WHO advises follow Sweden now

[Pixel7777]

In the news today..

"One of the World Health Organization’s six special envoys on coronavirus has said other countries should emulate Sweden’s virus response as a model for the long-term. Sweden has avoided introducing hard lockdown measures, and seen its case numbers fall in recent months - sparking a global debate about the efficacy of lockdowns"

[oldmapie]

WHO don't have a great track record though do they?

• when China first told WHO, WHO stipulated it wasn't person to person transmission.
  
• WHO didn't alert other countries initially.
  
• WHO criticised the UK for NOT locking down sooner
  
• WHO said NO MASKS
  
• WHO said MASKS should be worn
  
  I think WHO need a massive overhaul, and probably better scientists, who don't have a political agenda.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Basically no one knows what to do. It’s very obvious they’d done no planning on pandemics despite swine flu 10 years ago.

Dh and I have watched YouTube documentaries years ago talking about pandemics & how China would be one of the most likely sources.

[MarshaBradyo]

and they said keep borders open which Taiwan went against, probably to their benefit.

I think the scientists are good but their announcement system needs work.

[EDSGFC]

I think our government have handled most of this terribly but, at the same time, I don't think it's as easy as identifying a country that has done well and then thinking we can all just copy what they do.

Look at South Korea - they have had much better outcomes than us yet much of what they've done to control it just wouldn't be acceptable here - mandatory mask wearing, electronic track and trace monitoring etc.

Government initially asked that we followed social distancing rules without them having to be made mandatory. We didn't so we had imposed lockdown. How can we adopt the Swedish model then?

[CoffeeandCroissant]

I am not sure that any general WHO advice has changed? Sounds more like comments by one person during a radio interview regarding trusting the public to do the right thing rather than enforcing it...

^Dr. David Nabarro, speaking in a radio interview with Magic Talk in New Zealand, said, “For all countries, the real approach we’ve got to aim for is through behavior that’s adopted everywhere.”

Nabarro said the key to a sustainable coronavirus strategy is trust, and pointed to Sweden as a case in point. The Nordic nation imposed far fewer restrictions on movement than others, and instead relied on Swedes to act responsibly and embrace the guidelines laid out by the country’s health authorities.

“In Sweden, the government was able to trust the public and the public was able to trust the government,” Nabarro said.^

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-08-31/who-special-envoy-heaps-praise-on-sweden-s-covid-strategy

[MH1111]

Sweden’s population is not ‘sparse’
The vast majority of swedes live in urban areas ie Stockholm, which have comparative population density’s to the UK

[CoffeeandCroissant]

Full interview is here:
www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2020/08/nz-should-move-to-similar-approach-to-covid-as-sweden--who-speci.html

[gassylady]

I work in the NHS and do feel the NHS could have been overwhelmed in some places if it wasn’t for the decision to stop elective operating and suspend many other services. It freed up staff for critical care and probably reduced staff infection rates by reducing footfall into hospitals.

[QuestionMarkNow]

I think Sweden was right in their approach. Protect those who are more likely to die from the virus and let other people get on their business.

Introduce some general protective measures such as SD (masks? I dint know what is Sweden position on that), good ventilation on the rooms etc...

The very big issue in the U.K. is that we have NOT protected the most vulnerable. We’ve sent people who were ill with Covid wo any testing back to the care home. Where they started to spread the virus. Etc....
On the other side!sweden approach was NOT the herd immunity position that BJ was advocating at the start either (alongside ‘we need to plan for some our loved ones dying’ type of discourse)

But it’s interesting to see when the last time Sweden was in the news here it was to say that it hadn’t worked/people were dying etc.l.

[randomer]

low ethnic minorities

no , not really.... Every fourth (24.9%) resident in the country has immigrant background and every third (32.3%) has at least one parent born abroad.[4]

[QuestionMarkNow]

Sweden were seen as a failure having the highest death rate per head of population

That is not the case though.
Highest number of deaths per 1M population: Peru with 871
U.K.: 611 (6th place)
Sweden: 574 (9th place)
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Basically lockdown or not, the (short term) death rate has been similar in Sweden and in the U.K.

[unmarkedbythat]

I think WHO need a massive overhaul, and probably better scientists, who don't have a political agenda.

Very possibly. It's not the WHO I'm defending so much as it being ok in principle to change tack.

[MangoFeverDream]

Schools were closed in Japan for an extended period

Not really, the school year ends in March in Japan, and so they closed a few weeks early and opened a few weeks later. Not the same disruptions as elsewhere.

*I know their prime minister just resigned..

[MangoFeverDream]

I know their prime minister just resigned..

Due to illness though, nothing to do with COVID.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I think Sweden was right in their approach. Protect those who are more likely to die from the virus and let other people get on their business.

The point is that people didn’t just get on with their business though. There were some things that were legislated for and everything else was guidelines that people were encouraged to follow as part of a sense of civic duty. Which they mostly did.

You probably don’t have to spend very long on MN and the covid boards to figure out that might be problematic in the U.K. societal attitudes (not just to Covid) play a huge part in deciding what strategies might be successful.

[MarshaBradyo]

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

I think Sweden was right in their approach. Protect those who are more likely to die from the virus and let other people get on their business.

The point is that people didn’t just get on with their business though. There were some things that were legislated for and everything else was guidelines that people were encouraged to follow as part of a sense of civic duty. Which they mostly did.

You probably don’t have to spend very long on MN and the covid boards to figure out that might be problematic in the U.K. societal attitudes (not just to Covid) play a huge part in deciding what strategies might be successful.

Yes agree with this a lot

[Thanksitsgotpockets]

Lots of us voluntarily entered a form of lockdown in advance of actual lock down. The majority would have been careful.

I was watching the figures in Italy and thinking we needed to do something until we got a bigger picture.
So about two weeks before, as a family, we'd already
Limited supermarket shopping to once per week
Started to think about which indoor spaces we visited. Eg my usual Saturday in a cafe and then look around the shops became just breakfast in a cafe. ( Though the shopping centre looked deserted, so I imagine many others had taken that choice).
A children's birthday became a smaller picnic outdoors, rather than what had been planned for indoors
Many of not most of our friends were making similar carefully considered decisions and there were lots of conversations about what was the right thing to do, given we had such scant information.

Businesses and individuals were trying to be responsible...
Some local cafés had already closed before they were asked.
My husband's office already had everyone working from home by ten days before.

It was very unclear what was safe and what wasn't likely to be, but I think a vast amount of people understood how serious the situation was at the time and wanted to do the best thing possible.

[ineedaholidaynow]

Interestingly there is an article on the BBC news website stating that people in Sweden are rapidly buying up masks

[locked2020]

@itsgettingweird

We weren't overwhelmed because they cancelled all schedules operations and did emergencies only. They had ICU and HDI increase in capacity and all staff were sent to these where necessary.

Regular appointments were cancelled.

Hospitals were emptied by sending patients to care homes.

Hats off to the nhs they pulled a blinder getting as many patients in. And worked some redo unlike hours in horrendous conditions to save as many lives as possible.

But don't forget many didn't get to hospital either. They dies at home because their lips weren't blue.

This

[CoffeeandCroissant]

If you listen to the interview (fast forward to around 14 minutes in for the Sweden bit) the WHO guy doesn't even mention Sweden, it's the interviewer who brings it up first. And he is talking about the approach going forward, not about how things were done earlier in the year.
boltmwprod1-a.akamaihd.net/media/v1/pmp4/static/clear/3812193411001/d1837c5d-9ce6-40e1-8c24-4c864efaa014/cd63c991-38f4-4ac4-83f9-1eb3014b2efb/main.mp4

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I agree that the majority of people would do the right thing. I think it’s more a question of how big the minority not doing the right thing is.

[Thisismytimetoshine]

I think we are a dirty country. The Swedes and Japanese must be clean people.
I agree.

[CoffeeandCroissant]

And from the regular WHO press conference (held today)

Q about Sweden (apparently David Nabarro lauded the country’s #covid19 response on NZ radio)
“There is a misunderstanding that Sweden has not implemented control measures", says @DrMikeRyan. "Sweden has implemented quite strong control measures for COVID."

What Sweden did differently: It "has tried to rely on individuals and communities to comply with the advice of government”, says @drmikeryan “That's based on a very high level of trust historically between governments in Sweden and its own population"

mobile.twitter.com/kakape/status/1300479128416792578

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Sweden applied those control measures at an earlier point in their outbreak than the UK did IIRC which probably accounts for the lower number of deaths even though they had an issue in care homes too.