Sweden, could we do it the swedish way?

[SQuueze]

Maybe they have just got lucky but they aren't in complete lockdown. There is social distancing and other measures in place. But with masks, not coughing on people, a few rules, could we make it work?

My German friends and I have discussed this. The things done differently: testing much more (And then strict isolation). Lock down earlier And no stupid herd immunity that our Government promotes at first (I had all symptoms in March 7th public health, via school, told me to send kids to school)

China's rise is from imported cases and they are going hard and fast for local lockdowns wherever they suspect a problem which is probably the most effective way of keeping the economy going and minimising deaths

Ireland have been doing a lot of contact tracing, which the UK doesn't seem to be doing at all I don't think. What happens is, you suspect you have it, are tested, and if positive, a Public Health doctor/member calls you for the names and telephone numbers of all those you've been in contact with in a certain few days. They are then contacted and tested/isolated. I think Germany are doing the same. Apparently the average number of contacts has dropped dramatically since lockdown to 3 people, can't remember what the number was initially, so that is slowing the spread. Ireland seems to have a large number of care homes which are clusters and they're individually risk managing each of those cluster centres. How it managed to get into the care homes I don't know, as you weren't allowed to visit them for a long time, but I suppose staff members possibly and then it probably spread like wild fire among the elderly.

My relatives in Germany are doctors and nurses and other hospital workers. They have said that in Germany, Covid 19 deaths are being recorded as deaths from other things if the patients had existing conditions.

Germany record deaths differently. That's literally it.

Ireland have been doing a lot of contact tracing, which the UK doesn't seem to be doing at all I don't think.

That’s ok if numbers are relatively small, but with 100,000s+ now with CV in the UK, that is impossible and impractical.

For anyone tempting to think “Sweden’s deaths are very low today compared to previous days. Their strategy must be working!”, they reported zero deaths last Saturday; zero deaths would have been statistically extraordinarily unlikely to have been the actual number of deaths. It seems far more likely they aren’t actually reporting deaths in full at the weekend - something else that underlines Sweden’s lackadaisical attitude to this.

Has anyone taken a look at the comparison graphs in "Aftonbladet"? Sweden's death rate is growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world ( in ratio) so concerning

FHM have been pretty open with the fact that communication on deaths over the weekend is lacking

Having lost both my parents at when they were in their 50s to diseases that were not curable changed my whole perspective on healthcare.
Death is inevitable, we cannot control this virus individually it relies on a communal approach, but I personally ( based on scientific and medical background) feel that for many we would be wasting our time.
A large percentage of the population have unrealistic expectations of critical and ICU care whether in this country or any other country. For some people it will be impossible to pull the rabbit out of the hat.
There are proper scientific sites open to healthcare professions where experience is being shared but the overwhelming message is that for patients who are being incubated and ventilated there is about 50/50 chance. This is not because of the CV19 but because of their underlying health which may to the untrained eye seem fine but medically is often very brittle.
There is so much more to this virus than a cough and breathing difficulties. Fortunately it is not life threatening to a very large percentage of the population.

Sweden has reported 76 new deaths today.... Proportionally that’s similar to 500 new deaths in Italy, France, Spain or the UK, and yet the cafes, restaurants, schools and shops are still open....

Wow. They are going to regret this approach 😱

Checked again yesterday and per hundred thousand population, more deaths than anywhere except France. It's awful.

Am I missing something? Surely all countries will end up having roughly the same amount of deaths proportionally until a vaccine is found?

No all countries won't have proportionally the same number of deaths

It depends on population age, health and genetics

It depends on the rate of infection, which depends on lockdown, living conditions, social conventions

@Tonyaster maybe not. New suggestions that countries that had BCG vaccination programmes might have far fewer serious cases. For example

Why would the rate of infection affect deaths (genuine question!!)? Because of overcrowding in hospitals?

I thought sweden had pop of about 50 million until recently! 😱 shocked i had that so wrong

New suggestions that countries that had BCG vaccination programmes might have far fewer serious cases. For example

Isn't that the UK? I know I had it in the late 70s/early 80s

Ireland have been doing a lot of contact tracing
as is Iceland. This is the upside of having a small population. These are the countries that will help the rest of the world to understand the diversity of genetic sequences found in the samples they'll be taking. They'll be able to trace where people caught the virus and see how the virus itself has mutated.

And to answer the original question, we could do it the Swedish way. But nobody fancies a game of Russian Roulette, including, I imagine, most Swedes.

I think the size of population is pretty irrelevent to contact tracing?

Bigger population, more people to do the tracing

I got a text message from my son's football club this morning. Training starts again on Monday. It's so inconsistent. His taekwando is cancelled for the foreseeable, but football is just starting up. His after school swimming lessons are still running, but his in school ones are cancelled but in 3 weeks not with immediate effect.

I can't gather in a group of more than 50 but my at risk daughter has to teach in a school with almost 1000 students. I can't go up to the counter in an empty cafe but I can order at a table in an absolutely packed one.

It makes no sense.

The UK stopped giving the BCG years ago as one of the standard childhood vaccines, except in high risk areas (eg parts of London). I think it stopped for most of the country in around 2005.

I didn't get the BCG way back in the mid 80s as they stopped doing it in our area. I remember my dad asking about it at the doctors as he was really worried about it as he lost his siblings to TB. My younger sister got it as we were living in a different area when she hit vaccination age.