Why did Sweden decide to act differently?

[tontie]

Sweden is an outlier, any ideas as why they decided to do things differently? protect the economy or because they think this is the best long term strategy?

@Lweji i was joking when i said we will go back to a firm handshake. But i cant predict the future. After a vaccine, people might well be shaking hands. I dont think hundreds of years tradition will be erradicated that easily.
Funny that you ask "have you learnt nothing?".
🤣

After a vaccine people can and will go back to kissing. A handshake is just or more dangerous, unless you wash your hands afterwards.

“In major parts of Sweden, around Stockholm, we have reached a plateau (in new cases) and we’re already seeing the effect of herd immunity and in a few weeks’ time we’ll see even more of the effects of that. And in the rest of the country, the situation is stable,” Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, told CNBC Tuesday.

This is interesting. What evidence does he have to say this? I trust that he knows an awful lot more that me. If anyone has a link - even in swedish - that would be great.

Sweden doesn't have a London. People aren't generally squeezed in like sardines.

"Sweden has apparently withdrawn two reports claiming they were close to reaching herd immunity in Stockholm"
mobile.twitter.com/CathyYoung63/status/1253091481549713411

www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/04/22/sweden-health-agency-withdraws-controversial-coronavirus-report/amp/?

Sweden has apparently withdrawn two reports claiming they were close to reaching herd immunity in Stockholm

I’m not surprised as it did seem a rather fantastical claim given Sweden’s numbers.

It’s a real shame though, as if Stockholm was nearing herd immunity then it surely would have meant much of Europe had too - and indeed was further ahead - and we were therefore much closer to defeating the virus than we had believed.

What’s really worrying about this episode though is that it indicates Sweden’s top officials don’t have a clue, and are presumably basing policy on nonsense.

Would be lovely if we had only ten
million people like Sweden and was the size of Sweden ..

Oh yes, remembered we are the most densely populated country in Europe. Around 9 million in London I believe.

Sardines we are.

I genuinely can’t see a conronavirus vaccine in the near future. It mutates too quickly.

Sweden intake some of the highest levels of vitamin D3 in Europe along with most of the Scandinavian nations.

I've been waiting for a published study of blood serum levels of vit D3 versus patient outcome and the first one that I have seen is on the net and the results show a significant correlation. Bear in mind it is not peer reviewed and does not prove causality. But I will continue with this until science proves me wrong.

The study was done by a researcher called Alipio from the Philippines. He took the data from 212 covid patients and ranked their symptoms: mild, ordinary, severe, critical.

He statistically analysed the categories and blood serum levels: normal was defined as vitamin D3 less than 30ng/ml, insufficient was in the range 21–29ng/ml and deficient as less than 20ng/ml.

Here are his results:
mild symptoms = 86% had normal levels of D3, 1.3 % had insufficient levels of D3
ordinary symptom = 26% deficient, 44% insufficient
severe = 40% deficient, 29% insufficient
critical = 32% deficient, 26% insufficient, 3% normal

OK I hear you say, it could be because those patients already had underlying conditions which rendered them deficient in the first place. But this is significant data.

Study is here:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3571484

Two things really stand out for me. This is a study of 212 Philippines nationals living in SE Asia. This is one of the BAME communities who have sadly disproportionatly died of covid in the UK:
www.theguardian.com/world/2...exerts-heavy-toll-on-filipino-community-in-uk

Meanwhile, there have been only 446 deaths in the Philippines, with a population of 110 million (they had their first case of covid on 30th January!).

Secondly, the UK government has said that they will keep all the scientific data secret until after the pandemic -

'Key scientific data and advice the UK government is using to guide its covid-19 response won’t be published until the pandemic ends. Documents used to make decisions and the minutes of meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE) will only be made public when the current outbreak is brought under control, according to Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser.''

www.newscientist.com/articl...advice-wont-be-published-until-pandemic-ends/

@justilou1 it mutates less slowly than the flu according to the studies so far. There is a fair bit of confidence that the mutations that do occur will not impact the efficacy of a vaccine. I’d be very hopeful of a vaccine in the not too distant future.

www.city-journal.org/coronavirus-vaccine

And yet despite many previous attempts there has never been a successful Coronavirus vaccine in the past.

There are several Coronavirus vaccines in animals and the reality is that there just hasn’t been a commercial incentive to develop a coronavirus vaccine before now. The link above has quite a good explanation as to why we should be hopeful.

And yet despite many previous attempts there has never been a successful Coronavirus vaccine in the past.

There are quite a few successful Coronavirus vaccines for various animal diseases.

The SARS and MERs developments were well under way but weren't needed.

Colds aren't serious enough and there's too many types (mostly not Coronavirus) to merit vaccines.

When Sweden's policy was publicised I noted it's relative death rate per million (which is the only statistic vaguely comparable between different countries) vs what I guessed to be the most similar countries - Denmark and Germany. Iirc at that point they were similar. Now Sweden is at 3x their rates.

Keep all the scientific data secret
That seems a bit mean☹️we're not allowed to know what's going on?😳
Why not?☹️

If anyone saw the professor from Oxford Uni on the Andrew Marr show, she said the vaccine they are working on would still protect from mutations and keep people immune for longer than catching it would because the vaccine isn't made from Corona it's made from a different virus.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000hk96/the-andrew-marr-show-19042020

Starts at 16.44. She said it could be ready as early as September

With the right funding....

And also if everything works and goes right - how to test to prove its effectiveness for instance. It's an optimistic earliest possible date.

thanks @LWJ70 for your post, very interesting (your New Scientist link is broken - see below)

^www.newscientist.com/article/2241082-uks-coronavirus-science-advice-wont-be-published-until-pandemic-ends/^

I would imagine that SAGE is unwilling to publish its minutes/data is because they don't want to be questioned by non-SAGE scientists or the public. They've controlled their decision making process and message very tightly and that makes it much easier to govern.

One benefit of releasing data later rather than now is that it can be retrofitted to make it seem more sensible.

Errol she explains in the interview how they are testing it's effectiveness

I’ve been reading recently that Sweden considers their approach to be more sustainable as they think people will keep up the level of social distancing being encouraged (rather than imposed) for longer.

If public opinion on the lockdowns turns (and judging by the agenda being pushed by the daily mail, it might) they might have a point. Is a less effective but longer term approach better than a more effective approach that cannot be sustained?

We obviously won’t know the answer for a long time but I’m keeping every crossed for Sweden.

I think the U.K. government was hoping for self-imposed social distancing until large numbers of people headed to beaches, parks or up snowdon etc at the same time.

It seriously is a pity that we had awful storms earlier followed by unseasonally good weather.

I genuinely can’t see a conronavirus vaccine in the near future. It mutates too quickly.
What do you base this opinion on? So far it hasn't mutated that much.

I've not listened to the Marr interview yet but I thought some of the teams worldwide are focussing on conserved spike regions not parts which are liable to mutate?