Would you rather be here or in Sweden?

[Forgetaboutme]

There's been a lot of talk about the way Sweden are handling the coronavirus situation. Schools still open, bars n clubs plus shops still open. The vulnerable being shielded and the rest social distancing or working from home where possible.

Would you rather be here on lockdown? Or in Sweden?

Do you feel safer on lockdown or if you lived somewhere like Sweden would you have been happy to live how they are at the moment?

Just bored here and wondering what people thought.

(The US has 47, and Russia 0.5 Covid-19 fatalities per one million, respectively).
Hahaha, I would not believe numbers coming from Russia.
Surely no one is sound state of mind would believe that the closest neighbor of China that shares land border, with their appalling healthcare system and below poverty line living standards for half of their population, would not, realistically, have 0.5 fatalities per million in this pandemic.
0.5 is what Putin wants you to believe.

Sorry, completely off topic but really wanted to say this.

Here. I’d be shitting myself and so frustrated if I was in Sweden.

@lonelySam - your long post was very informative about life in NL so thank you for posting. I am now rooting for NL and Sweden.

I live in Norway And i am so glad I live in Norway right now and not sweden. In norway we have been in lockdown for 5 weeks now. Our goverment says we start to get Control , And all Our Schools and Kindergartens will open the 27 april. In sweden the Stockholm hospital is full and they are starting to not give life saving help to People over 80 and multisick persons over 60 years. We got the epedemy at the same time as sweden , but we only have 114 Deaths , but sweden has 887 Death People because the hospitals are full. Its very scary because a lot of swedish People Works in norway because they get more Money here than in sweden. But now the border to sweden from Norway is closed. And I think that is good.

German schools are opening in Saxony again, students are still sitting their A level equivalents. The number of German cases is currently 4,000 a day, twice that of Italy when they decided to lockdown. I think the NL attitude that this is awful but something we have to live with is spreading.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/10/german-region-reopen-schools-opposition-lockdown-mounts/

LonelySam, thank you.

Re Sweden and tax, do lower earners pay that much?

Basic tax rate is set by each municipality and goes to the municipality. Ours is currently 31% I think. Then higher earners pay an additional 20% to central government on the amount they earn above the cut off point, but I can't remember what that is.

Thanks Mashed

I think earning minimum wage and getting that much taken off would be awful.

As at midnight (Worldometers):

Deaths per million population:

UK 132
Sweden 86

Tests per million population

UK 4,667
Sweden 5,416

World rankings of most deaths per million population:

UK 9th
Sweden 11th

Total cases per million population (largely a useless figure because the more people you test the more confirmed cases there will be)

UK 1,086
Sweden 959

For comparison, the huge half a million confirmed cases in the USA puts them in 15th place for number of deaths per million population at 57.

Big numbers scare people, small numbers don't have the same effect but it's all relative as the above shows.

Vegas888
This is why I do not trust the numbers they are pumping out. No one has clarified this to date.

Sweden is being very foolish. For god's sake, don't you know what is going on in New York? They are taking away the dead bodies in refrigerated trucks and burying them in potter's fields. This is a virus, it's not something you can outrun by being socially virtuous. Young, healthy people are dying of it, and many young people who survive will be permanently damaged.

"For god's sake, don't you know what is going on in New York? They are taking away the dead bodies in refrigerated trucks and burying them in potter's fields"

To be fair, they are unclaimed bodies. Not saying it's cool or whatever, but it's not quite as dramatic as the pictures made out.

lonelySam I might have missed it but are you allowed to see family members who don’t live with you there? That’s the only part of the lockdown I’m finding difficult, the rest is fine!

Durga, you’re usually more rational?

A lot of those are unclaimed bodies.

Anyway, it’s a pandemic. Do you want to stay home for the time it takes for a cure? Do you think humans should aim for immortality?

Durga is probably puzzled by our arrogance.

Just 17 additional deaths recorded here today.

Sweden. Idiots where i live on the south coast act like they are there anyway!

I am Swedish, although I haven’t lived there for over a decade. I have vulnerable people there and I am very worried for them. I would not want to be there. I think the government in Sweden would have put people in quarantine by now if they had the authority to do so, they don’t because they do not have enough majority to get the laws past in government to do so. I think the English government are doing everything they can to save lives, all countries are ill prepared but at least they are trying to save lives not the economy.

Sorry I meant lockdown not quarantine

I'd rather be in Spain. They have police issuing heavy fines we are doing a half hearted approach.

Just 17 additional deaths recorded here today.

Sweden don’t seem to record nearly as many deaths at the weekend... For instance, two weeks back they recorded 5 for both Saturday and Sunday combined, but with 28 on the preceding Friday and 36 on the following Monday. So clearly it seems to be far more likely to be a recording issue than a dramatic drop in actual deaths.

Sweden, I'm not particularly scared of the virus.

Young, healthy people are dying of it

Very, very, very few of them. So few that when it happens, it's a headline. There's more chance of a (genuinely) healthy young person getting cancer, meningitis, having an accident or committing suicide.

Very, very, very few of them.

Clearly if you’re young and fit, you’re far less likely to die, but I don’t think we have enough figures to make a judgment on whether it is as low as you suggest.

1. The reason for flattening the curve isn't just to help covid patients survive, but patients with any other disease who might go to the hospital or need health care.
2. You don't get herd immunity from pandemics. You get them from vaccinations.