Sweden's approach

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

How come the Swede's seem to be taking a casual approach to this?
No lockdown or closing of bars/cafes yet.

Any Swedes on here to offer their thoughts?

[Thinkinghappythoughts]

No idea. My pil are Swedish and are very relaxed about it. But then they come from a sleepy town that could be mistaken for permanent self-isolation (god it is full - but probably a very good place to be now). I'd like to hear too.

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

I suppose a lot of the North is quite isolated? Rural areas with a few big cities but mostly countryside?

[RandomMess]

I should imagine a far superior health care system due to higher taxes helps too?

[Northernsoullover]

My Swedish friends are taking a nice break away to their summer home . I hope it doesn't cause a catastrophe but we all know how this will pan out

[Thinkinghappythoughts]

*dull - not full! The town they live used to have those banners begging people to move there. Very pretty though.

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

But surely all countries in that region are taking a 'combined' approach? Denmark and Norway are closing things up, I thought.

[Thinkinghappythoughts]

I should imagine a far superior health care system due to higher taxes helps too?

I saw a table showing the Sweden has less ICU beds than the UK. In fact the lowest in Europe apart from Portugal.

[NemophilistRebel]

We would have taken a similar approach had it not been for people demanding the government put stricter actions in place

The Swedish are following the same science otherwise

Hope it works out for them

[Thinkinghappythoughts]

But surely all countries in that region are taking a 'combined' approach? Denmark and Norway are closing things up, I thought.

Sweden seems to taking its own path. I know gymnasier are closed but are primary schools still open?

[NemophilistRebel]

I haven’t heard about Norway but Denmark is pretty much fully on lockdown

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

@Nemo

Yes. We will see.

[pooiepooie25]

Norway is also on pretty much full lockdown.

[Lunde]

Large parts of Sweden are very isolated rural areas. Wile there is not a total lockdown there are restrictions that people are being asked to make in daily life. The upper levels of high schools and universities are closed and working online, People are generally abiding by what the government have asked them to do and are not looking for loopholes nor are people going crazy panic buying.

I think that there may be some further restrictions next week - possibly a lockdown for Stockholm and other major cities before Easter.

However at the moment Sweden is not doing noticeably worse than its locked down Nordic neighbours when it comes to cases per million/population

Total cases - all per million/pop 27/3
Norway (locked down) 693 cases/4 deaths
Sweden (not locked) 304 cases/10 deaths
Denmark (locked down) 353 cases/9 deaths
Iceland (?) 2,608 cases/6 deaths
Finland (regional lockdowns) 188 cases/1

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

High numbers in Iceland considering popn.

[Manchestermanchester]

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ 105 deaths today

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

@Lunde what is the general mood like there, Lunde? Are they worried or calm?

[Allaboardthemagicbus2020]

919 deaths in Italy for 27th March. Their numbers are not good.

[10storeylovesong]

We were supposed to be going to Sweden in April. We emailed the hostel expecting it to be closed and they said it was very much business as usual. Obviously our flights have been cancelled...

[GoodStuffAnnie]

Allaboard - I believe Iceland have tested the whole country.

[NemophilistRebel]

Not much point testing all of Iceland when there are still flights coming in

They’ll have to test everyone again in 2 weeks

[Manchestermanchester]

How are they getting all these tests..... oh wait there is 300k population lol

[Manchestermanchester]

@10storeylovesong they opened the gyms again,.., so dumb

[MintyMabel]

We were supposed to be going to Sweden in April.

We’ve a trip booked for early July. The hotel sent an email saying we could cancel it if we wanted to.

[PuffinShop]

I'm in Iceland. No, we have not tested the whole country.

Those numbers are per million, as stated - we have much less than a million so they are higher than the actual numbers.

[PuffinShop]

About 3% of the population have been tested here so far, combined effort from the healthcare system and deCODE Genetics. The contact tracing team seems to be doing a pretty good job as about half of diagnosed cases were already in quarantine.