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

[banquetbear]

Perhaps I’m being pedantic, but I think I am in good company. Polio hadn’t been eradicated nor has measles despite vaccines. There have been only two viruses eradicated, according to the WHO:

...if you want to be pedantic note that I used the word elimination, not eradication, because epidemiologically speaking they mean two very different things as you have just demonstrated. If I had intended to say eradicated then I would have used that word. New Zealand has an elimination strategy and it is generally recognized by almost everyone that we eliminated it from community spread earlier this year, and it is likely we have just done it again.

 

[banquetbear]

I can predict that you will say “but we have eradicated it in NZ”. How do you know? Will you guarantee that it won’t break out again in NZ?

...we haven't eradicated it in New Zealand. I haven't claimed we have eradicated it. We eliminated it earlier this year. We saw a resurgence with the mystery Americold outbreak in August. Elimination doesn't mean that a resurgence won't happen: we saw that happen in August. So of course I'm not going to "guarantee" we won't have another outbreak: we've literally just seen a new outbreak happen.

 

[lionking]

...we haven't eradicated it in New Zealand. I haven't claimed we have eradicated it. We eliminated it earlier this year. We saw a resurgence with the mystery Americold outbreak in August. Elimination doesn't mean that a resurgence won't happen: we saw that happen in August. So of course I'm not going to "guarantee" we won't have another outbreak: we've literally just seen a new outbreak happen.

Well you did say this:

elimination is a technical word that means we have "eradication of an infectious disease at a country or regional level",

But thanks. The virus hasn’t gone in NZ. And I wouldn’t get too comfortable in your opening up just yet.

This, of course, is light years away from the disaster that is Sweden, so apologies for continuing this derail.

 

[banquetbear]

Well you did say this:

...that was a quote from my cite, hence the quote marks. For further context read the cite.

But thanks. The virus hasn’t gone in NZ. And I wouldn’t get too comfortable in your opening up just yet.

I'm in Wellington: we've been at Level Two for the duration of the latest outbreak which means that we've essentially been fully open except for having to adhere to Level 2 social distancing rules. We've been back to Level 1 for a week. Which means life is pretty much back to normal. And I'm entirely comfortable with how the government has handled the resurgence, and I'm entirely comfortable being back at Level 1.

 

[angrysoba]

I remember that "elimination" came up in a Sketpics Guide to the Universe podcast episode during Science of Fiction. The news item was: The World Health Organization recently declared that measles has been eliminated in the entirety of the Americas.

I think most of the Rogues doubted it, but it turned out to be science. Because....that's what elimination means!

After a half-century of immunization, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) has declared the entirety of the Americas — from the Aleutian Islands to Chile — to have eliminated measles.
The declaration was verified by an international expert committee dedicated to documenting the disease. Note that they said "eliminated" and not "eradicated." World health officials have only achieved the latter with one disease, smallpox, meaning it no longer occurs or is brought in from other global regions. Some may remember that measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but foreign visitors still truck it in annually, resulting in dozens to hundreds of cases every year. Unsurprisingly, these figures skyrocket when people forget or outright refuse to vaccinate themselves or their children, like when the US saw 644 cases in 2014 alone.

banquetbear was completely correct in his use of terminology, despite his critics continually assuming or asserting (falsely) that he was saying "eradicated." And if NZ gets any more cases it will be from foreigners.

Opening up the economy makes perfect sense in NZ. If you can't do it when you have eliminated the virus, you will never be able to do it.

Well done, NZ! If more countries had behaved like this then we could have killed off the coronavirus.

 

[jimbob]

Scotland was behind Denmark in new daily cases but is now shooting past. This is not good. Our positivity rate has also gone up to 11.5%. We had the chance to stop this but we opened up and let students go back to university and children go back to school and everybody go back to the pub, and here we are.

I still don't know whether this was Nicola Sturgeon being stupid or duplicitous or both (so much for the "zero covid" effort) and how much was because she felt she couldn't impose more strict requirements than England, but it hardly matters at this stage. We're screwed until there's a vaccine.

Where is that data?

I was looking at the travellingtabby coronavirus UK tracker and my reading is that Scotland is at about 3% and rising, which is still not good.

 

[lionking]

I remember that "elimination" came up in a Sketpics Guide to the Universe podcast episode during Science of Fiction. The news item was: The World Health Organization recently declared that measles has been eliminated in the entirety of the Americas.

I think most of the Rogues doubted it, but it turned out to be science. Because....that's what elimination means!



banquetbear was completely correct in his use of terminology, despite his critics continually assuming or asserting (falsely) that he was saying "eradicated." And if NZ gets any more cases it will be from foreigners.

Opening up the economy makes perfect sense in NZ. If you can't do it when you have eliminated the virus, you will never be able to do it.

Well done, NZ! If more countries had behaved like this then we could have killed off the coronavirus.

If you look at what he posted, it was a source that said “eliminated” equals “eradicated”.

I also congratulate NZ. And note that banquetbear is now not saying that the virus has gone forever in NZ, which was my point.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

..... The virus can be (epidemiologically) eliminated using the elimination strategy that New Zealand adopted. And we know that we can do that because we've done that twice....

That's an interesting conviction. Another man might think, "Hmmm, twice? Maybe it wasn't really eliminated the 'first' time."

 

[banquetbear]

I also congratulate NZ. And note that banquetbear is now not saying that the virus has gone forever in NZ, which was my point.

...I never made the claim that the "virus has gone forever in NZ."

 

[banquetbear]

That's an interesting conviction. Another man might think, "Hmmm, twice? Maybe it wasn't really eliminated the 'first' time."

...or perhaps you simply don't understand what elimination means. Did you take my advice and read the cites I provided? The virus (outside of managed isolation at the borders) was eliminated for 100 days. The science of this is beyond dispute. The Americold resurgence was a new outbreak, not genomically nor epidemiologically linked to an old one.

 

[angrysoba]

If you look at what he posted, it was a source that said “eliminated” equals “eradicated”.

I also congratulate NZ. And note that banquetbear is now not saying that the virus has gone forever in NZ, which was my point.

If you look at what banquetbear posted, and the post you initially took issue with, he said "eliminated"!

...New Zealand, by knowing much about the virus (and certainly not through guesswork) just finished eliminating Covid-19 from community spread for the SECOND time. The experts aren't running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Instead those experts told us at the start of the pandemic what would happen if we listened to them, we listened to them, and we discovered that those expert were correct.

Nobody here is pretending that they have the situation well in hand. We actually have the situation well in hand.

You took issue with "eliminated", then you tried to pretend that banquetbear was saying "eradicated"! Seriously! Go back and read the thread and stop pretending you were making a valid point.

Yes, and well done NZ. You have controlled the virus magnificently. But don’t think you have eliminated it. Until a good vaccine turns up, this won’t happen.

Still, good show.

That's an interesting conviction. Another man might think, "Hmmm, twice? Maybe it wasn't really eliminated the 'first' time."

Well, that other man would have been wrong! It was eliminated, and only came back into the country with people travelling in from the UK.

You have to know what the word eliminated means!

 

[lionking]

If you look at what banquetbear posted, and the post you initially took issue with, he said "eliminated"!



You took issue with "eliminated", then you tried to pretend that banquetbear was saying "eradicated"! Seriously! Go back and read the thread and stop pretending you were making a valid point.

You are ignoring the source he quoted, not me. I don’t have the reading problem here. Are you going to deny that banquetbear quoted a source that said “eradicated”?

In any case “eliminated” and “eradicated” are not even a bee’s dick apart in meaning. Why are you making such an issue of this? The virus has not disappeared from NZ and if it reinfected anyone it doesn’t mean it’s due to a foreigner.

 

[banquetbear]

It was eliminated, and only came back into the country with people travelling in from the UK.

...the really fascinating thing about the three recent "outbreaks" have been how unusual they have been.

The first was the Americold outbreak which was the biggest. The index case (the first discovered case) worked at a Cool Store and didn't get tested until they fell sick. At that stage the testing numbers in New Zealand had dwindled substantially (we had become complacent) so it was fortunate (and we are grateful) that this person went into get tested.

But they weren't able to find the source. It was genomically linked to coronavirus in Australia and the UK. But we were never been able to track how it got back into the country. Sequencing meant it didn't match any of the recent cases in managed isolation at the borders. All staff at the borders (managed isolation facilities, the ports and airports) were tested and came up negative. There was a small chance that it got in through frozen food at the cool store: but testing effectively ruled that out. It certainly came from somewhere, but we may never know exactly how it did.

The second was when a maintenance worker at a managed isolation facility got Covid, which when sequenced didn't match the Americold outbreak but did match somebody who was in managed isolation. Through keycards and CCTV they determined that the most likely point of infection was that both the maintenance worker and the people in managed isolation had both shared a lift: not at the same time, but it was the only overlap between the two and the most likely place that he picked it up. (The maintenance worker had self-isolated and nobody else got sick)

The third outbreak was a real outlier. A man who tested negative twice in managed isolation and who stayed in quarantine for 14 days. He fell ill 5 days after leaving managed isolation, self isolated and got tested positive. The working theory is that this was a longer-than-normal incubation period, although there are other theories. This was another small cluster, a few close contacts have tested positive but no casual contacts have.

But all three show just how tricky Covid is to manage.

 

[banquetbear]

You are ignoring the source he quoted, not me. I don’t have the reading problem here. Are you going to deny that banquetbear quoted a source that said “eradicated”?

...we all know I quoted a source that used the word "eradicated." The world "eradicated" was used in service of defining the word "elimination."

Why are you making such an issue of this?

It really looks like you are the person making an issue about this. I've clarified what was meant. After that clarification you claimed I had said something that I hadn't. You were corrected on that by two of us.

The virus has not disappeared from NZ and if it reinfected anyone it doesn’t mean it’s due to a foreigner.

The only people allowed back into the country (with the exception of a few workers with exceptions) are New Zealand citizens. So "reinfection" won't be because of "foreigners". And we don't know exactly how the Americold cluster came to be but we do know through genome sequencing that it was likely to have been either from Australia or the UK. It doesn't match any historical cases.

 

[lionking]

But all three show just how tricky Covid is to manage.

Exactly. Which is why words like eliminated and eradicated should be avoided. “Controlled” is far more appropriate.

And to get back to the OP, if only Sweden sought to control the virus this thread wouldn’t exist. The behaviour of Swedish authorities has been criminally negligent in my view.

 

[angrysoba]

You are ignoring the source he quoted, not me.

The only source he quoted was after you refused to believe it was eliminated, so it is irrelevant when banquetbear had already specified the meaning.

Why are you making such an issue of this?

LOL! I am trying to correct your misunderstanding. It seems like it isn't worth the effort because you refuse to admit your mistake.

 

[banquetbear]

Exactly. Which is why words like eliminated and eradicated should be avoided. “Controlled” is far more appropriate.

...we aren't going to avoid words just because a random person on the internet doesn't want us to use it. The New Zealand strategy is elimination. We undertook an elimination strategy. We eliminated Covid from the community. We had a resurgence, it looks like we have eliminated it again. I'm not going to incorrectly articulate the New Zealand strategy because it seems to have offended your sensibilities.

Controlled isn't more appropriate or accurate. If our strategy were suppression, like it is in Australia, then controlled might fit. But if we were only "controlling" Covid then we wouldn't be able to drop down to Alert Level 1. At Alert Level 1 there is no Covid community spread, no social distancing rules, life (apart from the borders being closed) goes back to normal, as it is now. And we can go back to normal because we have (probably) eliminated it for a second time, if we were just "controlling it" we would have to remain at Alert Level 2.

 

[lionking]

...we aren't going to avoid words just because a random person on the internet doesn't want us to use it. The New Zealand strategy is elimination. We undertook an elimination strategy. We eliminated Covid from the community. We had a resurgence, it looks like we have eliminated it again. I'm not going to incorrectly articulate the New Zealand strategy because it seems to have offended your sensibilities.

Controlled isn't more appropriate or accurate. If our strategy were suppression, like it is in Australia, then controlled might fit. But if we were only "controlling" Covid then we wouldn't be able to drop down to Alert Level 1. At Alert Level 1 there is no Covid community spread, no social distancing rules, life (apart from the borders being closed) goes back to normal, as it is now. And we can go back to normal because we have (probably) eliminated it for a second time, if we were just "controlling it" we would have to remain at Alert Level 2.

Thank you. Proving my point.

Now this has nothing to do with Sweden. Start another thread.

 

[banquetbear]

Thank you. Proving my point.

...you literally don't have a point. Under an elimination strategy you plan for a resurgence. That is why the New Zealand government included a resurgence plan as part of its elimination strategy. What part of this are you failing to understand?

 

[angrysoba]

Exactly. Which is why words like eliminated and eradicated should be avoided.

Why should the correct terms be avoided? That is like declaring that the word "coronavirus" must be avoided because some people don't know what they are.

Elimination is a national strategy in many countries. It should have been the strategy in Sweden!

“Controlled” is far more appropriate.

"Controlled" is a terribly vague term to use. Who decides what is or is not controlled? If someone says the coronavirus in Sweden is "controlled", there is no scientific standard by which we could say it isn't.