Sweden Dealing with Covid the Right Way

[jyl]

Article about covid’s greater impact in immigrant population in Nordic countries. Mentions issues like 1) tend to work in high public contact jobs, 2) tend to live in multigenerational / crowded housing, 3) tend to get information later due to language (maaaybe - I think it’s more complicated than that)..

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway-immigrants-idUSKCN2260XW

In the US, covid rates also seem to be higher in similar populations. UCSF did a serological survey of Bolinas (exurb in SF Bay Area) and another in the Mission (tradionally Latino but fast-gentrifying inner city neighborhood of SF). 0% Covid in Bolinas, 2% Covid in Mission. In Mission, 95% of Covid was in the 58% of population that is Latino, 0% in the 34% that is white. The Latinos in the Mission are not typically immigrants, but they tend to be lower income / work public contact jobs, and crammed together in housing. The whites tend to be techies who are gentrifying the ‘hood.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/28/sobering-finding-covid19-struck-mostly-low-wage-essential-workers-san-francisco/

(I lived in the Mission for awhile in the ‘90s.)

[spuggy]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Belgium is massively over reporting.
Anybody who dies in a nursery home ends up on that count. like 98 years old, coughs once and drops dead : on the covid death count.
Not even tested.

It's been the topic of much debate already.

"massive" seems like a bit of an exaggeration - looks like 2x at most, based on



Which is deliberate, and they're being very transparent as to why.

You want to talk about reporting inaccuracies?

Take a look at this graph (From: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/may/29/excess-deaths-uk-has-one-highest-levels-europe)



Reporting of non-hospital deaths can lag by weeks - with figures revised upwards as collated.

You think that only the red bit of the graph (CV-19 diagnosed deaths in hospital care) are significant? How would any reasonable person interpret that spike in "normal" deaths over the 5-year average, exactly?

Other countries aren't testing or counting deaths in care homes or deaths at home. Some are counting suspected, some only confirmed by tests - even where there isn't testing capacity. And a few are providing very dubious #'s indeed. So no countries' figures can be directly compared to any others.

[livi]

Originally Posted by Tobra

How are the other Nordic countries handling things with respect to importing immigrants? For example, Iceland seems like they would have a far smaller problem with this, and would not be comparable to Sweden in this regard. To a large extent, comparing Sweden to other Nordic countries does not make a lot of sense.

Yes, there are to many variables that are very difficult to value. What strikes me the most is that the Stockholm region has roughly 50% of our death cases while being 20% of the population. If Stockholm had the same death rate as the rest of the country Sweden would look much "better" in an international context.
Something is not right in our capitol and we here down in Skane have been saying that for years.

[RWebb]

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sweden-coronavirus-herd-immunity

[93nav]

Similar to here in the USA. A large percentage of deaths are in NY State. But they are only 5.9% of the USA population (NYC vs NYC metro area).

USA total deaths 105,557. NY State deaths 29,829. 28.25%

USA pop 330,150,668 NY State pop 19,453,561 5.9%

Originally Posted by livi

Yes, there are to many variables that are very difficult to value. What strikes me the most is that the Stockholm region has roughly 50% of our death cases while being 20% of the population. If Stockholm had the same death rate as the rest of the country Sweden would look much "better" in an international context.
Something is not right in our capitol and we here down in Skane have been saying that for years.

[island911]

And NY had all of the "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses.

Now let's compare NY to Sweden.

NY State has 1533 deaths per million

Sweden, 435 deaths per million

NYS has experienced 3.52 times more death.

Clearly it's not the lack of "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses that is causing death in Sweden.

[island911]

Daily CV death with Sweden's on the same Y-axis scale...

[island911]

BTW, If NYS was it's own country, it would have the highest death per capita (due to CV) in the world.

And yet they had all of the "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses.

Which implies that "social distancing" and the shuttering of "non-essential" businesses is not the major factor in preventing CV spread.

Of course it should be noted that NYS had other policies that killed a lot of at risk people. But that is such an ugly policy nightmare that it shouldn't be discussed here in sensitive ponytail man OT.

[RWebb]

damn, that's stoopid

[gsxrken]

This thread reminds me of two sayings:

“Conservatives are like dolphins, pretty intelligent but don’t bother talking to them”

and

“Liberalism is like a nude beach- everything about it sounds good until you get there”.

At first I was surprised data about a disease could break along party lines, b/c they usually don’t. But this one has a “what should the government do” component of historical proportions, so that’s going to smoke out philosophical differences.

Carry on

[island911]

Originally Posted by RWebb

damn, that's stoopid

what are you screaming at the sky about now?

NY is stupid?

My slightly exaggerating Sweden's CV death graph is stupid? (their worst day was 185. it looks like it's over 200 on my cut & paste.)

Use your big words Webb. This empty insinuation shtick of yours is SO old.

[RWebb]

understand what correlation means then get back to us

[93nav]

I am with you. Though, truthfully, I kind of like dolphins, and think people generally look a lot better with their clothes on.

Originally Posted by gsxrken

This thread reminds me of two sayings:

“Conservatives are like dolphins, pretty intelligent but don’t bother talking to them”

and

“Liberalism is like a nude beach- everything about it sounds good until you get there”.

At first I was surprised data about a disease could break along party lines, b/c they usually don’t. But this one has a “what should the government do” component of historical proportions, so that’s going to smoke out philosophical differences.

Carry on

[group911@aol.co]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52903717

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Shocker.

Coronavirus: Sweden's Tegnell admits too many died

9 hours ago

Sweden's controversial decision not to impose a strict lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic led to too many deaths, the man behind the policy, Anders Tegnell, has acknowledged.

Sweden has seen a far higher mortality rate than its nearest neighbours and its nationals are being barred from crossing their borders.

Dr Tegnell told Swedish radio more should have been done early on.

"There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done."

Sweden has counted 4,542 deaths and 40,803 infections in a population of 10 million, while Denmark, Norway and Finland have imposed lockdowns and seen far lower rates.

Denmark has seen 580 deaths, Norway has had 237 deaths and Finland 321. Sweden reported a further 74 deaths on Wednesday.

How Tegnell's views have changed

Dr Tegnell, who is Sweden's state epidemiologist and in charge of the country's response to Covid-19, told BBC News in April that the high death toll was mainly because homes for the elderly had been unable to keep the disease out, although he emphasised that "does not disqualify our strategy as a whole".

Now he has told Swedish public radio: "If we were to encounter the same disease again, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."

When asked if too many people had died too soon, Dr Tegnell said, "Yes, absolutely."

* Sweden excluded from Denmark-Norway travel bubble
* Has Sweden got its coronavirus science right?
* How is lockdown being lifted across Europe?
* What's going wrong in Sweden's care homes?

However, he was unclear what Sweden should have done differently and at a press conference later on Wednesday later he underlined that "we basically still think that is the right strategy for Sweden".

Trying to guide the response was rather like steering an ocean liner, as every measure took three or four weeks to work its way through.

While Sweden's approach had been to increase its response step by step, other countries had imposed immediate lockdowns and gradually reopened, he said.

He warned it was too early to say whether the lockdowns had worked or not. "We know from history during the last three or four months that this disease has a very high capacity to start spreading again."

What was Sweden's response?

Although there was no lockdown, Sweden relied on voluntary social distancing, banning gatherings of more than 50 people and halting visits to elderly care homes.

Non-essential travel is still not recommended under national guidelines, but journeys of up to two hours are allowed to see relatives or close friends as long as they do not involve visits to local shops and mixing with other residents.

As Denmark and Norway have begun opening up again, there has been growing criticism of Sweden's response, both inside the country and among its neighbours.

Norway's public health chief Frode Forland said Sweden had focused too much on historical models of viruses, while its neighbours preferred lockdown measures.

Sweden's former state epidemiologist Annika Linde believes Sweden got its response wrong and should have focused on three things:

* An early lockdown
* Greater protection of care homes
* Intensive testing and contact tracing in areas of outbreaks

According to Swedish media, Dr Tegnell and his family were subjected to threats by email last month.

[island911]

Neil Ferguson - an epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology, who specializes in the patterns of spread of infectious disease in humans's -- his first (Sweden) prediction said 90,000 people in would die because they were not locking down. ... and what, 4,000 people died?

Well...

Neil Ferguson whose grim warnings prompted Boris Johnson to order TOTAL LOCKDOWN admits Sweden may have suppressed Covid-19 to the same level but WITHOUT draconian measures

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8379769/Professor-Lockdown-Neil-Ferguson-admits-greatest-respect-Sweden.html

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by island911

And NY had all of the "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses.

Now let's compare NY to Sweden.

NY State has 1533 deaths per million

Sweden, 435 deaths per million

NYS has experienced 3.52 times more death.

Clearly it's not the lack of "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses that is causing death in Sweden.

New York, like Italy represented a perfect storm for much the same reasons. High density, heavy reliance on public transportation, they waited too long, until they had widespread infection and then they locked everything down so the infected persons easily spread it to the rest of their family within their homes. If they had closed down 2 weeks earlier and avoided all of that highly infected international tourist traffic, they may have avoided 80% of the death rate.

Now compare Sweden with San Diego, Riverside, Orange counties in SoCal. Similar population and similar density. SoCal had an earlier infection date but it did not spread widely at first.

Sweden- 4500 dead
SoCal- 661 dead

SoCal closed up earlier than NY and dodged a big bullet with very low death rates compared with most other states. Timing is everything with an exponential spread.

[island911]

Originally Posted by Cajundaddy

.. Timing is everything with an exponential spread.

Timing is NOT everything with an exponential spread.

So many other factors are in play.

I get that if you use simplistic math, then sure. But that is not reality. And, as "Professor Shutdown" (Neil Ferguson) found, modeling this outbreak is not so easy. Well, unless you don't care about accuracy. He nailed that then.

Where we are now. Apparently we all get instant immunity to the China Virus when carry a sign virtue signalling pity for Blacks THEN you can assemble closely for hours on end, pulling down your masks to shout at the sky.

Was that in the model?

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by island911

And NY had all of the "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses.

Now let's compare NY to Sweden.

NY State has 1533 deaths per million

Sweden, 435 deaths per million

NYS has experienced 3.52 times more death.

Clearly it's not the lack of "social distancing" and shuttering of "non-essential" businesses that is causing death in Sweden.

NY could have shut down even one week earlier and changed the numbers. 2 weeks would have been ideal. That would have changed the numbers. And the numbers did go down after the shutdown.

But NY did not have a very tight shutdown, and a lot of people who were ''essential'' rode to work on buses or the subway. While you may argue that the shutdown did not work, it is hard for me to imagine it would not have been worse if a shutdown hadn't happened.

But I want you to know I am not suggesting shut downs needed to happen everywhere in the US. I am suggesting that it seems probable that it kept NYC from a very large disaster. If you follow the numbers and apply the incubation period of the disease to the response, there is a correlation.

[island911]

Originally Posted by DanielDudley

NY could have shut down even one week earlier and changed the numbers. 2 weeks would have been ideal. That would have changed the numbers. And the numbers did go down after the shutdown.
....

Nope. The numbers went WAY up after the shut down.

NY had the worst peak LONG after the shutdown. April 17 (1025 deaths that day.)



Gathering restrictions started March 12th
Stay at Home and businesses closed Order was given March 22
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/new-york

And to my earlier point, about factors beyond "timing" we look at the fact that NY, if it were a country, has THE WORST casualty % of any other country including that little chart-topping slice of country surrounded by Italy's norther outbreak; San Marino. Per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Articles have been written about this, yet the MSM really doesn't touch it, that Cuomo was clearing out hospitals by sending patients to "nursing homes."

Perhaps if he brought together the sick and the elderly two weeks earlier this all could have been avoided/sarcasm. See what I'm saying about other factors?