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?

It's a completely different society. Less densely populated and most people live alone for a start.

Then also what was mentioned up thread that they are naturally compliant with government recommendations, so they're self isolating / socially distancing / WFH without it being enforced.

Still not sure it's the tight way to go though.

It may yet go bad for them. However, they are double the geographical size and have merely a sixth of the population. Our high population density is not helpful.

Yes, death rate in Spain is grim. So what is your suggestion to lower it?

There is not a “stop all transmission now” option here. It is really about finding the best of a lot of bad outcomes.

We are a broadly compliant society too. The shops, schools and pubs are all closed. The vast majority of us are indoors at any one time. No country would manage full compliance without unpleasant policing measures.

Yeah half their households are single occupant says the BBC.

I wonder if we would have gone down the same route as Sweden if we had its healthcare, working patterns and compliancy then?

We just won't know until after the 'gamble'

Italy and Spain's figures are sobering but what would they have been like without this?

We aren't demographically like Spain either!

Testing and masks are the solution, why this is hard to understand I don't know.

But they are a very socially aware and have a compliant culture - just look at the number of people in the U.K. pushing the lockdown for their own needs.....

I'd echo this too. You've got to live in the Nordic region to have a proper understanding for how the cultures there are profoundly different to Anglo-Saxon countries. Let alone things like population density and how that infrastructure and ways of working, schooling, etc, means that they already are configured to deal with some aspects of Coronavirus.

But it's still an open question whether the Swedish approach will lead to a controlled and limited spread of the virus.

We tried doing it the Swedish way. It might have been fine but the government got constant criticism and hysteria for it.

Maybe Sweden's government will get the same. Who knows?

The problem with taking that stance is that every single person who dies who isn't in an elderly or otherwise very vulnerable demographic will be used as a weapon to beat the government with for apparently making the wrong choices and having blood on their hands. Even if the ultimate death toll is less or no greater than it otherwise would have been. But as it's hypothetical we can never know.

Maybe Sweden's government will get the same. Who knows?

They are facing increasing pressure to lockdown.

@Tonyaster

The reason why it is so hard to understand is that a lot of respected epidemiologists would rather disagree.

Testing is good to understand scale and to help when we return to tracing/containment, but less use at stopping transmission now. Also not aware of any papers/modelling on impact of universal mask wearing but do feel free to post links to any I’ve missed.

Lol no, Britain barely has a healthcare system. Lockdown is necessary in Britain because if they don’t flatten the curve substantially the whole thing will just collapse. Even before Coronavirus the NHS wasn’t providing adequate care, with it the very survival of the organisation is at stake.

Went to take the cat to the vet which means going past a large Tescos the car park was busy. We need bread and milk but we did without when we saw the amount of people there.

Reginabambina - is that the reason so many other countries have lockdown too - their healthcare systems would have collapsed?

We have absolutely nothing to learn from the way Spain had done things

Bollocks. We had, but we didn't. One of Spain's main problems is that the started lockdown too late. There were also many idiots who didn't think the rules applied to them and off they popped to their holiday homes. Rings any bells?

As for Sweden, one advantage is that it is less densely populated and it has a very small population in comparison with other European countries. Still, their approach rings alarm bells. It seems they are prioritising the economy (like the UK did initially) and it may come back to bite them.

FWIT, I agree with an OP's husband's opinion that, going forward, we'll be able to see what approach works best. For when this happens again .

Balhammom

Just look at other countries who have nade progress in containing it and learn from them.

We have nothing to learn from either Spain or Italy.

time will tell but there are multiple factors feeding into these situations and each country is different in significant ways.
I'm thinking that the baseline level of health in the elderly would be better in Sweden compared to to Italy, Spain, France, UK, USA?

This crisis will have generated vast amounts of data that can be used for the good of everyone in the next crisis

So effectively we have taken the current strategy over herd immunity and a strong economy because the NHS has been starved for years?

Sounds like it would have been far cost effective to properly fund it beforehand.

Re:"I think Sweden are making a huge mistake and will see much higher numbers dying soon".

But this might be opposed to the much higher numbers dying over time. High numbers are expected whichever way its done. The point of isolation is to "flatten the curve" so the NHS isn't overwhelmed. However Sweden might well come out at the end (or in a years' time, say) with relatively the same number of deaths as would have been expected anyway, but a large majority of the population having natural immunisation (instead of having to wait for vaccine development and an expensive vaccine programme) and being able to return properly to normal life instead of waves of lockdown and let-up. I mean, nobody knows because it's unchartered territories but I wouldn't knock it for a long term strategy.

Also, perhaps they have a generally healthier population/culture in the first place, or less vulnerable people, or some other similar factor. (I don't know).

No didn’t we have a few rules for a while and people went a bit crazy in gatherings

Also how much more space do they have than us per population

Lockdown is necessary because otherwise we all get ill at the same time and the majority die because there’s not enough ventilators. We are a small island with 60 odd million inhabitants, many on top of eachother, social distancing is hard for lots of people.

As a nation, the UK is not compliant, too many independents, too many haters of ‘the system’ thinking it’s out to get them.

Watch the coming chaos once the rioting starts here, many of us are civilised but a large number are simply not. Lockdown is absolutely necessary in this country.

My best friend lives in Stockholm with her partner and she’s completely appalled by the situation there!
It’s absolutely not contained according to her. You would think that they are “socially aware” but she gets concerned everytime she goes to the supermarket cause people don’t keep their distances and seem to just don’t care. She’s not seeing much people using masks and she had a massive argument cause her bf was still going to the gym a few days ago. He’s mentality was just “in young anyway not gonna die” but he was completely unaware about vulnerable people. When she brought it up he said “old people should just not go out”. Felt very egoistic to me...
Social distancing is still in place though, she works from home. I think they just have less populated area, it’s not like London. But it’s far from being perfect.
Apparently they want to wait for 50% of the population to be infected before considering lockdown... look at the number of deaths already with like 2% of the population affected by the virus, it would mean thousand and thousand of death just because people can’t stand to stay indoors?

We are only trying not to overwhelm NHS not contain

If Sweden don’t have the same issue with capacity then they don’t have as much need to

Merlina yes it could be it’s not really going to work