Sweden seeing cases surge - situation ‘rapidly deteriorating’ chief epidemiologist says

[AsianDoll]

Sweden sees an record rise in cases. 3,254. Up from 1800 a few days ago.

twitter.com/bnodesk/status/1321828678364549121?s=12

This despite being touted as a success by mostly right wing commentators and anti lockdown people.

Deaths at 3 a day on average though.

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

It will be interesting to see if they also rise or not.

Last week they advised over 70s that it was no longer necessary to ‘shield‘ (since May over 70s have been strongly advised not to mix with other households indoors). I’m curious to see if they will reverse that in light of what’s happening, or if not, if that will have a palpable impact on their healthcare situation.

Deaths will rise, it's inevitable surely. Unless it's a different Covid in Sweden than the rest of Europe?

22nd October:

www.thelocal.se/20201022/sweden-scraps-coronavirus-recommendations-for-over-70s

“ From March, people aged over 70 or in risk groups have been advised to avoid all close contact with people outside their households, including avoiding going to shops, supermarkets, and other places with large numbers of people.

Now these specific recommendations will be removed. Instead, everyone in the population including the over-70s will be following the national recommendations which have been in place since March.”

@BefuddledPerson

Deaths will rise, it's inevitable surely. Unless it's a different Covid in Sweden than the rest of Europe?

Well yes, although I suppose it depends on how much they’re testing.

I’m sure they will rise though. We just don’t know how much.

Gawd. That’s not clear. I mean we don’t know how meaningful the numbers of cases are yet.

But cases are rising all over Europe? Its autumn.

Very few people under 75 are dying though.
I wish there was as much concern for those that are now dying due to their cancers not being diagnosed in time.

@FreshFreesias

Very few people under 75 are dying though. I wish there was as much concern for those that are now dying due to their cancers not being diagnosed in time.

That's precisely one of the reasons why I'm concerned about rising numbers of cases. People over 75 who catch covid don't just cease to exist, many end up in hospital. And when hospitals have to deal with large numbers of critically ill patients then it becomes much more difficult to continue with other care.

I am not anti-lockdown, I was calling for it back in March, but I also think it’s a shame how some people seem almost to be willing Sweden to fail. We should all be praying for them to succeed. If we don’t get a vaccine as expected early next year (I personally am positive we will), a viable alternative to continued lockdowns in perpetuity would be a fucking good thing.

If speculating on deaths in Sweden, there's an old (2009) study which examined vitamin D deficiency in Sweden. They were particularly interested in levels of people living in the north where there is less exposure to sunlight.
Deficiency was extremely low. Less than 1%. Presumably due to diet and supplements. I'm not sure if anyone has more recent data?
Low and deficient levels of Vitamin D in the UK has been estimated at similar levels to the USA, around 40%.

There are so many calls from the medical and research world to address this deficiency.
www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3872/rr

When people say they want to be like Sweden, they say they want Sweden's numbers.

They don't want Sweden's taxation, Sweden's medical system, Sweden's civil obedience, Sweden's social system etc etc.

You can't have one without the other.

Any figures for hospitalisations?

People over 75 who catch covid don't just cease to exist, many end up in hospital.

Plenty of famous people under 75 have ended up in hospital with covid. Even our PM! They just don't die, mostly.

www.icuregswe.org/en/data--results/covid-19-in-swedish-intensive-care/. Here is some ICU info.

Sweden has 587 deaths per million population, we have 680. So their death rate is lower. In addition, they may have fewer of the other harms that come from stopping education etc, mental health. I'm not sure why the OP has an issue about Sweden. I hope they succeed, I hope the UK does too. And by the way I'm not a tory.

From March, people aged over 70 or in risk groups have been advised to avoid all close contact with people outside their households, including avoiding going to shops, supermarkets, and other places with large numbers of people.

Now these specific recommendations will be removed. Instead, everyone in the population including the over-70s will be following the national recommendations which have been in place since March.

We now have regional recommendations, Ours are to avoid all indoor places apart from shops for essential food and medicine (libraries and gyms are closing), avoid all close contact with anyone outside of your household, avoid public transport and work from home if possible. So the advice for high risk groups may have been removed but the advice for the general population is the same, so it's irrelevant really.

Maybe the positive here is that the virus hasn't spread fast enough to achieve herd immunity in Sweden despite no lockdown and no masks? I don't think anyone thought that Sweden had already achieved herd immunity because not enough people have been infected.

Is the lesson here not that the differences in measures being taken across Europe have not, for the most part, had much effect on the trajectory of the virus? And possibly that this virus is seasonal and that that factor has much more influence than anything we can do to try to control it.

And perhaps that arguments that Sweden's approach has so far worked because Swedish people are more compliant and sensible by nature whereas British people are reckless and selfish are not founded?

I'd leave it 5 years to judge whose approach worked better. I suspect we'll find that there's not much difference across Europe in the long run.