Sweden seeing much smaller increase in cases compared to rest of Europe

[SussexDeb]

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

No massive surge like in France, Spain, UK and Netherlands.

More and more it looks like Sweden has taken the right approach with limited restrictions. Avoiding fatigue among the public around the measures and making sure good hygiene is practiced.

^"Could you add the size of the population? Or do it as a percentage?
I know it will be higher for Sweden, but the numbers mean little unless you know the size of the total population."^

ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-deaths-per-million-exemplars?time=2020-02-22..latest&country=DNK~NOR~FIN~SWE

We've just had our confirmed case of reinfection

Doctors at Sahlgrenska hospital in Gothenburg have confirmed that a woman who tested positive in May, tested positive again in August. Further tests have now confirmed that it was two different strains of the virus and therefore not a case of it being dormant.

*our FIRST confirmed case

@starfro there is no proof that any immunity lasts for longer than 4 months or that exposure to previous Coronavirus strains gives enough immunity to prevent transmission.
At present we still have 10% exposure at a population level.

I think there will always be a few cases of people testing positive twice, whether it be due to one of the tests being a false positive or dormant virus remaining present.

There is no evidence that widespread re-infection will take place.

[quote jakor]@Eyewhisker you genuinely think the UK population would have been happy to abide by China style restrictions? [/quote]
Some people on Mumsnet are positively salivating at the thought of authoritarian crackdowns and locked borders. Their desire to prevent covid deaths means they are happy to hand over complete control to the state.

I think there will always be a few cases of people testing positive twice, whether it be due to one of the tests being a false positive or dormant virus remaining present.

The Swedish case is neither of those. Both infections have been confirmed and the strains identified.

@Ecosse

I think there will always be a few cases of people testing positive twice, whether it be due to one of the tests being a false positive or dormant virus remaining present.

There is no evidence that widespread re-infection will take place.

no evidence yet The virus hasn't even been in circulation for a year so far

@Holyrivolli no doubt, I just don't think they are that representative. I remember threads on here with posters saying they didn't go into their garden as neighbours were out.

The researchers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital said they were not surprised by the find, but added it did not change what we know so far about coronavirus and immunity.

"We know from other coronaviruses that there is a risk of falling ill again," Ringlander told DN.

"If anything, this shows that the woman actually did get partial immunity. Her illness was very mild the second time, so that indicates that she got a certain level of protection after her first infection."

Yes but they missed out on all the fun of snitching on their neighbors.

This is useful to understand why Sweden is completely unlike England.

theconversation.com/amp/think-your-country-is-crowded-these-maps-reveal-the-truth-about-population-density-across-europe-90345?__twitter_impression=true

Swedish is almost the least dense country in Europe under a sensible measure.

www.businessinsider.com/sweden-shifts-away-no-lockdown-strategy-amid-growing-case-numbers-2020-10?r=US&IR=T

New Swedish strategy discussed in this article from Business Insider.

Yep that is just media clickbait @QueenBlueberries. The article itself actually states “ It will give local authorities the power to strongly recommend people to avoid busy public places ” and “there are not expected to be fines or legal consequences for people who decide not to follow any new advice.”

Sweden is not going into lockdown at all.

OK if you say so.

@QueenBlueberries those are clickbait articles. Sweden is not likely to go into lockdown. Unless you live here you won’t understand fully understand how our society works, and so some people seem to love to argue about our chosen strategy and want it to go to hell. This pandemic is not a competition, there will be no winners.

Minus one understand 🙂

Some new guidance has been issued today in the town Uppsala. They jage recommended that people avoid public transport, avoid close physical contact with people they don't live with, asking shops and businesses to help people stay apart.

Texas requires masks outdoors "The order requires Texans living in counties with more than 20 coronavirus cases to wear a face covering over the nose and mouth while in a business or other building open to the public, as well as outdoor public spaces, whenever social distancing is not possible"

Cases are rising again in Texas www.texastribune.org/2020/07/24/greg-abbott-texas-lockdown-mask/

The number of people with covid in hospital in England went up today by an amount similar to early March. Elective surgery is being stopped in the worst affected areas because the NHS is going to be overwhelmed unless something changes quickly.

From the FT.

The U.K. is in the "larger economic hit, more deaths" quadrant.

Sweden is in the "smaller economic hit, more deaths" quadrant.

Finland, Denmark, Norway and Germany are in the "smaller economic hit, fewer deaths" quadrant.

Honestly, coronavirus aside, from this thread alone, Sweden sounds as though it gets a lot of stuff right...

I’m old enough to remember the Labour manifesto pretty much saying “let’s be like Sweden” and people deriding the proposal with nonsense about magic money trees.

We’re nothing like Sweden. We don’t have their health system, their education system with naturally distanced classrooms, their generous benefits system (helps self isolation levels), their cohesive sense of doing the right thing even without lockdown. The way we live and how closely we live is so different. Our system is different. Less able to cope.

We’re not Sweden. So the Swedish “approach” wouldn’t work. Then consider their cases are rising anyway and they’re not hot on testing and providing a full picture. And their economy took a sizeable hit. And they did worse than their closest neighbours.

Things Sweden have got right:

.Honest, competent government
.A clear strategy communicated well to the public
.Transparency about that strategy
.Not giving key public health jobs & contracts to their cronies
.Not playing politics and stirring up divisions between North and South

Sweden by next spring will still have umpteen more deaths per million than their Scandi / Nordic neighbours
but like their neighbours, will have a united country in reasonable shape to repair the economic damage

In contrast, the incompetent & corrupt shower running / ruining the UK will see an even higher death toll, a much more damaged economy, the poor in desperate straits and a bitterly divided country.

Regarding both Sweden and the concept of 'herd immunity", this is an good article explaining both briefly , which given much of the misinformation on this thread might be worth a read.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/herd-immunity-is-not-a-strategy/615967/

It's nuts from an international perspective how badly the UK government has mishandled this from the get go ,and how it has managed to make things so extraordinarily complicated. The lack of support for struggling households, the delay in getting results from testing , the limited symptoms they advise tests for and how confusing it must be for the country is terrible. Add in things like only this week has the UK starting testing at airports, has continued to allow international travel , the hypocritical behaviour of MP's, the do this actually no don't , no you can do that, no don't that is just .

You don't protect the vulnerable by having wildly more infections and chances for them to catch it.

You protect the vulnerable by having fewer infections and chances for them to catch it.

You don't protect the vulnerable by letting the virus rip through your population and overwhelm your hospitals.

You don't get back to normal cancer screening by letting the national health crisis rage out of control and increasing the number of hospitalised citizens, hospitalised medics, and dead medics.

We know this overwhelm would happen quite quickly because it almost did. Despite all the over 75 DNRs, the care home deaths and the high threshold for hospital admittance.

It's quite hard to explain something that is this obviously true.