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

[angrysoba]

He's deliberately quoting misleading figures to imply that all figures are misleading.

Oh God! So, it's the nuclear option then.

Let's destroy all basis for comparison and then claim that my idea is no worse than anyone else's idea. In fact, no that we've leveled the whole playing field I'll try and sneak in a new argument that makes my idea just a bit better than everything else. Then I can declare myself the winner.

For example, all figures for Covid deaths and infections are untrustworthy so no one country can be seen as better than the others.
Now that we have established that deaths and infections don't count, which countries have less onerous restrictions? Sweden? Oh, then we're the winners!

Something like that?

 

[dann]

He's deliberately quoting misleading figures to imply that all figures are misleading.

I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than that.
Implying that all figures are misleading wouldn't look like this from Oct. 25:

“Denmark registered 859 new cases of coronavirus on Friday, the second consecutive day on which a new record has been set for the number of cases in a 24-hour period.”

Meanwhile, back in the drab world of Swedish reality, Oct. 28:

Dagens smittotal, med 2 128 nya bekräftade fall, är det högsta per dygn som Sverige haft sedan pandemins start.
Senaste nytt om coronaviruset (Aftonbladet.se, Oct. 28, 2020 – 14:56)

Today’s number of new confirmed cases, 2,128, is the highest in Sweden since the pandemic began.
Latest news about the coronavirus
Sweden has increased its testing a little, but in Scania, the percentage of positive tests has gone up from 3 to ”5-6-7 percent.”

I think it's time to take a look at the interview with Anders Tegnell in New Statesman last week. The lies by omission that he gets away with are horrendous.

 

[dann]

Oh God! So, it's the nuclear option then.

Let's destroy all basis for comparison and then claim that my idea is no worse than anyone else's idea. In fact, no that we've leveled the whole playing field I'll try and sneak in a new argument that makes my idea just a bit better than everything else. Then I can declare myself the winner.

For example, all figures for Covid deaths and infections are untrustworthy so no one country can be seen as better than the others.
Now that we have established that deaths and infections don't count, which countries have less onerous restrictions? Sweden? Oh, then we're the winners!

Something like that?

Yes, that's more like it.

 

[Clutch Cargo]

Actually, we're all wrong - it's officially one week today.

Maybe we’re talking at cross-purposes. If I understand it correctly, every case of new Coronavirus in the past few weeks (if any at all) have been recorded as arrivals from abroad and all are being placed in quarantine. Is that not the official word?

..... completely missed the "Sweden = 0 cases".

You can verify or criticize my quotes from WHO source if you wish.

 

[jimbob]

Maybe we’re talking at cross-purposes. If I understand it correctly, every case of new Coronavirus in the past few weeks (if any at all) have been recorded as arrivals from abroad and all are being placed in quarantine. Is that not the official word?


You can verify or criticize my quotes from WHO source if you wish.

Here's a suggestion. Why not post the previous day's figures at that time, rather than the figures for the same time, when we know there's a reporting lag?

It would remove ambiguity, which I would assume is the goal of an honest discussion, and which I hope we're all aiming for.

 

[dann]

New Statesman: "Anders Tegnell: We did not pursue ”herd immunity” against Covid-19"

Let's take a look at another Swedish perspective:

Edited by jsfisher: 

Edited for compliance with Rules 0 and 12 of the Membership Agreement.

We began by discussing Sweden’s response in March – why did it diverge so strongly from its peers? ”I want to make it clear, no, we did not lock down like many other countries, but we definitely had a virtual lockdown,” Tegnell said. ”Swedes changed their behaviour enormously. We stopped travelling even more than our neighbouring countries. The airports had no flights anywhere, the trains were running at a few per cent of normal service, so there were enormous changes in society.”
Sweden’s Anders Tegnell: We did not pursue ”herd immunity” against Covid-19 (New Statesman, Oct. 19, 2020)

So why did the airports have no flights anywhere?
1) Was it because the Swedes changed their behaviour?
2) Because Sweden locked down airports?
3) Or because other countries wouldn’t accept planes full of Swedes to land and unload?
Yes, I think you guessed it. And while this was goining on, Tegnell was busy complaining about Denmark, Finland and Norway closing their borders to Swedes.

He continued: ”In March, there was a situation where the health service in Stockholm, and many other places, was threatening to become overwhelmed. There was no possibility to test, contact trace and so on. So we did what you do in those circumstances when you have a pandemic: we went into a mitigation phase and did our best to diminish the speed of the spread.

That is not what you do in those circumstances. What you do in those circumstances is your actual best: You implement a lockdown while the number of infections goes down, and in the meantime you acquire the ”possibility to test, contact trace and so on.”
We all know what Sweden’s ”virtual” version a lockdown accomplished …

”That was reasonably successful, the Swedish health service was never overwhelmed, there were always free intensive care beds; the results from our intensive care for Covid-19 is at least as good as other countries.

1) Sweden’s so-called health service was overwhelmed to the extent where hospitals stopped accepting new Covid-19 patients, practiced triage and simply let people receive palliative care, i.e. opioids, instead of treatment. People who should have had oxygen got drugged instead. This was practiced to the extent where Sweden actually had ”free intensive care beds,” i.e. Sweden let people die in their nursing homes despite available ICU beds!
2) When you practice triage and only admit the Covid-19 patients with the very best chance of survival into ICUs, it is no wonder that the results from Sweden's intensive care appear to be good!
The statistics are useless if they don't take this grotesque fact into consideration.

The spread never really took off after that. We had a peak somewhere in April, and since then the spread has slowly been diminishing over time with the measures we had in place.”

Yes, Sweden may have peaked in late April, but the number of deaths per day didn’t get below 15 a day until mid-July. And it is not as if the spread has been diminishing ever since. It started to go up again several weeks before the interview, which Sweden's national epidemiologist pretends to be unaware of.

(…)
But Sweden’s approach has not been cost-free: as of 18 October it had recorded the 15th-highest per capita death rate of any country (with 581 deaths per million people). This is still lower than the UK’s rate (655 deaths) but around ten times higher than neighbouring Finland and Norway.
(…)
”That is true, especially in the early phase of the pandemic,” Tegnell conceded. ”But not since, we are now down to maybe (!) around five deaths a week, so I wouldn’t say there’s a huge difference any more. We can trace back a lot of the early problems to an unfortunate lack of preparedness in our nursing homes, which has now been rectified and now works well.”
Sweden’s Anders Tegnell: We did not pursue ”herd immunity” against Covid-19 (New Statesman, Oct. 19, 2020)

Why does Sweden’s national epidemiologist have to use the word maybe? Isn’t he supposed to know these things? Did it just happen to slip his mind? Sweden may have had one or two weeks in August with ”around five deaths a week”. That is all, folks! When he was interviewed by the New Statesman, the death toll per week was way beyond that and way, way beyond the number of deaths in Finland and Norway.
And the lack of preparedness in Sweden’s nursing homes may have been "unfortunate," but it didn't have anything to do with bad luck. Tegnell chose his strategy in spite of the lack of preparedness. He can’t blame fortune for his decision.

 

[Architect]

Oh God! So, it's the nuclear option then.

Let's destroy all basis for comparison and then claim that my idea is no worse than anyone else's idea. In fact, no that we've leveled the whole playing field I'll try and sneak in a new argument that makes my idea just a bit better than everything else. Then I can declare myself the winner.

For example, all figures for Covid deaths and infections are untrustworthy so no one country can be seen as better than the others.
Now that we have established that deaths and infections don't count, which countries have less onerous restrictions? Sweden? Oh, then we're the winners!

Something like that?

Yes, that's my interpretation of his position too. It's kinder than the alternative view, to boot.

 

[dann]

I haven't seen this reported in any of the mainstream media in Sweden, so I don't know how reliable it is. The first link appears to be to a Norwegian right-wing site:

Tegnell politianmeldt for uaktsomt drap (Document.no, May 14, 2020)
Tegnell reported to the police for manslaughter

Doctor Whistleblower/Jon Tallinger (Facebook, Oct. 13, 2020)

 

[dann]

Yes, that's my interpretation of his position too. It's kinder than the alternative view, to boot.

But take a look at the resurrected thread, Why are obscenities still prohibited?, too.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Oh God! So, it's the nuclear option then.

Let's destroy all basis for comparison and then claim that my idea is no worse than anyone else's idea. In fact, no that we've leveled the whole playing field I'll try and sneak in a new argument that makes my idea just a bit better than everything else. Then I can declare myself the winner.

For example, all figures for Covid deaths and infections are untrustworthy so no one country can be seen as better than the others.
Now that we have established that deaths and infections don't count, which countries have less onerous restrictions? Sweden? Oh, then we're the winners!

Something like that?

I'd say that if it is a case of the least restrictions, we win. Here in New Zealand, the only restrictions are on those that are coming into the country from overseas. They have to stay in a 4-Star Hotel, all expenses paid, for 14 days if they take the 3 and 12-day test, 28 days if they refuse to take the tests. Everyone else is restriction-free, we don't have to wear masks anywhere, we have no limits on gatherings, we can travel anywhere in the country and use public transport without any issues. We can visit people in rest homes, and I can say from first-hand experience that Rest Home residents are allowed out and about and can go to Cafes and do what they like. Rugby games have been happening with full stadiums, theatre is up and running. Weddings, Funerals, Birthday Parties, it's all happening without any restrictions. I don't even think that Sweden can lay claim to that much freedom.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Maybe we’re talking at cross-purposes. If I understand it correctly, every case of new Coronavirus in the past few weeks (if any at all) have been recorded as arrivals from abroad and all are being placed in quarantine. Is that not the official word?

All arrival from overseas go into Managed Isolation for 14 days (28 if they refuse to be tested on days 3 and 12.) This is where the majority of the cases we have been having since about May have been occurring.

We did have a case that was picked up outside of Managed Isolation about 2 weeks ago, he was a marine electrician that caught it while working on a ship that had come in from overseas. He passed it on to several colleges resulting in a small cluster. Close contacts to the cluster were isolated and tested and the last one of them to test positive was a week ago. All other cases since then have been in Managed Isolation, mostly around a cluster formed by a Russian fishing vessel crew that flew in and was in Isolation in Christchurch.

We still have major testing operations in the community to try and pick up any cases that might sneak through the defenses, and that testing is showing that there is no current infection spreading within the community, hence why we are at Alert Level 1 with no internal restrictions at all to our daily lives.

 

[dann]

Newly reported cases in the last 24 hours:

Sweden 0

121 167 personer har bekräftats smittade av covid-19. Det är 3 254 nya smittade sedan igår.
Senaste nytt om coronaviruset (SVT.se, Oct. 29, 2020 - 14:02)

121,167 people have been confirmed with the Covid-19 infections, 3,254 new cases of infection since yesterday.
Latest news about the coronavirus

 

[Clutch Cargo]

Here's a suggestion. Why not post the previous day's figures at that time, rather than the figures for the same time, when we know there's a reporting lag?

It would remove ambiguity, which I would assume is the goal of an honest discussion, and which I hope we're all aiming for.

I understand, but is it your suggestion that I post the figures before I see them or before they are posted?

I get up in the morning anywhere between 4 AM and 6 AM (nearly every day) during which time I log on to see what WHO has posted. I always quote the time of "update" exactly as it is written so there can be no criticism as far as quoting whatever information is there to see. That "update" is the one that is relevant to the minute I log on. I do not make periodic checks to find one or the other in order to choose what I might think is advantageous to an agenda. I have no agenda. Calling me a liar about it isn't cricket nor is it fair. As far as how often (the day of the week, hour, minute, second) it is updated I don't know and I'm not that bent to find out. It doesn't matter to me. It is a daily routine of mine and any information gleaned from it is by a simple random spot check that I hold no importance to. If I were so keen on it I suppose that I would check it every hour during a 24-hour period .... but I am not that keen. So please, if you disagree with the statistics as posted by WHO or if you feel that the information submitted to WHO is misleading then go ahead and criticise but send it to the right address, not to me. It seems that there are those who think I am responsible for the statistics - that I am falsifying the statistics - that I am choosing only the statistics that fit an agenda. That would be wrong. You can believe what you want to believe and yes, there is most definitely a prolific and habitual liar on this thread but it's not me. Luckily there is only one and I can tell you who it is too. He doth protest too much, me thinks.

Are we alright now or is it back to the aggressive and personal antagonism?

 

[Clutch Cargo]

All arrival from overseas go into Managed Isolation for 14 days (28 if they refuse to be tested on days 3 and 12.) This is where the majority of the cases we have been having since about May have been occurring.

We did have a case that was picked up outside of Managed Isolation about 2 weeks ago, he was a marine electrician that caught it while working on a ship that had come in from overseas. He passed it on to several colleges resulting in a small cluster. Close contacts to the cluster were isolated and tested and the last one of them to test positive was a week ago. All other cases since then have been in Managed Isolation, mostly around a cluster formed by a Russian fishing vessel crew that flew in and was in Isolation in Christchurch.

We still have major testing operations in the community to try and pick up any cases that might sneak through the defenses, and that testing is showing that there is no current infection spreading within the community, hence why we are at Alert Level 1 with no internal restrictions at all to our daily lives.

Sounds good. I assume that all commercially-designated ports of entry are highly monitored, yes? What about fishing villages and such? Is there any feasible chance they can be accessed “under the radar”?

 

[dann]

I understand, but is it your suggestion that I post the figures before I see them or before they are posted?

I get up in the morning anywhere between 4 AM and 6 AM (nearly every day) during which time I log on to see what WHO has posted. I always quote the time of "update" exactly as it is written so there can be no criticism as far as quoting whatever information is there to see. That "update" is the one that is relevant to the minute I log on. I do not make periodic checks to find one or the other in order to choose what I might think is advantageous to an agenda. I have no agenda. Calling me a liar about it isn't cricket nor is it fair. As far as how often (the day of the week, hour, minute, second) it is updated I don't know and I'm not that bent to find out. It doesn't matter to me. It is a daily routine of mine and any information gleaned from it is by a simple random spot check that I hold no importance to. If I were so keen on it I suppose that I would check it every hour during a 24-hour period .... but I am not that keen. So please, if you disagree with the statistics as posted by WHO or if you feel that the information submitted to WHO is misleading then go ahead and criticise but send it to the right address, not to me. It seems that there are those who think I am responsible for the statistics - that I am falsifying the statistics - that I am choosing only the statistics that fit an agenda. That would be wrong. You can believe what you want to believe and yes, there is most definitely a prolific and habitual liar on this thread but it's not me. Luckily there is only one and I can tell you who it is too.

Are we alright now or is it back to the aggressive and personal antagonism?

'I have the right to post a number, which I know doesn't represent reality since the zero only signifies that a number hasn't been registered yet. And granted this, I also have the right to pretend that it does represent reality and to argue as if that falsification of reality were true.'
Or in other words: 'I am a very pretentious liar.'

 

[jimbob]

I understand, but is it your suggestion that I post the figures before I see them or before they are posted?

I get up in the morning anywhere between 4 AM and 6 AM (nearly every day) during which time I log on to see what WHO has posted. I always quote the time of "update" exactly as it is written so there can be no criticism as far as quoting whatever information is there to see. That "update" is the one that is relevant to the minute I log on. I do not make periodic checks to find one or the other in order to choose what I might think is advantageous to an agenda. I have no agenda. Calling me a liar about it isn't cricket nor is it fair. As far as how often (the day of the week, hour, minute, second) it is updated I don't know and I'm not that bent to find out. It doesn't matter to me. It is a daily routine of mine and any information gleaned from it is by a simple random spot check that I hold no importance to. If I were so keen on it I suppose that I would check it every hour during a 24-hour period .... but I am not that keen. So please, if you disagree with the statistics as posted by WHO or if you feel that the information submitted to WHO is misleading then go ahead and criticise but send it to the right address, not to me. It seems that there are those who think I am responsible for the statistics - that I am falsifying the statistics - that I am choosing only the statistics that fit an agenda. That would be wrong. You can believe what you want to believe and yes, there is most definitely a prolific and habitual liar on this thread but it's not me. Luckily there is only one and I can tell you who it is too. He doth protest too much, me thinks.

Are we alright now or is it back to the aggressive and personal antagonism?

Stop clutching pearls.

You can see that Sweden doesn't update every day. You can see that even on the days that Sweden does update, it won't have updated by the time you log in.

Why not click on the "yesterday" option? You will have the latest data for Sweden (which will still often be zero due to the fact it doesn't update every day).

 

[Clutch Cargo]

Stop clutching pearls.

You can see that Sweden doesn't update every day. You can see that even on the days that Sweden does update, it won't have updated by the time you log in.

Why not click on the "yesterday" option? You will have the latest data for Sweden (which will still often be zero due to the fact it doesn't update every day).

You didn't read what I said or you just don't believe me?

 

[dann]

A stupid Danish doctor:

Hvordan kan man sikre, at restriktioner mod corona er relevante, forudsigelige og hverken for bløde eller hårde? Det er temaet for en høring i Folketinget i dag.
Formand for intensivlægerne Joachim Hoffmann-Petersen er én af de læger, som mener, at restriktionerne går for vidt.
(…)
Men den seneste måned herhjemme, før statsministerens pressemøde i fredags, har intensivafdelingerne ikke været under pres. Siden 2. juni har højst 20 været indlagt på intensiv, og kurven har været flad den seneste måned.
- Vi er overhovedet ikke presset. Vi er på ingen måde belastet, siger Joachim Hoffmann-Petersen.
(…)
- Vi er meget, meget, meget, meget langt fra de scenarier, vi talte om i foråret, siger formanden for intensivlægerne.
Han er bekymret for, at Danmark bruger for mange penge på corona, så der bliver dårligere råd til et godt sygehusvæsen og behandling af andre patienter fremover.
Formand for intensivlæger mener restriktioner går for vidt: 'Vi er overhovedet ikke presset' (DR.dk, Oct. 29, 2020)

How can you make sure that restrictions against corona are revelant, predictable and neither too soft nor too hard? That is the theme of a hearing in parliament today.
The chairman of ICU doctors, Joachim Hoffmann-Petersen, is one of the doctors who think that the restrictions go too far.
(…)
But in the most recent month, before the press briefing last Friday, the ICU wards have not been under pressure. Since June 2, no more than 20 have been in ICUs, and the curve has been flat this month.
- We are not at all under pressure. We are by no means overwhelmed, says Joachim Hoffmann-Petersen.
(…)
- We are very, very, very far away from the scenarios we were talking about in spring, says the chairman of ICU doctors.
He is worried that Denmark spends too much money on corona so less money is left for a good health-care system and treatment of other patients in the future.
Chairman of ICU doctors thinks restrictions go too far: ’We are not at all under pressure’

He is actually encouraging the government to please let more people get sick because there's still plenty of room for them in the ICUs. I have no idea why he imagines that it would somehow be fiscally beneficial if more people land in ICUs.
We're fine where we are, thank you! It's good to know that the health-care system isn't overwhelmed, but almost all of us would prefer to spend the pandemic outside of the ICU ward unless we absolutely depend on extra oxygen, and we would prefer not to!

 

[The Atheist]

Maybe we’re talking at cross-purposes. If I understand it correctly, every case of new Coronavirus in the past few weeks (if any at all) have been recorded as arrivals from abroad and all are being placed in quarantine. Is that not the official word?

No, I posted the official data, and Phantom Wolf gave the details.

Sounds good. I assume that all commercially-designated ports of entry are highly monitored, yes? What about fishing villages and such? Is there any feasible chance they can be accessed “under the radar”?

Have you ever heard of maps, or maybe even Wikipedia?

We don't have fishing villages, and at 2000 km from the nearest land, we're in no danger of unannounced arrivals.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Sounds good. I assume that all commercially-designated ports of entry are highly monitored, yes? What about fishing villages and such? Is there any feasible chance they can be accessed “under the radar”?

As Atheist noted, we don't have fishing villages, so that's not a worry. We have testing and customs at our main ports, which is how the vast majority of people will arrive.

It's also not easy getting here in a smaller vessel, the closest major landmass being Australia, and even then the Tasman is not a sea to be taken lightly as many have found to their peril. Getting here from further away is a major mission that only the most prepared of sailors would want to attempt, and they tend to be the ones that let you know where they are and when they will be arriving so if they don't you know where to look for them. On top of that, we do have Orions who are out looking for vessels to make sure that they are obeying the rules, and don't need help, so if you were trying to get here clandestinely, you'd have to avoid them too, and good luck outrunning a plane, with equipment designed to detect people in the water miles away, in anything that could safely cross the Pacific.

Assuming you did get here undetected, well landing anywhere outside the main harbours is a great way to get you noticed and reported, just ask the French on that one. In the mid-1980's they sent over a team to blow up a Nuclear Protest ship owned by Greenpeace, called The Rainbow Warrior. While they did achieve that goal because at the time no one thought an allied country would commit an act of terrorism on a friendly nation's soil, the speed at which it was solved and the culprits remaining in the country were caught was astounding. Turned out that the police knew their entire movements because Kiwis are bloody nosey and thought the pair was a bit sus, so reported them to the police all the way through their journey. The only thing that allowed them to get away with it was that until the attack, they didn't actually do anything illegal. So yeah...