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?

Tonyaster Fri 03-Apr-20 11:11:19
If lockdown worked in the crude way we are doing it, then Spain wouldn't still be looking down the barrel of a gun.

Talk about a broken record, Tonyaster.

The average time from infection to death is over 23 days. It shouldn't take a genius to realise that the improvements from lock down take weeks to materialise.

It might turn out to be the wrong approach but it's not a Dominic Cummings 'eugenics plot' in Sweden either!

Of course it’s not. Some people are incapable of not taking every possible chance to criticise the government’s handling of this because they already hated them anyway.

Once it’s not contained everyone is in the same boat though surely

A certain percentage will get it and need hospitalisation whether it’s sooner or later. Lockdown is just to stop it all hitting at once.

No lock down can last until vaccine so we’ll still have to have a percentage get it. Same as everywhere else.

Porcupineinwaiting - yes I think so too. I just find it disconcerting that people seem to denigrate the UK, when lots of other countries are in the same situation. I look at countries like The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland - they have quite high numbers of deaths by population numbers and I don't think people would be saying they have terrible health services, but they still brought in restrictions to try to control the spread of Covid-19.

I was reading an article just this week about senior doctors in Sweden believing that it's not being taken seriously enough.

The most populous member state is Germany, with an estimated 80.4 million people. France and Ireland have the highest birth-rates. The most densely populated country is the island of Malta, which is also the smallest, while the largest in area is France. The least densely populated country is Finland.

I would have thought that England was densely populated, but maybe they're not longer featuring in the stats.
Sweden has a similar pop/sq.km from my quick arithmetic as the UK, so I don't know why it was so contained there relative to us. Possibly, because they didn't need to go to the Italian Alps to ski? I don't know much about Sweden, never having been there.

Lockdown can't go on much beyond 6 weeks. The repercussions will be greater than the threat from CV.

Build the ventilators, open the field hospitals, bring in widespread testing and lift the lockdown.

Why the hell are all you people assuming the Swedes have got it right?! The Swedes I know have their heads in their hands in horror at the lack of adequate distancing policies there. They are later in the curve but all indications are this is going to bite Sweden hard very soon, just like it would be hitting us even more catastrophically had we not gone into lockdown when we did. Its all very well talking about supposed national social norms making things quicker or slower, but exponential viral transmission curves are not overly fussy about such minor details. If your numbers of severely ill victims overwhelm your health service, then you are fucked.

It’s interesting countries following same path. Australia same with 400 scientists writing a letter to govt to urge more restrictions.

NZ was very fast.

But fast has its own issues.

Sorry, earlier in the curve not later!

Sweden has had sensible social distancing in force for quite some time. This may be enough to help Sweden avoid catastrophic numbers of fatalities but it is open to intense debate.

Unlike Boris, Swedes aren't doing their very best to spread the virus by idiotically shaking hands with everybody.

Yes.
The measures we have put in place will cause much more suffering in the long term

I'd agree people were worried.
But you also have to look at the whole picture, Italy closed the schools but kept cafes and pubs open with social distancing. And there were reports of people gathering together having parties and play dates.

The UK closed all the social stuff first before the schools closed and we went into the current lockdown.

I'm not sure what other ways countries have done things but it doesn't appear to me that you can suddenly close a country overnight.

I bet Google has all the data somehow in their servers

There will be rejoicing in some parts of Google. The opportunities for their data gathering are fantastic:

www.google.com/covid19/mobility/

I watched an interview with someone Swedish (headline just said 'Man responsible for Swedish policy on CV') as I didn't catch the beginning of it, but even he admitted that only time will tell whose policy was correct. There are so many factors to consider, i.e. the quality of healthcare system among other things.

Sweden has a similar pop/sq.km from my quick arithmetic as the UK

Is this a typo?

Sweden is much larger than the UK but with a sixth of the population

Well we have to move on to some kind of herd immunity policy now that we have more measures in place for the NHS to look after ill people.
A cure/vaccine is many, many months/years away and more people are going to die from the effects of a massive ecomonic downturn if we don't. We can't all stay inside and not work for the next 9 months.

Yes I agree ash

Lots of mumsnetters seem to actively relish a year long lockdown however.

Doubt it. We’d be scrapping over the last sheet of Andrex.

No it’s not possible to be locked down that long but a second wave is going to be very hard once we’ve gone through one. Either if they let it run or lock down again.

Depending on actual infection rate which we don’t know yet.

Is this a typo?

UK vs Sweden: 279/km² vs 22/km².

worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-density/

Balmytissues - the UK has a population density of 274 per sq km, and Sweden 25.

Lots of mumsnetters seem to actively relish a year long lockdown however.

I haven't seen anyone relishing the thought of a year long lock down. I'm sure there have been a few, but it's definitely not lots of posters.

Ha nauticant - I used a different website (or date maybe), but the differential is much the same!

Is this a typo? Sweden is much larger than the UK but with a sixth of the population

Alas it wasn't a typo - I'm not sure how I was looking at the figures, but I read it upside down lol