Why can't we learn from Sweden? They are now on the safe travel list.

[Treesofwood]

No masks, uninterrupted schooling for children, functioning health service. And we copy Belgium?? Why? And this increase in home made mask wearing. If masks worked they wouldn't suggest using ones made out of an old sock FFS. There would be a minimum standard and clear rules. Sweden are not masking their children. I honestly think the government have either lost their minds or have other reasons for following this route.

Because we've got Johnson, Hancock, and Cummings pulling the strings.
They can't find their way out of a paper bag let alone lead the country through something like this. There is no feeling of trust in our Government, mixed messages, u-turns, the schools fiasco. Time will tell obviously but as far as I can see Sweden had a plan, and followed it, and the population trusted their Government and chief scientist to take the right decisions.

Very interesting discussion - thanks for starting.

I think we did begin with the Swedish approach (for about a week) where we were encouraged to work from home and socially distance. Looking back on those charts now it seems that that was the beginning of cases and hospitalisations falling. But the impact wasn’t immediately apparent or significant. Therefore a further lockdown was imposed fairly quickly without much time to assess the figures.

I don’t really blame anyone for the action taken by UK government. When presented with figures from elsewhere like Italy at the time coupled with public pressure, it would’ve needed a very confident and strong leader to go with the science (which was split at the time) and stick with a careful but “business as normal” approach.

Even now it’s not clear that we would’ve come out of this the same way as Sweden due to differing societies, population density, infrastructure etc.

I was always a believer of Protect the vulnerable but do nothing else and see what happens - learn from others. But that’s easy for me to say. If I was running this country there’s no way I’d be brave enough to not do something while peopuare dying.

Basically, Swedish approach is logically the best, but morally questionable. And that’s only based on now - who knows what the history books will say about this in 20 years time?

Because they gave a completely different demographic to us, less dense population, more single households, and effectively all obediently followed measures anyway despite no lockdown. And many things did close people don’t talk about - including many schools for teens and other schools had distancing. Because far more died than their neighbouring countries (better for comparison than our v different country), and because their economy still took a huge hit.

If we can compare to v different Sweden we can compare to v different New Zealand who are doing far far better thanks to an early structure lockdown.

There’s no magic bullet.

they have
stricter lockdown

Must go to bed

[quote Figmentofmyimagination]In our individualism we are much closer to the US than to Sweden sadly.

Geert Hofstede’s model of cultural dimensions is interesting to think about ( in a depressing kind of way) in the context of the different nation responses to coronavirus.

geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/[/quote]
This is really interesting. Saved to read more fully tomorrow. Thanks for sharing

Sweden's cases are low now ...

but their lack of lockdown caused them to have 5-12 x the deaths / million of their Scandinavian neighbours who did lockdown,
all countries with similar low population density and culture
and predicted to have a similar loss in GDP by the end of 2020.

The UK has 12 x the population density of Sweden and before lockdown was following Italy's death curves, not Scandinavia

The UK government locked down like other high population density countries did - like Italy had to
The UK has a higher population density than nearly all European countries, except for Belgium
That is a massive factor driving infection spread in a pandemic

Mutiples of the UK total death would have been a disaster that would have overwhelmed the NHS and caused panic

@Pollyputthepizzaon

Or Guernsey.

Guernsey have done marvellously well but I worry for their tourism industry, and that it's going to be difficult for them to reopen without there being community panic when the inevitable positive cards start arriving.

Sweden is at a different stage in its epidemic to us. Because it did not lockdown it is still coming out of its first wave whereas most of Europe is now going into the next wave.

Here are its worldometer projections. Deaths are projected to start rising again in December with around 12k infections a day by then.

Presumably a healthier/fitter nation too with less obesity and related illnesses.

www.tes.com/news/have-swedish-schools-really-carried-normal?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Here are some basic numbers on Sweden

Total population 10.1 million

Population density per square mile 57.5

The UK has total population of 67.8 million

population density of 727 per square mile

Not hard to see how Sweden has handled the coronvirus -

@Hereinthesticks

Sweden is a social democracy (the Nordic model), with higher taxes than us and better public services as a result. In this country people repeatedly vote for low-tax governments and wonder why our public services, including the NHS, are underfunded and under-capacity for our size of population. We are a rich country, we should pay higher taxes and we should enjoy a higher standard of living and better public infrastructure - but the culture of underpaying for things that are for the common good (through taxes for public services) mean that we are disproportionately unhappy and unhealthy with an outdated and crumbling public infrastructure. That is why the NHS couldn't have coped with anything more in the first wave. Our number of ventilators and ICU beds per head of population was shockingly low. Also our general state of health (and education) is worse, which doesn't help either. Sweden was in a better position to avoid a lockdown. We were not in the same position.

This.

People forget that we tried a week of a Sweden type approach but too many people were having none of it! If the libertarians have anyone to blame for lockdown, it’s probably themselves....

@Derbygerbil

People forget that we tried a week of a Sweden type approach but too many people were having none of it! If the libertarians have anyone to blame for lockdown, it’s probably themselves....

We did it for longer than a week, and we did it for too long to change course. We sat and watched Italy for weeks. Once it had spread and implanted in the UK it was pointless trying a u turn. We have been very unfortunate with our current government. Libertarian tendencies but no backbone, social scientists not scientists, flipflopping based on today's opinion polls with no concept of leadership

@daytripper28

Here are some basic numbers on Sweden

Total population 10.1 million

Population density per square mile 57.5

The UK has total population of 67.8 million

population density of 727 per square mile

Not hard to see how Sweden has handled the coronvirus -

But huge swathes of Sweden are practically empty, they're not all neatly spread out from end to end like the UK is. The majority of Swedish people live in or around the 3 major cities of Malmo, Stockholm and Gothenburg, with a higher urban density than the UK have.

Howfastistoofast When you compare the stats of Stokholm the death rate per million there is not good at all.

Many swedes did stay at home for a month or two when things were at their worst. Nursery aged kids fees (£120 per month - that's not a typo) were reimbursed if parents were able to keep their children home.

Screens, hand sanitiser, marks on floors in public areas to encourage social distancing.

People advised rather than told to not use public transport and since March or so everyone who can is advised to work at home, this will continue till the end of the year when it will be reassessed.

At work, good measures in place for staff who need to be there. It is not quite as the international media present.

Until July people advised not to travel more than 2h from home, which led to a voluntary over 90% drop in travel to top tourist locations over holiday seasons.

Most of the deaths were in nursing homes which anders tegnell has openly admitted several times was a huge failing on the state's part.

I don't think the Swedish would work on the uk though, there is much higher trust on the government and people are happy to follow recommendations instead of rules.

The Swedish death rate was pretty appalling for its size and population density and I shudder to that no how that would map to a country with more typical ones, let alone UK and its cities which are amongst the most densely populated places on earth. The densities in their big cities are way lower than British ones. They are however similar to its Scandinavian and Baltic neighbours.

It's got the 8th highest number of deaths in Europe, and that's many more than its neighbours.

It's case per 100,000 rate is rising (over 30) and is the highest of its neighbours (except Denmark) and its death rate per 100,000 is the highest .

I think there are probably better models to be following. But I can see why the idea that a pandemic virus can be contained without effort is so persistent

Sweden did not get it right, that's clear to see when you compare it to its neighbouring countries which are much more similar to it than the UK. Huge death rate compared to them.

90% of Swedish deaths were in carehomes.

Even they recognise they should have better protected carehomes, but it also reflects the facts about who this virus targets.

In the UK, death rates in carehomes are higher in large private carehomes - higher staff turnover, more presenteeism, perhaps also lower standards? There are ways we can all improve the way we run our carehomes to reduce cases running through them once covid enters.

Why can’t we learn from our own mistakes?

Because the government won't acknowledge that its made any mistakes. Can't learn from them if you pretend they don't exist.