Damning report about Sweden

[CovidHalloween]

I’ve read a lot of hot air about Sweden’s “amazing” approach to the virus on here before.
The Times has just released a report on how badly Sweden has managed the virus and how it has one of the highest deaths per capita.

time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

Wow so according the that chart, a female 80+ with one or more of the underlying health conditions still has a 92.8% chance of surviving COVID....

@Delatron

Wow so according the that chart, a female 80+ with one or more of the underlying health conditions still has a 92.8% chance of surviving COVID....

Yes! Still, there are a lot of 80+ people and there will be many deaths in this group, as there are for many diseases. A few young people die of cancer, heart disease etc, but most of these deaths are in the elderly. Also worth noting the elderly are more likely to have underlying conditions than the young.

Reading some on the nonsense on here you'd think that Covid was a death sentence for most of the population. You read "I'd probably die if I got it" all the time, yet this is so far from the truth.

Mil, 95 years old, in a care home with dementia had covid. All the home needed to be tested.
1 death. Everyone else including MIL survived.

Sweden's approach has worked to a degree . . . for Sweden. Different culture, small population, large country, less disobedience

Maybe we would have less disobedience if the rules were something that we could see were sensible.

I’m not sure I buy the ‘single households stop spread’ in Sweden argument whenever it’s presented.

For one, plenty of people in Stockholm were infected. Then you look at cities like NYC which has a lot of single person households. Ok, you can argue NYC is more densely populated than Stockholm but what about the likes of Prague? They have a significant % of single person households & half the population density of Stockholm, but still the disease spreads.

Sounds like straw clutching BS to me.

The mistake many are making when looking at Sweden is firstly to only look at deaths from Covid and secondly to only look at this year. 2019 was an outlier in Sweden with much lower deaths than normal because the flu season was very mild - the same applies to the UK to a certain extent and Covid looks to have proved fatal for many that might have been expected to catch flu in the winter before, so called dry tinder.
They, like all other countries, are at least partly a victim of their circumstances - demographics, climate, travel patterns etc have a much greater impact than any human attempts at control what is, after all, a virus that can spread in the air from people with no symptoms.
I think they have accepted that in a way others haven‘t. One thing that may prove significant because of this is that they allowed people to mix more freely over the summer spreading the virus more among the young and healthy and this may give them some protection during what is going to be a difficult winter.

@MummyPop00

I’m not sure I buy the ‘single households stop spread’ in Sweden argument whenever it’s presented.

For one, plenty of people in Stockholm were infected. Then you look at cities like NYC which has a lot of single person households. Ok, you can argue NYC is more densely populated than Stockholm but what about the likes of Prague? They have a significant % of single person households & half the population density of Stockholm, but still the disease spreads.

Sounds like straw clutching BS to me.

That's not what's said about the single households. It just means that Swedish people naturally spend less time in company, which leads to more sui generis SD, which makes track and trace easier.

But, essentially, the Swedes being SD'd didn't make that much of a difference, as can be seen by their % which are nearer the UK's than their neighbours.

@SarahMused

The mistake many are making when looking at Sweden is firstly to only look at deaths from Covid and secondly to only look at this year. 2019 was an outlier in Sweden with much lower deaths than normal because the flu season was very mild - the same applies to the UK to a certain extent and Covid looks to have proved fatal for many that might have been expected to catch flu in the winter before, so called dry tinder. They, like all other countries, are at least partly a victim of their circumstances - demographics, climate, travel patterns etc have a much greater impact than any human attempts at control what is, after all, a virus that can spread in the air from people with no symptoms. I think they have accepted that in a way others haven‘t. One thing that may prove significant because of this is that they allowed people to mix more freely over the summer spreading the virus more among the young and healthy and this may give them some protection during what is going to be a difficult winter.

I remember reading on the numbers/graphs that the flu numbers last winter were the lowest in many many years everywhere.

The point about by Sweden that so many can't get their head around is by enabling a reasonable first wave, you aim to prevent a bigger second wave. This is just as Patrick Vallance explained several times back in March.

By infecting only 20% you really reduce the 2nd peak and make it much broader, meaning healthcare services aren't overwhelmed.

There's no running away from this, putting your head in the sand and pretending it will just go away.

@SarahMused

The mistake many are making when looking at Sweden is firstly to only look at deaths from Covid and secondly to only look at this year. 2019 was an outlier in Sweden with much lower deaths than normal because the flu season was very mild - the same applies to the UK to a certain extent and Covid looks to have proved fatal for many that might have been expected to catch flu in the winter before, so called dry tinder. They, like all other countries, are at least partly a victim of their circumstances - demographics, climate, travel patterns etc have a much greater impact than any human attempts at control what is, after all, a virus that can spread in the air from people with no symptoms. I think they have accepted that in a way others haven‘t. One thing that may prove significant because of this is that they allowed people to mix more freely over the summer spreading the virus more among the young and healthy and this may give them some protection during what is going to be a difficult winter.

I take your point about fewer flu deaths in 2019 among the elderly in Sweden due to a milder than normal flu season but surely that would also have been the case throughout the northern hemisphere in 2019 so can be discounted (when using it as a reason to explain higher elderly deaths in Sweden in 2020)

@starfro

The point about by Sweden that so many can't get their head around is by enabling a reasonable first wave, you aim to prevent a bigger second wave. This is just as Patrick Vallance explained several times back in March.

By infecting only 20% you really reduce the 2nd peak and make it much broader, meaning healthcare services aren't overwhelmed.

There's no running away from this, putting your head in the sand and pretending it will just go away.

Valance did make that point a few times. I can remember understanding it and explaining it to my husband back in March. The problem was it then got protested as eugenics and allowing people to die by the media and labour ( herd immunity = killing the elderly) and so politically it was hard to argue for it. I remember a channel 4 interview with a scientist (not whitty/ valance) trying to explain exactly this concept and on webcam was a mathematician from Silicon Valley literary screaming at him about how many would die and jumping up and down. As a viewer trying to understand it was very disconcerting and the most crazy interview I think I have ever seen! That scientist never appeared again, it was so awful. So although valance was obviously right in what he was saying, it was too abstract for the public and politicians and the media to understand at that time. Now people can understand it but back in March - no chance!

Lockdowns work IF the time is used to do the following:

• establish a functioning track and trace system
• create quarantine facilities to isolate positive cases from the community
• introduce testing or mandatory isolation as part of border control for all incoming travelers

Countries that have done this include Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia.

If lockdown is simply keeping people at home for 4 weeks and then resuming normal activity then it cannot work. And it causes massive economic disruption while achieving nothing. This is what the UK and America have done.

@turnitonagain

Lockdowns work IF the time is used to do the following:

• establish a functioning track and trace system
• create quarantine facilities to isolate positive cases from the community
• introduce testing or mandatory isolation as part of border control for all incoming travelers

Countries that have done this include Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia.

If lockdown is simply keeping people at home for 4 weeks and then resuming normal activity then it cannot work. And it causes massive economic disruption while achieving nothing. This is what the UK and America have done.

I agree if eliminating the virus is your goal. But that hasn’t been the goal in Europe as too hard and too expensive and politically too difficult to sustain. Can you imagine the push back if Boris had not allowed UK citizens to return to the UK and charging them thousands of pounds for forced quarantined a la new Zealand ?! No way would that have stood politically, hundreds of sad media stories about split up families and unable to pay for quarantine ( one rule for rich etc, sad faces, disproportionately affecting BAME - this policy could easily have led to his downfall)

Well every government’s policy should be to reduce spread until a vaccine or reliable treatment is widely available. It’s far better to be having a peak now than it was at the start simply due to better knowledge - for example that ventilators for severe cases are actually dangerous not helpful.

It’s still better to be Belgium in October than Italy in March.

The linked article on Sweden shows that less than 10% of the population has antibodies which is very far from the threshold for herd immunity. It’s illogical to pursue a policy that’s not scientifically possible to achieve.

Containment until a vaccine does look fairly possible given public health officials planning for a viable one by 2021. Certainly Asia-Pacific as a region seems to have largely cracked it.

If you look at all causes mortality for this year Sweden hasn‘t even done badly compared with its much praised neighbours. Finland is higher, Denmark nearly identical and Norway lower. This helps to account for differences in counting Covid deaths as Sweden has a pretty inclusive system.

@turnitonagain

Well every government’s policy should be to reduce spread until a vaccine or reliable treatment is widely available. It’s far better to be having a peak now than it was at the start simply due to better knowledge - for example that ventilators for severe cases are actually dangerous not helpful.

It’s still better to be Belgium in October than Italy in March.

The linked article on Sweden shows that less than 10% of the population has antibodies which is very far from the threshold for herd immunity. It’s illogical to pursue a policy that’s not scientifically possible to achieve.

Containment until a vaccine does look fairly possible given public health officials planning for a viable one by 2021. Certainly Asia-Pacific as a region seems to have largely cracked it.

Yes of course. But it’s a balance isn’t it. We could have legally mandated the nhs app, we could completely close the borders and not let even UK citizens in like some countries (imagine if that was you not allowed to return home) , we could seal people into their homes and inprison people that break quarantine but I am glad to live in a country that hasn’t done those things.

turnitonagain look at the geographical location of the countries you mention. It makes me wonder whether something else is at play here be it climate, demographics, genetics, exposure to other coronaviruses or something else. People advocating for lockdowns need to demonstrate it will work longterm in this country better than the Swedish approach. We‘ve missed our chance to develop enough population immunity over the summer so we are in for a difficult winter but adding economic and social ruin to it as well is not going to help

anyone.
Extraordinary measures require extraordinary evidence, we don‘t have that as far as lockdowns are concerned at the moment.

Sarahmused

Asia is a massive continent and there’s not much similar genetic or climate between Japan and Vietnam - both countries have managed the pandemic very well compared to Europe. Vietnam is more similar to Philippines in climate and economics but Philippines has very high rates despite strict lockdowns. Taiwan has done well and is a democracy, so it’s not the case that only autocratic countries can manage it either.

So I really don’t agree with the British attitude that there must be some “other” reason for some countries’ successful responses, because it can’t be that they were just better prepared. Well - it is actually.

Australia and NZ copied their regional neighbours instead of Europe and that was a very good decision for them.

I live in Asia and am not ethnically Asian for the record.

I definitely think Asia have done well and I think they were much better prepared and I think their experience of SARS in 2003 ( I think?) helped them.
I also think come the next pandemic ( hopefully not for a while!) Europe will be better prepared as I think “Pandemic“ will be top of every Gov’s risk register for the foreseeable future. And the public will remember too and will understand the concepts of social distancing , exponential growth etc much more quickly than we did in March 2020 when it was all new . Might get less compliance though and more dissenting voices.

It’s immensely complicated though. There are so many factors at play, many of which we don’t even understand yet (the role of super spreaders/prior immunity). There are far too many people waving one tiny piece of a hugely complex jigsaw, claiming they know it all. And luck played a role too.

I hope a global task force will investigate everything thoroughly in time. We have so much potential to learn from everyone’s experience.

The cultural factors are very important. It probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that libertarian, individually focused societies with an emphasis on data privacy (most of Western Europe/US) struggled.

I personally think that lock down hard/then open up, given that these countries were unlikely to maintain strong track and test, is a less good strategy than Sweden’s approach of keeping restrictions at a manageable level over a longer period of time.

I say that as an Irish person, currently in my second lockdown, which i fear will be utterly counter productive.

Countries had to take a punt on how quickly the vaccine might be available. NZ’s strategy only works if that was a quick timeline. Looks like it will be, but that wasn’t guaranteed either.

I really hope that when they analyse all this to inform future decisions, the cultural analysts and behavioural economists are consulted at length. So much depends on the cultural norms of the country and what people are able to take at a personal level.

turnitonagain I think you are mistaken to be so certain that the cause of an individual countries level of deaths from Covid is down to human intervention. Firstly, it’s too early to tell what the long term outcome will be and secondly, you can’t dismiss other factors so easily without proof.
New Zealand is interesting, they are reliant on other countries to produce a vaccine or they are stuck in isolation indefinitely. They don’t have enough cases to produce or test a vaccine themselves. They have basically outsourced their risk to the rest of the world.

It is still always better to have your peak of cases with 6-12 months of research and experience of other countries. Whether the intervention works forever is irrelevant. It only has to work longer than the countries that get hit first and have to learn the lessons the hard way.

Had Sweden waited until now to test the herd immunity theory, simply due to better knowledge of treatments and the risks of care homes, they would have had fewer total deaths.

I do strongly push back against the idea that Asians have some sort of genetic protection because it’s a borderline racist position. Japanese and Singaporean Malays don’t share much genetically, their climates are completely different, the culture regarding multigenerational households is different, etc.

It is still always better to have your peak of cases with 6-12 months of research and experience of other countries

That’s not taking into account lockdown fatigue. Czech Republic is showing us what happens when you have your peak late in the pandemic, but your population are already sick to the back teeth of restrictions.

Peaking in spring is probably better than peaking in autumn/winter too.

As I said earlier, it’s very complex and multi factorial.

You can’t time your peak though as it can be climate dependent. We knew Europe would be facing a tough winter because the virus thrives in cold weather.

We’ll see how Czech Republic goes but they probably won’t be hooking very sick elders up to ventilators and accidentally making them worse like Lombardy did.

I do strongly push back against the idea that Asians have some sort of genetic protection because it’s a borderline racist position

I’m not sure people are saying that.

However there may be pre existing immunity to corona viruses at play.

Japan is the country that gives me pause. They didn’t do much by the book at all. Very little testing. Very densely packed population. Lots of older people. Barely any deaths. There must be more going on there.