 2020)
Danes have been more sociable than other nationalities during the corona crisis
International studie: Danskerne har haft allerflest gæster og fester (DR.dk, Aug. 29, 2020)
International study: The Danes have had the highest number of guests and parties
A representative of the Danish Health authorities, Søren Brostrøm, thinks that ”maybe it’s time to invite six guests instead of eight,” now that autumn is near.

I am not sure if this is the study, but it was the only one I could find. It’s one month old: Global Insights on Life Satisfaction – COVID-19 Behaviour Tracker.
Interesting that Danes also top Life satisfaction with Finns #2. Danes were also least likely to avoid medium-sized social gatherings. And to the question of having avoided public transport during the pandemic, the nations with the highest percentage of people saying not at all are #1 Singapore, #2 Denmark, #3 Finland, #4Sweden, #5 Germany and # Norway. Iceland is not included in the study.

 

[dann]

Frygtede italienske tilstande: Lægen, patienten og professoren ser tilbage på et halvt år med coronavirus (TV2.dk, Aug. 27, 2020)
Feared a situation like it Italy: The doctor, the patient and the professor look back on six months of coronavirus

The patient was infected as a ski tourist in Norway, not in the Alps:

- Det undrer mig, at man ikke med det samme satte ind med opsporing, da den første medarrangør kom hjem med sygdommen.

- I wonder why contact tracing wasn’t started immediately when the first travel organizer returned home with the infection.

The professor (Kåre Mølbak):

Særligt blev han bekymret, da det stod klart, at smittede mennesker ikke nødvendigvis havde symptomer.
- Jeg så infektionerne sprede sig i Italien, og før det også i slutningen af januar, hvor folk i Tyskland smittede uden at have symptomer. Da tænkte jeg, at det her kunne blive en udfordring at begrænse.
(…)
Der er dog særligt en ting, han ville ønske, der var gjort anderledes:
- At vi tidligere havde skaleret op på testaktiviteten. Men det var et beredsskabsspørgsmål. Ingen lande havde kapacitet til at teste på den skala, som det var nødvendigt, siger han med henvisning til, at der i løbet af foråret var kritik af, at Danmark ikke testede flere for coronavirus.
I øjeblikket testes omkring 30.000 danskere om dagen.

He started to worry in particular when it was clear that people with the infection didn’t necessarily have any symptoms.
- I saw the infection spread in Italy, and before that also by the end of January when people in Germany transmited the disease asymptomatically. I thought, it will become quite a challenge to contain this.
(…)
But there is one thing in particular that he wishes had been done differently:
- That we had scaled up testing. But it was a question of preparedness for the emergency. No country had the capacity to test on the necessary scale, he says with a reference to the criticism that Denmark didn’t test more people for coronavirus in the spring.
At this point, about 30,000 Danes are tested every day.

I agree with them. Many lives could have been saved if contact tracing had started earlier. But in the case of the ski tourists, it was crazy to let them continue for several weeks after Iceland told the other countries about the risk of contagion from those places.

 

[dann]

- I saw the infection spread in Italy, and before that also by the end of January when people in Germany transmitted the disease asymptomatically. I thought, it will become quite a challenge to contain this.

I forgot to stress this part of the quotation in the post above: that asymptomatic transmission of the virus was known as early as January! This is also worth remembering in a Scandinavian context ...

 

[dann]

Sunday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 30, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 576 (5,821) 60* 21 *according to SVT.se No new data till Monday
Denmark: 108 (624) 112 4
Finland: 60 (335) 28 1
Norway: 49 (264) 20 1
Iceland: 29 (10) 5 0
Iceland has 105 active cases, Faroe Islands 49, New Zealand 137.
The Faroe Islands have 80 in quarantine, 2 hospitalized, and all tests from yesterday analyzed.

 

[dann]

Monday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Aug. 31, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 574 (5,808*) 421** 19 *lowered by 13 since Friday due to discrepancy between Scania's and FHM's numbers. **since Friday, according to SVT.se
Denmark: 108 (624) 94 4
Finland: 61 (336) 9 1
Norway: 49 (264) 103 1
Iceland: 29 (10) 2 0
Iceland has 100 active cases, Faroe Islands 37, New Zealand 131.
The Faroe Islands have 41 in quarantine, 2 hospitalized, and all tests from yesterday analyzed.
Ten days have now passed since the last domestic Covid-19 case was confirmed (KVF.fo, Aug. 31, 2020). Soccer with spectators as well as church services have now reopened (KVF.fo, Aug. 25, 2020).

Norway's number of new cases is surprisingly high.

And according to Senaste nytt om coronaviruset (Aftonbladet.se, Aug. 31, 2020 – 13:55), Scotland had 160 new cases today, 256 in hospital, 5 in ICUs, today.

 

[dann]

Sara, 36, säger upp sig från sjukhuset: ”Vi är slutkörda” (Aftonbladet.se, Aug. 30, 2020)
Sara, 36, resigns from the hospital: "We are exhausted"
Oro bland personal när Karolinska går vidare med varslen (Aftonbladet.se, Aug. 21, 2020)
Disconcerted staff after Karolinska goes ahead with the notices

I såväl Göteborgsposten, som Svenska Dagbladet och Dagens Arena får den svenska modellen kritik på ledarsidor.
“Det duger inte att lämpa över ansvar för smittspårning på enskilda individer, när många inte har möjlighet att ta ansvar och hålla avstånd,” skriver exempelvis Lisa Pelling i Dagens Arena.
Covid-sjuka får smittspåra själva – nu höjs kritiska röster (SVT.se, Aug. 30, 2020)

In Göteborgsposten as well as in Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Arena, the Swedish strategy is criticized in editorial-page articles.
”It serves no purpose to let isolated individuals be responsible for contact tracing when many don’t have the option to take responsibility and keep distance,” Lisa Pelling writes in Dagens Arena.
People sick with Covid-19 have to do contact tracing on their own – now critical voices are raised

 

[dann]

Tuesday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Sep. 1, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 575 (5,813) 142* 19 *according to SVT.se
Denmark: 108 (625) 99 4
Finland: 61 (336) 56 1
Norway: 49 (264) 58 1
Iceland: 29 (10) 9 0
Iceland has 99 active cases, Faroe Islands 37, New Zealand 132.
The Faroe Islands have 41 in quarantine, 2 hospitalized, and all tests from yesterday analyzed.

- Ett munskydd kan vara ett bra komplement vid en riktad insats under en bestämd tidsperiod. Det kan vara av bra värde, för att visa att det är ett problem just nu, säger Anders Tegnell.
SVT · Lovis Häkkinen
Senaste nytt om coronaviruset (SVT.se, Sep. 1, 2020 – 14:31)

- Face masks may be a good addition to a targeted effort in a particular period of time. It may be valuable in order to show that there is a problem right now, Anders Tegnell says.
Latest news about the coronavirus

I guess it's impossible for him to say, ’Yes, unlike what I have claimed, face masks reduce the level of transmission.’
He just can’t do it.

 

[Rolfe]

Wasn't he all about "face masks on their own don't stop the virus so they're not worth wearing" before? The idea that something which isn't 100% effective alone might nevertheless be a useful addition to other measures is a new concept for him, I imagine.

 

[steenkh]

Wasn't he all about "face masks on their own don't stop the virus so they're not worth wearing" before? The idea that something which isn't 100% effective alone might nevertheless be a useful addition to other measures is a new concept for him, I imagine.

I think he was all about face masks being worse than nothing, because people who wear face masks have a false sense of security, and behave irresponsibly.

The Danish counterparts had the same position in March.

 

[lionking]

Wasn't he all about "face masks on their own don't stop the virus so they're not worth wearing" before? The idea that something which isn't 100% effective alone might nevertheless be a useful addition to other measures is a new concept for him, I imagine.

Not Sweden I know, but we are hearing similar things from the Premier of New South Wales, on the verge of a second wave I'm certain. Asked why NSW will not mandate face masks like Victoria she responded that it would only take a few to ignore the mandate to cause problems, so what is the point.

Leaders around the world are displaying dangerous idiocy.