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

[bruto]

It’s almost like, if you had this deadly virus but you don’t test and everything else is more or less equal except for the insane responses from the media and everyone around you, it’s not really that deadly!

Imagine suffering from a “deadly” virus that requires testing to know you’ve contracted it! Deadly indeed.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All those dead people just took it too seriously.

 

[Tippit]

All those dead people just took it too seriously.

And what of the tens of millions that die globally each year from heart disease, stroke, and cancer? Perhaps we should stop the world for them. Fast food and sugar bans, anyone? Durrrrr, heart disease is not contagious!

 

[Childlike Empress]

And what of the tens of millions that die globally each year from heart disease, stroke, and cancer? Perhaps we should stop the world for them. Fast food and sugar bans, anyone? Durrrrr, heart disease is not contagious!

Looks like around 30,000 people died of hunger today.

 

[steenkh]

And what of the tens of millions that die globally each year from heart disease, stroke, and cancer? Perhaps we should stop the world for them. Fast food and sugar bans, anyone? Durrrrr, heart disease is not contagious!

Looks like around 30,000 people died of hunger today.

Your point being?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Your point being?

"Our" point, and I'm not using the "we" you people so love (edit: not talking on behalf of Tippit or Clutch Cargo or anvbody else), is obvious: The "measures" taken on the excuse of that "killer virus" are not for concerns of our health, but for political agenda reasons. And "we" can say this, after over half a year of this circus, with certainty.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

LATEST UPDATE. according to WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19),
Data last updated: 2020/10/6, 3:07pm CEST

Newly reported cases in the last 24 hours:

U.S. 36,136
Australia 13
Sweden 0
Denmark 377
New Zealand 3

Sweden must have truly succeeded in “eliminating” the virus but poor New Zealand. It’s new cases in this category have more than doubled since yesterday’s tally. Naturally, the difference between 1 and 3 isn’t an earth-shattering increase but it does (again) dispel the fantasy claim that they have “eliminated” the virus more than once. I mean seriously, that “elimination” story will be the centre of jokes for a decade.

Political manipulation of the situation continues. It hasn’t yet reached the level we experienced during the “red scare” but once they (those who benefit) have accurately felt the pulse of the population they’ll be turning the screws and fine-tuning their skills. But you know, people are either conditioned to welcome being manipulated or are simply born to be lambs to the slaughter. The most curious thing is that whatever I’ve said about manipulation and fiddling of the statistics ….. some people (my antagonists) completely fail to see the message. They actually think I am scoffing at some of the statistics but praising some of the others! LOL. I say LOL. My message must be awfully complicated. I am thinking it’s simple. I am saying the statistics are being fiddled and juggled for the purpose of sublime, political advantage. How someone can find an inclination of favour in that straight-forward statement is beyond me. Lambs to the slaughter?

 

[dann]

And what of the tens of millions that die globally each year from heart disease, stroke, and cancer?

Your questions would be interesting if you actually cared.

Perhaps we should stop the world for them. Fast food and sugar bans, anyone? Durrrrr, heart disease is not contagious!

No need to stop the world for them. On the contrary. A bit of exercise would do most of those people good, before they get to the dying stage, but if the food industry hadn't been so enamoured of hydrogenated oils (trans fats) used in (not only!) fast food, many of those deaths from heart disease wouldn't have happened. Trans fats are well-known to be extremely unhealthy, they are used for no other reason than that they are a little more practical for the food industry, but they can be done away with no real difficulty and without any expenses for the tax payer. And yet it takes decades to get rid of them, and in many places in the USA, it hasn't happened yet:

Denmark became the first country to introduce laws strictly regulating the sale of many foods containing trans fats in March 2003, a move that effectively bans partially hydrogenated oils. The limit is 2% of fats and oils destined for human consumption. This restriction is on the ingredientsrather than the final products. This regulatory approach has made Denmark the only country in which it is possible to eat "far less" than 1 g of industrially produced trans fats daily, even with a diet including prepared foods. It is hypothesized that the Danish government's efforts to decrease trans fat intake from 6 g to 1 g per day over 20 years is related to a 50% decrease in deaths from ischemic heart disease.
Trans fat regulations: Denmark (Wikipedia)

So you are almost right: Heart disease is not usually contagious, but it can be when it is caused by SARS-CoV-2: As evidence builds that COVID-19 can damage the heart, doctors are racing to understand it (ScienceMag, Sep. 15, 2020)
However, much more often heart disease is the result of capitalism. I guess your solution to the problem of heart (if you were actually interested in finding one) would be to abolish the FDA and medical research so the numbers would simply go away just like Trump's suggestion that Covid-19 would go away if only people weren't tested.

Looks like around 30,000 people died of hunger today.

And instead of trying to find out how those deaths can be stopped ...
Why are so many people in developing countries poor? (GegenStandpunkt)
The ”World Hunger Problem” – Good Reasons for Hunger (RuthlessCriticism/MSZ)
... you see it as a reason for not doing anything about the coronavirus, another mass killer.

 

[dann]

Sweden must have truly succeeded in “eliminating” the virus ...

No, obviously not, but we already knew that.

Tuesday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Oct. 6, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 582 (5,883) 1862* 23 *since Friday, according to SVT.se
Denmark: 114 (663*) 322 28 *Another 6 deaths!
Finland: 62 (346) 227 8
Norway: 51 (275) 180* 4 *Last night it was 65, so my suspicion that Norway updates its numbers on Worldometers more than once a day, seems to be true
Iceland: 29 (10) 101 4
Iceland has 747 active cases, Faroe Islands 23, New Zealand 43.
The Faroe Islands have 122 in quarantine, 2 hospitalized.

 

[dann]

Still much too high, and after weeks of this the death toll is rising as we knew it would, but at least it seems to be going in the right direction:

322 nye smittede, men kurven er knækket, siger sundhedsministeren (DR.dk, Oct. 6, 2020)
322 new cases, but we have broken the curve, the minister of health says

Kurven er knækket: Kontakttallet er faldet til 0,8 (TV2.dk, Oct. 6, 2020)
We have broken the curve: The R₀ has dropped to 0,8

 

[dann]

"Our" point, and I'm not using the "we" you people so love (edit: not talking on behalf of Tippit or Clutch Cargo or anvbody else), is obvious: The "measures" taken on the excuse of that "killer virus" are not for concerns of our health, but for political agenda reasons. And "we" can say this, after over half a year of this circus, with certainty.

The certainty you are talking about doesn't take months. When you make a decision about what you want to believe and do so independently of the facts of the matter, there is no need for your decision to change. But if you ever lose faith, i.e. if you become interested in actual critical thinking about the pandemic, I can recommend this series of articles:

Pandemie XIV: Die elende Sehnsucht nach ‚Normalität‘
Pandemie XIII: Der Fleischskandal
Pandemie XII: Bleibende Lehren aus der Corona-Krise: Wer oder was ist systemrelevant?
Pandemie XI: Das Virus provoziert eine Klärung des Verhältnisses von Glaube, Wissen und Macht in der Demokratie
GegenStandpunkt 3-20

They are free-of-charge, for now.

The latest, Die Elende Sehnsucht nach 'Normalität', begins like this:

Nicht wenige leiden darunter, dass sie durch die staatliche Seuchenpolitik arbeitslos oder auf Kurzarbeit gesetzt werden und folglich mit ihrem Einkommen noch viel schlechter auskommen als sonst schon. Aus dem ärgerlichen Sonderfall des Lockdowns sollte man nicht gleich den Trugschluss ziehen, der Normalfall des alltäglichen Arbeitslebens wäre an und für sich ein Inbegriff erstrebenswerter Verhältnisse. Immerhin wirft der Ausnahmefall des erschwerten Lebensunterhalts ein Licht auf die Existenz- und Überlebensbedingung, die den erwerbsbürgerlichen Alltag so unbedingt beherrscht, dass man ihre Gemeinheit aus lauter Gewohnheit schon gar nicht mehr bemerkt.

Da gibt es Zeitgenossen, die sich über staatliche Freiheitsberaubung beklagen, weil sie gelegentlich einen Mund-Nasen-Schutz tragen sollen, um die Ausbreitung des Coronavirus zu hemmen. Die merken offenbar gar nicht, was sie damit über ihre bürgerliche Freiheit zu Protokoll geben. Aber was soll man sich auch von Leuten erwarten, die "quer" für eine löbliche Eigenschaft des "Denkens" halten oder die allen Ernstes gebieterisch fordern, der Staat – die "Merkel-Diktatur" – solle ihnen gefälligst sofort erlauben, wieder frei zu sein, damit sie barrierefrei husten können.

 

[Samson]

Looks like around 30,000 people died of hunger today.

Which happens everyday.
France closed all hostelries today.

Spot the diffeence?

 

[zooterkin]

Some bickering moved to AAH.

Please keep to the topic of this thread, which is, among other things, not about one another.

Thank you.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: zooterkin

 

[dann]

A new article in Science about the Swedish strategy, and how some researchers consider leaving Sweden because of the pressure they have been exposed to for having criticized the strategy:

Giesecke and Tegnell believed herd immunity would arrive quickly. In the Lancet article, Giesecke claimed about 21% of residents of Stockholm county had already been infected by the end of April; Tegnell predicted 40% of them would have antibodies by the end of May. When initial studies showed the number was actually about 6% in late May, Tegnell said immunity was hard to measure. FoHM continued to say Swedes had built up immunity, but in September it backtracked, estimating that “just under 12%” of Stockholm residents, and 6% to 8% of the Swedish population as a whole, had antibodies to the virus by mid-June.
(…)
FoHM “should have listened more carefully to the scientific community both inside and outside the country,” Hansson says. Still, he predicts the rifts will eventually heal. “I am sure we will continue to argue, but I don’t see permanent damage,” he says. “We’ll move on. We’ll go back to complaining about grants.”
But Ewing worries the fight has left permanent scars. He says at least three more members of the Vetenskapsforum are considering leaving Sweden, as Brusselaers did. And even if it turns out that the country has built up enough immunity to evade a new wave of disease, he says, the price has been too high. “I worry that countries around the world are going to say, ‘We can try what Sweden did.’ But we have killed too many people already.”
’It’s been so so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash (Science, Oct. 6, 2020)

An article in Expressen today is based on the article in Science:
Efter kritiken: Forskare överväger lämna Sverige (Expressen.se, Oct. 7, 2020)
After the criticism: Researchers consider leaving Sweden

 

[dann]

Wednesday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Oct. 7, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 582 (5,892) 532* 24** *according to SVT.se, ** according to SVT.se
Denmark: 114 (663) 331 15
Finland: 62 (346) 120 8
Norway: 51 (275) +111* 4 *+ because Norway’s numbers appear to be reported to Worldometers more than once a day.
Iceland: 29 (10) 91 4
Iceland has 796 active cases, Faroe Islands 24, New Zealand 37.
The Faroe Islands have 117 in quarantine, 1 hospitalized.

One person tested positive yesterday and no-one on Monday.
The daily number of positive Covid tests over the past week has been as follows: 5, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0 and 1.
One new Covid case so far this week (KVF.fo, Oct. 7, 2020)

Considering the size of the population, Iceland's numbers are alarming, so new restrictions are being introduced: What’s the Status of COVID-19 in Iceland? (IcelandReview, Oct. 7, 2020)

 

[dann]

Europe:

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control's (ECDC) coronavirus alarm threshold is 20 cases per 100,000 people on a seven-day average. Beyond that, the agency says, the risk of Covid-19 is high, with a very high probability of infection, while vulnerable individuals face a "very high impact" from the disease.
And the situation is looking precarious. Only Germany (18.4 cases per 100,000), Finland (15.5), Cyprus (14.6) and Norway (13.9) fall below this case threshold, ECDC data showed on Monday.
Only four countries in Europe are below a critical coronavirus threshold (CNN, Oct. 5, 2020)

Denmark:
Mølbak: Restriktioner er den nye normal gennem efteråret og vinteren (TV2.dk, Oct. 7, 2020)
Mølbak: Restrictions will be the new normal this spring and the coming winter

Gennemsnitligt 2,2 procent af den danske befolkning over 12 år har været smittet med coronavirus frem til 15. august.
(…)
Dermed kan markant flere danskere have været smittet med coronavirus end de officielle tal. Indtil videre er der i Danmark nemlig konstateret 30.379 smittetilfælde.
Mindst 90.000 danskere har været smittet, anslår SSI efter ny undersøgelse (TV2.dk, Oct. 7, 2020)

On average, 2,2 percent of the Danish population older than 12 have been infected with coronavirus before Aug. 15.
(…)
Significantly more Danes may have been infected with coronavirus than the official numbers say. So far, 30,379 cases have been registered.
(…)
At least 90,000 Danes have been infected, the State Serum Institute assumes after new study The study was based on a test for antibodies.

Sweden:
Tegnell: Jul utan släktkalas – och hemarbete i vår (DagensNyheter.se, Oct. 6, 2020)
Tegnell: Christmas without a family feast – and working from home in the spring

 

[banquetbear]

It’s new cases in this category have more than doubled since yesterday’s tally. Naturally, the difference between 1 and 3 isn’t an earth-shattering increase but it does (again) dispel the fantasy claim that they have “eliminated” the virus more than once. I mean seriously, that “elimination” story will be the centre of jokes for a decade.

...LATEST UPDATE. After two weeks at Level 2 with no community transmission Auckland has joined the rest of the country at Level 1 which removes all mask mandates, social distancing measures and limitations on crowd sizes. We've eliminated Covid from the community for the second time.

The situation at the borders continues to reflect not the state of Covid in New Zealand, but the state of Covid in the rest of the world. Until the rest of the world gets the coronavirus under control we will continue to see new cases at the border. And we hope (and will do everything we can) to keep those cases at the border, but this is a global pandemic and the virus has proven to be a tricky beast. There are no guarantees. But we have an exceptionally strong resurgence plan that has worked before, it will work again.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

LATEST UPDATE. according to WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Data last updated: 2020/10/7, 4:23pm CEST

Newly reported cases in the last 24 hours:

U.S. 38,920
Australia 25
Sweden 0
Denmark 322
New Zealand 3

It looks like Sweden is the ONLY country with ”elimination” being a feasible option. Naturally, if new cases pop up they can always ”eliminate” the virus again but that goes without saying.

This subject is based upon statistics laced with propaganda. I see statistics being quoted in support of certain countries. By support I mean praise. Wonderful. Not. But when statistics are quoted that put the opposing philosophy in a good light well …. the reaction is, “Yeah, but …” or “It’s false statistics”. At the moment it seems to be focused around the term “eliminate”, tweaking the term to mean something it doesn’t. Propaganda at its best - or is it worst?

What puzzles me is that Denmark – having taken serious measures to “eliminate” the virus - is now actually going through a period of fluctuation of higher (and even higher) levels of the virus. Strange, very strange. But we can always find new ways to spin the term “eliminate” and then Denmark can shoot up to the most successful nation that has “eliminated” the virus.

Anyway, I’ve posted the LATEST UPDATE. according to WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and there it is.

 

[dann]

CC has managed to prove that he can manipulate data by pretending that when a certain site doesn't (yet!) present any data, the data must be "0".
It offends him that he was wrong about the meaning of the word "eliminate", but instead of appreciating the correction, he is making a big song and dance out of insisting on his misinterpretation by lying about whatever occurs to him.

Unfortunately for CC (and for an awful lot of his compatriots, but for a different reason), his WHO site also shows that Sweden's numbers have been rising slowly but steadily for the past five weeks: Sweden

And unfortunately for CC (but fortunately for Danes), his WHO site shows the opposite of what he is now claiming, "that Denmark – having taken serious measures to “eliminate” the virus - is now actually going through a period of fluctuation of higher (and even higher) levels of the virus.": Denmark
WHO's numbers show that after having dropped to an almost* insignificant level in July, the number of new confirmed cases in Denmark began to rise again in August until new restrictions were introduced, which made the numbers go down again as they have been doing for the past ten days.

So CC's "higher (and even higher)" is a deliberate lie, whereas the second half of his paragraph about Denmark may just be a lie based on ignorance: "Strange, very strange. But we can always find new ways to spin the term “eliminate” and then Denmark can shoot up to the most successful nation that has “eliminated” the virus."
Unlike countries like New Zealand, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, Denmark never intended to eliminate the virus and never claimed that it had been eliminated: The Danish strategy was (and is still, unfortunately) the Hammer & the Dance. The three other countries did intend to eliminate the virus, and they did so successfully. (And they are not the only ones!) That the virus, after having been eliminated, was reintroduced into all three countries by travelers from outside their areas was regrettable but not entirely unexpected, i.e. the countries were all aware that it might happen, and it did.

Countries like these are a thorn in the side of people preaching that we should let the virus rip until so many people have been infected (incl. died or maimed for the rest of their shortened lives) that an moron's version of 'herd immunity' has been achieved. That is why they rejoice when they hear about New Zealand, Iceland and the Faroe Islands having to start all over again.
Guys like Anders Tegnell who not only want but actually need elimination to be impossible (!) can't simply accept the fact that it isn't.
CC has made it obvious that he is one of those guys.

- - - - - -
*almost, because we are talking about a very infectious disease, so even low numbers are never insignificant.

 

[dann]

Wednesday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Oct. 7, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
(...)
Norway: 51 (275) +111* 4 *+ because Norway’s numbers appear to be reported to Worldometers more than once a day.

Norway's number of new cases for Wednesday has now been changed to 229 at Worldometers.

 

[dann]

...LATEST UPDATE. After two weeks at Level 2 with no community transmission Auckland has joined the rest of the country at Level 1 which removes all mask mandates, social distancing measures and limitations on crowd sizes. We've eliminated Covid from the community for the second time.

Sheeples!
How can you put up with the tyrannical oppression that is New Zealand?!
Why can't you just embrace the freedom of the herd immunity strategy?!

Team sports, parties at home and public transport are often mentioned when people are talking about the places where the risk of virus transmission is particularly high. The epidemiologist Emma Frans explains what we know about the places with the highest risk of infection.
One place that few people may consider is at home.
- Many people are infected with Covid-19 by a sick relative at home, but you can lower your risk of infection by trying to keep a distance to the sick person, Emma Frans says.
List: What we know about the risk of infection in different everyday places (SVT.se, Oct. 7, 2020)

Sheeples!!!!!!