Sweden

[Mummabeary]

Something which has been bothering me for a few weeks now and I wondered what thoughts are on here and if I have missed something.
When I look at Sweden's coronavirus strategy, it seems like a positive to me. Essentially we are all becoming Sweden now - hospitality sector open, schools to be open, working from home where possible but some offices reopening. And although their deaths at peak were significantly higher than their neighbours that locked down, they didn't experience the dire forecasts of numbers dying that were predicted and their epidemic slowed itself right down with no lockdown and just social distancing measures. So whilst obviously from a human point of view the losses of life are tragic, if we purely look at the country's actions as a scientific experiment, it really is quite encouraging in terms of how the virus spreads. With some small measures in place it did not take off exponentially, we didn't see months and months of deaths going up and up and up. Something has slowed it down quite quickly. I know the country has a general low population density compared to us but it does have a couple of well populated cities. With the headlines tonight of how Covid will be endemic now and here for years, should we not be looking at Sweden as a good news story?

I don't think anyone has said the swedes have carried on as normal? Seems to me that they've done what we were doing in this country from at about 15 March in the week prior to lockdown.

Lots more wfh, restaurants & shops v quiet but schools open, non COVID health services open etc

Anyone who says the British are incapable of policing themselves either has a v short memory or lived in a different UK to me in March.

Sorry should have summarised in the podcast the view is that Sweden didn’t do as well as other neighbouring countries- had more cases and were slower on the downturn. The interviewee says in hindsight they should have been more restrictive at the beginning.

Sweden also went complete distance learning for unis and did not have schools open for the oldest pupils (above 15). They are often cited for keeping their schools open but the population seemed to accept that the oldest could learn remotely. I assume this is a) because they believed the messaging on older children and teens b) have faith in remote learning and c) don't have the same exam factory system that lead to a clamour for full and complete return of the oldest students and d) accept some mitigations are necessary

Not sure what is happening with Swedish schools and universities after their summer break but I am sure someone on here will.

As warmth says people who cite Sweden often spout that they think is happening because it suits an agenda or we just don't get full reporting in our media.