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

[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."

...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.

I do understand what elimination means and you haven't adequately motivated your statement about Coronavirus being "eliminated twice". If you are taking this dialogue too personally (and I think that you may be doing that) then perhaps we ought to end it here. Saying, "we've done that twice" may very well be your own words or perhaps you're simply repeating what someone else told you ... and you believe it. I am not attacking you but you are not convincing me and that seems to upset you. Relax.

 

[banquetbear]

I do understand what elimination means and you haven't adequately motivated your statement about Coronavirus being "eliminated twice".

...if you understand what elimination means then you understand that New Zealand has eliminated Covid once already, it had a resurgence, and is on the verge of eliminating it again, as per the elimination plan. Yes: by the epidemiological definition we did eliminate the virus the first time. The resurgence didn't have an epidemiological link (which means it can't be traced directly back to a previous case in New Zealand) or a genomic link (which meant genomic sequencing didn't link it to any previous cases in New Zealand, including managed isolation) which meant that it was a new outbreak.

If you are taking this dialogue too personally (and I think that you may be doing that)

You would be absolutely incorrect in thinking this.

then perhaps we ought to end it here.

You can do whatever the **** you want to do.

Saying, "we've done that twice" may very well be your own words or perhaps you're simply repeating what someone else told you ... and you believe it. I am not attacking you but you are not convincing me and that seems to upset you. Relax.

Being condescending doesn't help your case. I'm relaxed. And I'm guessing you don't really understand what elimination means. (in the context of epidemiology) If you want to find out what it means, can I suggest you read the cites I provided? The Lancet, the Prime Minster, almost every epidemiologist, the Government science advisor, all agree with me. If you don't agree with me then can you provide any evidence to back up your case?

The simple fact is that you are wrong. We know plenty about the virus. It isn't all guess work from one day to the next. Experts aren't running around like chickens with heads cut off and their basis isn't shifting from one end to the other. Almost all of the experts are in agreement: mandated social distancing, testing tracing and isolation, masks, are all effective tools in reducing the devastating effects of the pandemic. The evidence shows that when this is implemented effectively then you can drastically reduce the death toll. At the start of the pandemic Sweden ignored the majority of experts instead relying on their own: and that resulted in an initial higher death-per capita than many comparable countries. None of this is in dispute.

 

[dann]

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.

11.5 percent is insane! In Denmark, there are daily reports of schools and whole departments of universities suspending the attendance of students and staff temporarily. The Danish numbers today aren't exactly low, but lower than recent. I don't know if this may be due to some kind of weekend effect, though.

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.

People here seem to have gotten used to the idea that we have to practice social distancing again like 4-5 months ago. The owners of restaurants and bars are complaining, but that seems to be the case everywhere.

 

[dann]

And still nobody really knows much about the virus. It's all guess-work from one day to the next. "Experts" running around like chickens with their heads cut off and starting each sentence with, "Well, basically ......" even though their basis shifts from one end to the other - isolation or exposure? They don't know for sure but they pretend to have the situation well in hand.

Giesecke appears to be one of the few epidemiologists who should only be called an "expert" in quotation marks.

Your idea that "nobody really knows much about the virus" is still as wrong as it could possibly be. You should listen to Bob Woodward's recording of Donald Trump. Then you will know that the most basic facts about the virus were already known by researchers and politicians back in January and February.

That some of your Swedish epidemiologists have been lying about the virus since the beginning of the pandemic and pretending that they have everything under control, and still like to hide behind an alleged lack of knowledge is cowardly and cynical. Guys like Giesecke and Tegnell had a political agenda. There is no reason to assume that they knew less about the virus in March than Trump did in January.

Believing them at this point is pathetic.

 

[dann]

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

Bold still doesn't help your argument. It only makes it obvious how much it upsets you whenever your ideas are contradicted.

It may be news to you that New Zealand already eliminated SARS-CoV-2 once and is now on the way to eliminating it a second time.
If you had paid attention, you would have noticed that Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland also managed to eliminate it in their respective countries. Greenland hasn't had to deal with it a second time yet. The Faroe Islands and Iceland are doing their best to contain and eliminate it again.

It doesn't take more than a couple of idiots to cause another outbreak with hundreds of new cases: in the Faroe Islands a ship full of infected Russians, and in Iceland two tourists who didn't respect what we already know about the virus. The moronic Covid deniers are actually running around as if their heads had been cut off:

The French pair arrived in Iceland in mid August and were instructed to remain in isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus, the country’s chief epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason said.
“I have information that it was difficult to get them to follow instructions,” he stated. “I really cannot say more.”
Iceland cluster traced to French tourists (Covid-19 data, Sep. 25, 2020)

In Iceland, they now refer to the new cluster as "the French virus."

What went wrong in Iceland? Almost covid-free island's infection rate soars by 1,100% after French tourists who broke quarantine rules are blamed for outbreak at Reykjavik bars
Iceland's infection rate per 100,000 people has risen from 7.3 to 89.7 in 10 days (Daily Mail, Sep. 25, 2020)

 

[dann]

Being condescending doesn't help your case. I'm relaxed.

I guess we have to accept the fact that it is sometimes necessary to resort to condescension and emojis in lack of facts and arguments.

"Sweden's liberal pandemic strategy questioned ... has raised questions about Sweden’s decision to fight the outbreak without resorting to the lockdowns that have left much of Europe at a standstill."

I find this exceptionally interesting because in Sweden distances are faithfully kept by citizens in restaurants, buses and trains. That might not seem like very much but in Denmark, they don't seem to be bothered by keeping their distance at all. In fact, Danish Rail has made it obligatory to hold a reserved seat (rather than just take what you can find) yet you are booked next to and face-to-face with strangers.
In other words .... you are compelled to sit facing someone!

And about one in fifty Danes is wearing a face mask.

 

[dann]

Sunday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Sep. 27, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 581 (5,880) * 15 *according to SVT.se No new Swedish numbers till Tuesday.
Denmark: 112 (649) 424 17* *11 of the 17 on ventilators
Finland: 62 (343) 105 2
Norway: 50 (270) 33 2
Iceland: 29 (10) 22 1
Iceland has 455 active cases, Faroe Islands 37, New Zealand 59.
The Faroe Islands have 223 in quarantine, 1 hospitalized, all tests analyzed.

 

[jimbob]

...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.

Exactly.

The only way to control the virus is to aim to eliminate it from the region/country. Yes, I'm sure New Zealand will have further outbreaks, but if they're contained the country will be able to relax more than otherwise - knowing what's needed, and that it will be done when necessary and that the healthcare system will be nowhere near overwhelmed.

The economic hit compared to, say the UK approach will be far less, as will the human cost.

 

[Rolfe]

Did anyone post this link yet?

Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me

 

[lionking]

Did anyone post this link yet?

Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me

Very good article.

And for those who are interested, in Victoria we have driven down covid infections from 700 a day to 5 within a couple of months. Lockdowns work and work well. And our economy will rebound strongly.

 

[dann]

The article in the Guardian is interesting, in particular because it points out what will make many people consider the choice between an effective pandemic response and the Swedish herd-immunity strategy to be a choice between abject poverty and taking your chance with the infection. (That it is no real choice is another thing: It's not as if the travel agencies, airliners, hotels, bars and restaurants weren't impacted in Sweden - and not just because people from neighboring countries stopped going to Sweden. The Swedes who self-quarantined because Sweden never did anything to hammer down the spread of the virus stayed away from those places, too.)

However, I object to the opening sentence: "Sweden is to the 21st-century right what the Soviet Union was to the 20th-century left. Conservatives have transformed it into a Tory Disneyland where every dream comes true." The vast majority of the "20th-century left" did not consider the Soviet Union to be a fantasy land "where every dream comes true."


The article also made me aware of these two recent articles in The Sun:

Swede Talk: Boris Johnson spoke with Sweden’s anti-lockdown mastermind before announcing new coronavirus measures (TheSun, Sep. 24, 2020)

Dr Tegnell said the restrictions had to be as minimal as possible in order for them to be enforced for a sustained period of time.
However, despite not ruling out the possibility of a second wave in Sweden, he believes imposing strict restrictions and then lifting them does more harm than good.
He said: “Maybe we'll have the same experience in a few weeks' time, we'll see, but as I said, I think the big difference is that Spain had a strict lockdown and then opened up again, and then you do get back to quite a lot spread of disease."
(…)
This comes after it was revealed UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson consulted with Dr Tegnell before announcing the new measures laid out to tackle coronavirus in the UK.
Ruling it over: Sweden may have avoided coronavirus second wave by not chopping and changing rules like the UK, country’s top doc says (TheSun, Sep. 25, 2020)

It would be interesting to see Tegnell's scientific evidence for his idea that a strict lockdown followed by reopening gets societies "back to quite a lot spread of disease."
That it has played out very differently depending on the way reopening took place, i.e. that you can't expect the the spread of the virus to remain low if you don't continue to 'dance' with it, doesn't seem to concern him at all.
But he has been in denial of this from the very beginning, so why stop now?
What a mastermind!

 

[dann]

More Tegnell:

– Det är ju en ganska liten siffra jämfört med många andra sjukdomar som orsakar dödsfall, säger han och tillägger:
– Vi får inte lura oss att tro att det här är det enda problemet vi har i världen vad gäller global hälsa.
Tegnell om en miljon döda: ”Måste sättas i relation till andra sjukdomar” (SVT.se, Sep. 28, 2020)

– But that is a very small number compared to many other diseases causing deaths, he says and adds:
– We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this is the only problem in the world concerning global health.
Tegnell about one million deaths: ”Must be compared to other diseases”

And the Public Health Agency (FHM):

Regeringen och Folkhälsomyndigheten fick under våren motta mycket kritik för bristen på en bred och nationell coronatestning i landet.
Nu medger Folkhälsomyndighetens generaldirektör Johan Carlsson att regionerna haft för lite resurser för att hantera utbrottet.
– Ja det är väl uppenbarligen så att när vi får en sådan här stor utmaning så är många enheter för små. De har ju gjort ett fantastiskt arbete, men har naturligtvis inte de grundresurser som skulle behövas, säger han till Ekot.
Bristen på resurser var en anledning till att Sverige kom i gång så sent när det gäller testningen jämfört med andra länder, säger Johan Carlsson.
Johan Carlson: Hade inte tillräckliga resurser (Expressen.se, Sep. 27, 2020)

In the spring, the government and the Public Health Agency (FHM) were criticized much for the lack of a broad and national corona strategy in the country.
Now the director of the FHM, Johan Carlsson, admits that the regions didn’t have enough resources to cope with the outbreak.
– Yes, I guess it is obvious that when we get a challenge as big as this one, many units are too small. They have done a fantastic job, but they didn’t have the basic resources they needed, he says to Ekot.
The lack of resources was a reason why Sweden got started on testing so late in comparison to other countries, Johan Carlsson says.
Johan Carlson: We did not have enough resources

It may sound like an admission, but it is actually a pathetic excuse: The lack of resources, for instance for testing, was the reason why other countries locked down in the spring. Nothing prevented Sweden from doing the same thing. Sweden’s government and the Public Health Agency deliberately chose the herd immunity strategy and stuck to it even when the death toll got out of hand.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

Eliminating anything twice is a contradiction in terms. Coronavirus is no exception. So far it hasn't been eliminated. Just for the sake of interest I wonder if it could be considered "eliminated" if the world's population simply became immune? No, I think it can only be considered eliminated if human intervention would stop the virus in its tracks and anyway, immunization only means you are not adversely affected by the still-existing virus .... but it isn't eliminated, just no longer a danger. And there we have the two schools of thought:

1). Eliminating/eradicating - my guess an impossibility
2). immunization
a). by medical intervention - a worthy endeavour
b). by natural selection - an unpreventable fact

The point is (OF COURSE) that we still don't know very much.

 

[dann]

Swedish comedian and playwright Jonas Gardell, isn't happy with Sweden's continued restrictions, in particular with the limit of 50 people in theaters, for instance. His opinion on this wasn't well received:

Vi ska vara tacksamma att regeringen inte ger Jonas Gardell vad han vill ha. Ser han inte de stigande smittalen? Han kräver solidaritet med sitt skrå – men hur står det till med hans egen?
Hur självupptagen får man vara, Jonas Gardell (DagensNyheter.se, Sep. 25, 2020)

We have to be grateful that the government doesn’t give Jonas Gardell what he wants. Doesn’t he see the rising number of new cases? He demands solidarty with his profession, but what about his own (solidarity)?
How self-absorbed can you be, Jonas Gardell

But what makes it particularly interesting is the response from a Swedish nurse, who gives us yet another description of how well the Swedish health-care system lived up to the challenges of the Swedish herd-immunity strategy:

Månaderna gick.
– Allting tog slut. Vi visste inte vad vi skulle söva patienterna med nästa dag. All former av medicinteknisk utrustning var slut, infusionspumparna var slut, allt.
I påskas saknade personalen egen skyddsutrustning. Sofia annonserade själv på Facebook om någon hade en skyddsmask hon kunde låna.
– En gång var det så illa att kollegor inte fick lämna avdelningen eftersom det inte fanns nya skyddskläder att byta till när de skulle tillbaka in.
Covidvåren är den värsta perioden i livet. Den finns fortfarande konstant i Sofias tankar, men hon har ändå svårt att rita konturer av enskilda minnen. Bilderna smälter samman till en känsla av vanmakt. Den vill hon aldrig uppleva igen.
– Jag har kollegor som får panikångest av att bara ta på sig skyddsutrustning för de kastas tillbaka till samma stressnivå som då.
”Gardell är välkomme på studiebesök (Aftonbladet.se, Sep. 27, 2020)

The months went by.
– We ran out of everything. We didn’t know what to use to anesthetize patients the next day. We ran out of all kinds of medicinal equipment. There were no infusion pumps, nothing.
At Easter, the staff lacked their own PPE. Sofia went on Facebook to ask if she could borrow a face shield from somebody.
– Once, it was so bad that colleagues weren’t allowed to leave the ward since there was no new protective clothing to switch into when they had to go back in.
The Covid spring is the worst period of my life. It is constantly on Sofia’s mind even now, and yet she finds it difficult to draw the contours of individual memories. The pictures blur into a feeling of impotence. She doesn’t want to experience this ever again.
– I have colleagues who panic just from having to put on protective gear because they are thrown back to the same stress level as back then.
”Gardell is welcome to visit and study us”

 

[dann]

The point is (OF COURSE) that we still don't know very much.

Edited by zooterkin: 

<SNIP>
Edited for rule 0 and rule 12.

 

[dann]

Under perioden 17–24 september registrerades 855 nya fall av konstaterat smittade av covid-19 i Region Stockholm.
Det är nästan en fördubbling jämfört med den föregående sjudagarsperioden, då 445 fall registrerades. Under perioden dessförinnan var det 248 nya smittade.
Den senaste siffran är också den högsta i Region Stockholm sedan i början av juli.
Oron: Spridningen är tilbaka i Stockhom (Expressen.se, Sep. 26, 2020)

During the time Sep. 17 to 24, the Stockholm Region registered 855 new cases of Covid-19.
That is almost double compared to the previous week when 445 cases were registered. The week before that, there were 248 new cases of infection.
The latest number is also the highest in the Stockholm Region since the beginning of July.
Worry: The spread is back in Stockholm

 

[Pixel42]

Eliminating anything twice is a contradiction in terms.

Eliminating something from a particular, defined, territory such as a country twice is not a contradiction in terms. That is clearly the context in which the term is being used, it's disingenuous for you to pretend you don't understand this.

As long as the virus isn't eradicated, i.e. eliminated from all countries, there is always a chance it will get back into a country which has succeeded in eliminating it, necessitating that country having to eliminate it again.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

Eliminating something from a particular, defined, territory such as a country twice is not a contradiction in terms.

If we were talking about extinct birds (for example) then I'd have to agree. But we're not. We are talking about a virus that LIVES. It has not been eliminated. Not twice, not even once.

That is clearly the context in which the term is being used ...

Read my comment, here above.

... it's disingenuous for you to pretend you don't understand this.

Is it equally disingenous for you to pretend you do not understand what I am telling you?

As long as the virus isn't eradicated, i.e. eliminated from all countries, there is always a chance it will get back into a country which has succeeded in eliminating it, necessitating that country having to eliminate it again.

Within the confines of the terms you've laid out in the beginning of your reply ...

QUOTE: "Eliminating something from a particular, defined, territory such as a country..... "

..... then I can agree with you. But you are basing your arguement on false grounds ('eliminating it again') because NZ has not "succeeded in eliminating it" a first time. And please do not repeat the 'disingenuous' factor, alright?

 

[angrysoba]

Eliminating anything twice is a contradiction in terms.

No, it isn't!

 

[Samson]

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.

Yes, it is possible. Australia will eliminate for certain over the next few weeks.
Sweden will continue to pretend life is a great experience while old and young can never mix freely. Even a vaccine is a poor distant cousin to elimination, which was in their power as a sparsely populated obedient citizenry.