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

[dann]

But the very least you could do would be to admit that this is what you are doing.

But then then the obvious question would be, Why do you do that? What is in it for you?
And like their Swedish 'corona general' Anders Tegnell, it is impossible for most Swedes to admit that their nationalist pride in the famous (now infamous) Swedish strategy was based on lies. When Anders Tegnell heard about New Zealand's first elimination of the virus within the country's borders, he declared that it was "Impossible." One thing is to declare the impossibility of something when it doesn't exist. A very different attitude is required to do so when it has become an actual fact.

CC is not the only one in this forum who resorts to equivocation in circumstances like this, and there appears to be no cure for the condition. Unlike the coronavirus, it can't be eliminated. The only good thing is that you are not susceptible to this miserable condition unless you feel that you need it, and once you have it, it protects you from the knowledge about reality that you so abhor.

 

[dann]

Not yet, no. When we're through it, there will be a reckoning. Until then I, along with the rest of the world, concentrate on hunkering down and making the best of the situation. Lots more people will die before this is over and done with. If Australia is managing without heavy loss of life, you should be happy about that and not worry about Sweden.

I think you owe it to people like this to tell them that they are wrong:

I smitthärden Oshkosh i USA drömmer folk om Sverige (DagensNyheter.se, Oct. 15, 2020)
In the hotbed of contagion, Oshkosh in the USA, people dream of Sweden
I am pretty sure that their dream is not of Sweden as a place where people are "hunkering down and making the best of the situation." These people have been deluded.

It is too pathetic to dream of a reckoning "when we're through this." We are still in the middle of it, and the harm done by Tegnell is still being done. Many more people will die before this is over and done, but they will not all have to die at this stage of the pandemic, except for the ones who already are dead or infected.

 

[Rolfe]

Dream of Sweden? I dream of New Zealand. Last week the weekly Choral Evensong broadcast on Radio 3 came from Christ Church cathedral in New Zealand. Simply hearing the sound of that cathedral packed full of people singing, in safety, practically reduced me to tears.

 

[dann]

Why were old people in Sweden left to die?

The strategy to ”protect the elderly” from the coronavirus failed both in actual fact and ethically. It is not a question of bad luck, but it is a disgrace. So where is the outcry?
Sweden was supposed to protect the elderly – but left them without medical treatment

Why were so many old people in Stockholm left to die in the pandemic without medical treatment? How could a shady order from the region be enough to sweep both professional ethics and the law under the rug? Maciej Zaremba finds the answer in a classified document – and in a system where the people in charge don’t know what they are doing.
Why were the elderly left to die without medical treatment?

The articles in Dagens Nyheter yesterday were behind a paywall, but Expressen has a three-minute-long video summarizing the articles in Dagens Nyheter:

Journalisten Maciej Zaremba har granskat region Stockholm och kunnat visa varför de äldre tilläts dö under pandemin. Hans slutsats är att regionerna borde avvecklas.
Därför tillåts de äldre att dö under pandemin (Expressen.se, Oct. 14, 2020)

The journalist Maciej Zaremba has investigated Region Stockholm and shown why they let old people die during the pandemic. His conclusion is that Sweden should put a stop to the regions.
The reason why the elderly were left to die during the pandemic

 

[dann]

Dream of Sweden? I dream of New Zealand. Last week the weekly Choral Evensong broadcast on Radio 3 came from Christ Church cathedral in New Zealand. Simply hearing the sound of that cathedral packed full of people singing, in safety, practically reduced me to tears.

Well, you know, you have to let old people die to protect them from the draconian measures of effective disease prevention.
The elderly should be willing to sacrifice their lives to avoid the tyranny of rational health care.
The concerns of ordinary citizens don't really matter as long as the owners of pubs and discos imagine that their establishments would bring in the ordinary amount of money in the middle of the pandemic if it weren't for the restrictions.

Amusement parks in Denmark lose money due to the pandemic - with or without restrictions:
Mister milliardbeløb: Danske forlystelsesparker hårdt ramt
They lose billions: Danish amusement parks hard hit

We have autumn school breaks in Denmark this week, and amusement parks are allowed to stay open, but the authorities advise against going. Their profits are already down 40 percent, more due to the virus than to the restrictions in early spring.
They have been open since May, but even in August when the spread of the virus was very low, people tended to stay away.
The situation in Sweden isn't any different.
And as for most of the rest of the world:
Disney to lay off 28,000 employees as coronavirus slams its theme park business (CNBC, Sep. 29, 2020)


If people want to visit amusement parks, they will probably have to to New Zealand for that, too:
Whether they're fascinatingly informative or thrilling and scary, New Zealand's theme and leisure parks offer conveniently concentrated fun (NewZealand.com)

Those bloody Kiwi sheeples!
I bet they don't even know how oppressed they are ...

 

[dann]

Sverige på sjunde plats i överdödlighet i Europa (SVT.se, Oct. 14, 2020)
Sweden at #7 in excess mortality in Europe

Tydlig ökning av covidpatienter på iva (SVT.se, Oct. 15, 2020)
Clear increase in the number of Covid-19 patients in ICUs

Under förra veckan, vecka 41, rapporterade 537 nya bekräftade fall i Västra Götaland.
Det är den högsta siffran sedan mitten av augusti, och en ökning med 135 fall jämfört med vecka 40.
JUST NU: Högsta antalet smittade sedan i somras (Aftonbladet.se, Oct. 15, 2020 – 12:39)

Last week, week #41, 537 new confirmed cases were reported in Västra Götaland.
That is the highest number since mid-August, and an increase of 135 compared to week 40
BREAKING NEWS: Highest number of infections since this summer

Löfven: Alla måste skärpa sig (SvenskaDagbladet.se, Oct. 15, 2020)
Swedish PM Löfven: Everybody must tighten up
He is concerned about Sweden’s rising numbers of new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. He seems to hope that his appeals to people to behave will work better this time than it did in March to June.

Tegnell: ”Tecken på att det är på väg åt fel håll” (SvenskaDagbladet.se, Oct. 15, 2020)
Tegnell: ”There are signs that it is going the wrong way”

Well, at least he is good at understatements ...

 

[jimbob]

Well, you know, you have to let old people die to protect them from the draconian measures of effective disease prevention.
The elderly should be willing to sacrifice their lives to avoid the tyranny of rational health care.
The concerns of ordinary citizens don't really matter as long as the owners of pubs and discos imagine that their establishments would bring in the ordinary amount of money in the middle of the pandemic if it weren't for the restrictions.

Amusement parks in Denmark lose money due to the pandemic - with or without restrictions:
Mister milliardbeløb: Danske forlystelsesparker hårdt ramt
They lose billions: Danish amusement parks hard hit

We have autumn school breaks in Denmark this week, and amusement parks are allowed to stay open, but the authorities advise against going. Their profits are already down 40 percent, more due to the virus than to the restrictions in early spring.
They have been open since May, but even in August when the spread of the virus was very low, people tended to stay away.
The situation in Sweden isn't any different.
And as for most of the rest of the world:
Disney to lay off 28,000 employees as coronavirus slams its theme park business (CNBC, Sep. 29, 2020)


If people want to visit amusement parks, they will probably have to to New Zealand for that, too:
Whether they're fascinatingly informative or thrilling and scary, New Zealand's theme and leisure parks offer conveniently concentrated fun (NewZealand.com)

Those bloody Kiwi sheeples!
I bet they don't even know how oppressed they are ...

That's the thing. If I had a business like an amusement park, I'd be happier with a government forcing me to shut than allowing me to remain open, but advising the public to stay away. In the first case, it's probably more easy to get compensation

 

[dann]

Something is rotten in Denmark and this is obvious when looking at both the days (that I have faithfully and accurately quoted on a daily basis) when Sweden has logged in a “+” tally. On those days Denmark displays a greater per capita figure than Sweden anyway. And then there is map you’ve attached. Is this not clear? And all of this, despite Denmark’s tough restrictions as oppose to Sweden’s lack of/lazed restrictions.

Sweden:

102 407 personer har bekräftats smittade av covid-19. Det är en ökning med 1 075 personer sedan i onsdags.
Senaste nytt om coronaviruset (SVT.se, Oct. 15, 2020 - 14:01)

102,407 persons have been confirmed being infected with Covid-19. This is an increase by 1,075 since Wednesday.
Latest news about the coronavirus

Denmark:

Yderligere 430 er smittet med corona, viser Statens Serum Instituts daglige opdatering.
Seneste nyt om coronavirus (TV2.dk, Oct. 15, 2020 – 14:00)

430 more have been infected with coronavirus, according to the daily update from Statens Serum Institute.
Latest news about the coronavirus

Since there was a hissy fit at one point when I did mention deaths per million, but didn't mention pop. size:
Sweden: 10,117,447
Denmark: 5,798,115
And let's take number of tests, too, since this is relevant when looking at the number of new cases:
Sweden: 1,925,218
Denmark: 4,499,461

 

[dann]

That's the thing. If I had a business like an amusement park, I'd be happier with a government forcing me to shut than allowing me to remain open, but advising the public to stay away. In the first case, it's probably more easy to get compensation

I think they will be compensated to some extent, even if they may not be entitled to compensations. I don't think the breweries or tobacco companies are compensated when the government tells people how to avoid getting cirrhosis, lung cancer or COPD.

Another problem with the Covid deniers is that they need more than just the lack of restrictions. They also need somebody to lie about the disease because they want people to behave as if there were no pandemic.

 

[uke2se]

That you, uke2se, are in the enviable position where you can be "hunkering down and making the best of the situation," is not at all something that you share "with the rest of the world." Being a Swede enables you to do something about this that the rest of us can't do. Hunkering down won't do it.

What would you like me to do to ease the burden of the rest of the world?

 

[dann]

Make it clear what the Swedish strategy actually is and that it is being abandoned in Sweden at this point. Make it clear that Tegnell and Giesecke are ******* psychopaths who never took their professional obligations seriously. And inform the Swedes about all the things that they prefer to be in denial about, for instance the most recent statement from WHO about herd immunity.

The Swedish media haven't exactly been eager to tell the Swedes about the insanity of flockimmunitet. It is not impossible to find articles in Swedish, but they are often hidden away in some corner: WHO-toppens kritik mot flockimmunitet som strategi (Expressen.se, Oct. 13, 2020)

This is what gets the headlines: Matematikprofessor: ”Flockimmunitet kan nås redan vid 40 procent” (SVT.se, Oct. 4, 2020)
And people have to read the whole article before they get all the way down to this if they ever do:

– Frågan är om vi vill uppnå det. Det innebär många ytterligare dödsfall i så fall.

The question is if we will achieve it. In that case, it means several more deaths.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Data last updated: 2020/10/15, 3:53pm CEST


Newly reported cases in the last 24 hours:

U.S. 46,309
Australia 24
Sweden 0
Denmark 492
New Zealand 2

Well! This is an eye-opener. The U.S., Australia and New Zealand are hovering with acceptable fluctuation. Sweden (despite my general scepticism) may have actually “eliminated” the virus as it continues to register ZERO new cases. But the shock is Denmark that actually DOUBLED in new cases of Corona virus! Where is the promised and anticipated drastic drop in virus cases that Denmark considered a foregone conclusion with their RESTRICTIONS? Doubling your numbers of infected population is hardly a success. Allowing the virus to run rampant would turn in much more desirable results than that. But perhaps there is some tiny village like Vorupör with a population of a couple hundred where Denmark can claim they’ve “eliminated” the virus and we can overlook Denmark's humiliating failure? Let us hope so.

Anyway, life goes on in Sweden. Still the recommended “keeping distance” is being observed but hardly a face mask in sight. Sure, you’ll see maybe one in a couple of hundred people wearing a face mask and maybe the odd use of hand disinfectant being applied by passengers on buses and rail, me included. Most of the check-out personal are behind a plexiglass thingy. All of the bars and restaurants are open and either every other table is marked off or guests simply observe the “keeping distance” rule without being told. Live entertainment and sporting events follow the “distance” rule too. I don’t really know what is going on with the hospitals but I do know that the hospice where a friend of mine is languishing is now open to visitors again. I’ve talked with so many people and the subject often pops up and no one I’ve ever met or talked with has ever met anyone who’s been infected. The general opinion is that the Corona virus is either a political hoax or it is being milked for political purposes and thus exaggerated. But actually that is the same suspicion of the Danes and the Germans.

 

[dann]

Thursday:
Coronavirus - countries (Worldometers, Oct. 15, 2020)
Deaths per million (Total deaths) New cases Serious/Critical
Sweden: 584 (5,910) 1,075* 30 *according to SVT.se,
Denmark: 117 (677) 430 17
Finland: 63 (350) 241 8
Norway: 51 (278) 184 5
Iceland: 29 (10) 80 3
Iceland has 1,170 active cases, Faroe Islands 9, New Zealand 42.

The Faroe Islands have 45 in quarantine, 0 hospitalized.
Consultation waiting times are up to two months longer than before the Covid-19 outbreak (KVF.fo, Oct. 15, 2020) [/quote]
The average price of a hotel stay has gone down by 35 percent in the past year (KVF.fo, Oct. 15, 2020) The Faroe Islands are probably not the only place this has happened …

 

[dann]

Life goes on in Sweden

Anyway, life goes on in Sweden.

Indeed it does:
Smittan ökar – så är laget där du bor (Expressen.se, Oct. 16, 2020)
The contagion is increasing – this is the situation where you live

17 av 21 län rapporterar om fortsatt trängsel i kollektivtrafiken i rusningstid.
Oro för ökat resande med kollektivtrafiken inför vintern (SVT.se, Oct. 16, 2020)

17 of 21 regions report that crowding on rush-hour public transport continues
Worries about increasing number of travellers on public transport as winter is approaching

Danskar avråds från resor till svenska regioner (SVT.se, Oct. 15, 2020 – 17:19)
Danes are warned against going to Swedish regions Four more Swedish regions have been added to the list

I don’t really know what is going on with the hospitals

It isn't difficult to find out about the situation at Swedish hospitals:

Coronautvecklingen i Uppsala är djupt oroande – och läget förvärras snabbt.
(…)
Jag tycker att utvecklingen är djupt oroande. Vi ser nu en situation närmast dagligen där patienter kommer in till oss och är svårt sjuka på ett sätt som vi inte har sett på flera månader, säger Fredrik Sund, verksamhetschef för infektionskliniken Akademiska sjukhuset i Uppsala.
(…)
På infektionskliniken är situationen precis som den var under våren.
– Det är inte på hela sjukhuset men för oss är det precis som i våras. Våra avdelningar är fulla nu, säger Fredrik Sund.
Verksamhetschefen: ”För oss är det lika mycket som i våras” (SVT.se, Oct. 15, 2020)

The way the corona develops in Uppsala is deeply disconcerting – and the situation is deteriorating rapidly.
(…)
- I think that the development is deeply disconcerting. We now have a situation almost every day where patients come to us and are seriously ill in a way that we haven’t seen for several months, says Fredrik Sund, chief of the ward of infectious diseases at the Akademiska hospital in Uppsala.
(…)
At the infectious disease ward, the situation is exactly as it was in spring.
- It is not in the whole hospital, but for us it is exactly as it was this spring. Our wards are full now, says Fredrik Sund.
Leader of the institution: ”To us, it is just as much as it was this spring”

Corona i intensivvården (SVT.se, Oct. 16, 2020)
Corona in ICUs
The number of Covid-19 patients in ICUs was at its lowest Sep. 10 with only 12 patients. It has now increased to 30.
It makes a lot of sense since the number of daily registered new cases was at its lowest in late August and has been rising steadily since then: Sjukdomsfall per dag (When the number of new cases now seems to be as high or even slightly higher than in April and May, it is because Sweden did almost no testing back then. At this point, Sweden tests about 140,000 a week, which isn’t much but still much more than in March, April and May.)

 

[dann]

Time Magazine: The Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster

Today, SVT.se refers to an article in Time Magazine:
Direkt rapport: Skarp forskarkritik mot svenska coronastrategin (SVT.se, Oct. 16, 2020 – 9:08)
Sharp criticism of the Swedish corona strategy from researcher

Those of you who follow this thread have been pretty well informed about the failed Swedish strategy, but the rest of the world hasn't because the Scandinavian languages constitute a barrier for those who want to know more about Sweden's way of handling the pandemic.

One thing in particular has been apparent in most articles in English about conditions in Sweden: They rarely describe how the Swedish health-care system betrayed old and otherwise vulnerable people. Instead, Tegnell, Giesecke and Swedish politicians have been able to spread the lie about the integrity of Swedish health care and how it managed to handle the absurdly high number of hospitalizations without being overwhelmed by them.

There have been reports about the actual conditions in Swedish - I have made sure that you have seen them here and translated the most important bits of them - but for the most part, the rest of the world still believes the lie.
Not anymore! The author of the Time Magazine article, Andrew Ewing, has seen to that:

TIME magazine piece just published with a friend who is a journalist and human rights activist, Kelly Bjorklund! Everything in here has been researched and then confirmed by the TIME editors.
Andrew Ewing (Twitter, Oct. 14, 2020)

As of Oct. 13, Sweden’s per capita death rate is 58.4 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data, 12th highest in the world (not including tiny Andorra and San Marino). But perhaps more striking are the findings of a study published Oct. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which pointed out that, of the countries the researchers investigated, Sweden and the U.S. essentially make up a category of two: they are the only countries with high overall mortality rates that have failed to rapidly reduce those numbers as the pandemic has progressed.
Sweden and the U.S. are unique in their failure to reduce coronavirus mortality rates as the pandemic progressed
Yet the architects of the Swedish plan are selling it as a success to the rest of the world.
The Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster. It Shouldn’t Be a Model for the Rest of the World (Time, Oct. 14, 2020)

This is the JAMA article referred to in the quotation above: This is the JAMA article referred to in the quotation above: COVID-19 and Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries (JAMA Network, Oct. 12, 2020)

As for the Swedish health-care system and how it left old people to die without treatment:

Löfven, his government, and the Public Health Agency all say that the high COVID-19 death rate in Sweden can be attributed to the fact that a large portion of these deaths occurred in nursing homes, due to shortcomings in elderly care.
However, the high infection rate across the country was the underlying factor that led to a high number of those becoming infected in care homes. Many sick elderly were not seen by a doctor because the country’s hospitals were implementing a triage system that, according to a study published July 1 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, appeared to have factored in age and predicted prognosis. “This likely reduced [intensive care unit] load at the cost of more high-risk patients”—like elderly people with confirmed infection—dying outside the ICU.” Only 13% of the elderly residents who died with COVID-19 during the spring received hospital care, according to preliminary statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare released Aug.

 

[uke2se]

Make it clear what the Swedish strategy actually is and that it is being abandoned in Sweden at this point. Make it clear that Tegnell and Giesecke are ******* psychopaths who never took their professional obligations seriously. And inform the Swedes about all the things that they prefer to be in denial about, for instance the most recent statement from WHO about herd immunity.

I don't agree with that, so no, I am not going to do it.

 

[lionking]

I don't agree with that, so no, I am not going to do it.

That’s fine. Denial is a decent initial response to tragedy. Perhaps you will quickly move through the stages.

 

[uke2se]

That’s fine. Denial is a decent initial response to tragedy. Perhaps you will quickly move through the stages.

It's possible. I'm not in denial. I am working with the facts I have at hand.

I live in Sweden and am inundated by Swedish media and politicians and scientists through media. It is only here at this forum, by you and Dann that I hear about the psychopathy of Anders Tegnell et al, and given what I see every day, I do not agree with what you are saying.

 

[dann]

I don't agree with that, so no, I am not going to do it.

As you can see, others are doing it now: The author of the article in Time Magazine is Andrew Ewing, professor i biokemi vid Göteborgs universitet och ledamot i Kungliga vetenskapsakademien. (from SVT.se)

And Obama speaks out against the Swedish strategy, too. (But it's not much of an argument.):

Obama: - But, if you say climate change is a hoax, then there’s nothing we can do. The same is true with COVID. All right. You know, if you say ‘yes, COVID is a genuine, really big problem. A serious disease, here’s the science, we can agree to that.’ And then, you know, you have a country like Sweden that decides. ‘Well, we think we’re going to try to approach this through herd immunity.’ But at least there’s some coherence to their argument. I disagree with it. I don’t think it is proven out.
“Barack Obama on 2020.” (PodSaveAmerica, Oct. 14, 2020)

 

[uke2se]

As you can see, others are doing it now: The author of the article in Time Magazine is Andrew Ewing, professor i biokemi vid Göteborgs universitet och ledamot i Kungliga vetenskapsakademien. (from SVT.se)

And Obama speaks out against the Swedish strategy, too. (But it's not much of an argument.):

Obama is being quite reasonable, I think. Read his two final sentences.