Posted on 04/12/2020 8:23:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the face of criticism and incredulity from its European neighbours, Sweden has stuck to its guns on resisting a France or Italy-style lockdown of its 10.2 million citizens to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
The government has advised Swedes to work from home when possible and avoid crowded places like bars and restaurants, but it has stopped short of imposing formal restrictions, urging its citizens to "behave like adults" rather than fining them for leaving their homes without good reason.
By contrast, Sweden's neighbours - Denmark, Finland and Norway - were among the first European states to impose lockdowns when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Denmark was the second country in Europe to announce the restrictions on March 11. Norway did so a day later, and Finland imposed a 'staged lockdown' which included closing its border on March 17.
Sweden's decision not to follow has already rankled its neighbours A Danish journalist recently said that watching Sweden's reaction to COVID-19 was "like watching a horror movie".
It is early in the global pandemic to say whether the lockdowns have been effective, but the death toll from coronavirus in Denmark, Norway and Finland have remained low.
Denmark, a country of 5.6 million people currently has 5,819 cases and 247 deaths, and plans to re-open schools on April 15.
Norway, which has 6,314 cases and 113 deaths, is planning to re-open kindergartens from April 20 and schools a week later. Finland, meanwhile, has seen 2,769 cases and 48 deaths.
The most recent figures suggest that in Sweden, by contrast, the death toll is rising fast.
Nevertheless, the approach has been popular with Swedes, with the ruling Social Democratic Party seeing a bump in the polls since the crisis began.
Stefan Löfven, Sweden's prime minister, has stressed that far from being COVID-19 denialists, his government are simply following the advice of the country's health authorities.
The World Health Organisation told Euronews last week that "each country decides what actions to take, based on their own situation and the different stages of the outbreak they are facing."
Mardin Baban, 36, the executive director of a non-profit in Stockholm, told Euronews that he felt comparing the Swedish approach to that of other countries was unfair.
"I believe all the countries have different conditions to take into consideration. I believe that the Swedish government, alongside the authorities, are taking the necessary precautions," he said.
That said, Baban - who has worked at home for the past four weeks and instructed all his staff to do the same - has been surprised to see people going about life as normal in Stockholm.
"The other day many restaurants and bars were almost full which was surprising as the authorities have been quite clear in their message telling people to avoid crowded areas," he said.
"I wouldn't say that the streets are full, but they are far from empty."
As for whether the approach is working, the Swedish government has been candid about the fact that things could get worse in Sweden before they get better.
"We have been told to expect deaths to rise in the thousands in weeks to come."
Well, one thing I’m fairly certain of is that we need to rapidly reopen K-12 school attendance as a priority before the school year ends. How about May 4th. We’ll quickly get herd immunity among the kids while the “vulnerable” can continue to isolate socially.
Ever wonder why other than in Wusan itself there have been no big, impossible to hide outbreaks in Chinese cities and population centers. Somehow, someway it would appear that the Chinese wonder of wonders have “herd immunity”.
Well, if I could tell the future I would be on the first flight to Vegas. But on Worldometer, it looks like both Sweden’s new cases and new deaths have plateaued and appear stable.
I think a lot of people are rooting for Sweden to fail. If they get through this as well as other countries. a lot of “experts” are going to have egg on their faces.
Sweden will get herd immunity first and their economy will still be able to function.
We won’t have to wait long to see if Sweden’s approach worked or not—a couple of weeks tops.
It would be great to revisit this topic at that point.
Because nobody that works at a nursing home has kids.
I suppose liberals will simultaneously continue to feel that Sweden is who we should model ourselves after, however Trump is a murderer for not locking us down in February.
There will be a second wave of infection, beginning next fall into a year from now.
Having provided more herd immunity now, Sweden will likely fare better in the second wave. We will likely do worse, and see not just a resurgence of the infections but a resurgence of the business closings and lock downs - because our politicians now have herd mentality.
Keep in mind that Sweden has the lowest population density in Europe.
And the last two day’s new case counts reflects The holiday weekend. Probably not that much testing going on.
A real question is what countries were infected with Covid-19, when.
I recall a serious influenza outbreak in an NSW nursing home around December of 2019. Australia has lots of contact with China.
Australia cases seem to have peaked in late March. They have only Confirmed 59 deaths.
Australia went into lockdown on 19 March.
The question is, did it mostly have immunity by that time?
I’m not a medical professional, so I can only speculate from what I’ve read about this. It would appear to me, that the Swedes are taking the hit on the front end, and will reap huge benefits on the backend.
They aren’t overwhelming their systems, as all the “experts” had warned would happen. If they can get through this without things going off the rails, they can remove all restrictions due to herd immunity. Furthermore, they will have no fear of 2nd, 3rd, 4th or however many waves the “experts” predict.
God Bless the Swedes in this endeavor.
Great let’s get out and play! Forget social distancing.
What herd immunity?
Current known cases in Sweden: 10,000
Population of Sweden: 10,000,000
That’s .1% of the population. Even at 100x it would be only 10%.
Something is going on in Sweden but is certainly not herd immunity.
No, no we do not.
The school shutdown and subsequent home schooling means that at least some of the students who were never going to learn any math at all using public school methodology will now attain proficiency in arithmetics.
Put humans back to work.
Drones teaching the new world order agenda instead of life skills not so much.
98 percent of the people who contract the virus don’t know that they had it.
True
That would be called a Social "Investment".
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Apr 7 -—114 deaths
Apr 8-— 96
Apr 9 -— 106
Apr 10—. 77
Apr 11 -— 17
Pure speculation. NO science supports this, and without widespread testing for COV antibodies, we have NO way to know otherwise. IOW, you're posting bullshit.
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