Posted on 05/01/2020 12:24:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sweden's top virologist has admitted he is 'not convinced at all' that the country's lockdown-free strategy is right - as Sweden saw a sharp fall in its daily death toll and number of new infections today.
The Scandinavian country has become a closely-watched case after keeping bars, restaurants and secondary schools open throughout the pandemic.
State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has become the face of that strategy, but he admitted in an interview with Aftonbladet that he was not sure if it was right.
'I'm not convinced at all. We are constantly thinking about this at the [public health agency]. What can we do better and what else can we add on?,' Tegnell said.
'I think the most important thing all the time is to try to do it as well as you can, with the knowledge we have and the tools you have in place. And to be humble all the time because you may have to change.'
Friday's figures showed 428 new cases in the last 24 hours, down from 790 yesterday, taking the total from 21,092 to 21,520.
The daily death toll fell from 124 yesterday to 67 today, bringing the overall tally from 2,586 to 2,653.
Sweden's daily figures have been highly erratic, and a fall in numbers has often been followed by a surge when a backlog in cases is fully accounted for.
International opinion has been mixed, with Donald Trump taking aim at Sweden yesterday and claiming that it is 'paying heavily for its decision'.
Some Swedish scientists and academics have urged the country to adopt a tougher lockdown, with the death toll higher than in the rest of Scandinavia.
However, the WHO has suggested that Sweden could represent a 'future model' for a normal life after the lockdown.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Sweden could reap a longer-term benefit if ‘herd immunity’ is achieved faster there than elsewhere.
But this concept, where enough people have been infected to effectively stop the virus spreading, is untested for the new disease.
The Swedish health agency’s modelling suggests about 25 per cent of people in the Stockholm region have had or will contract the disease.
By contrast, in neighbouring Finland, health authorities have been concerned the coronavirus has spread too slowly, leaving the country well short of its peak.
We know NYC bumped the death toll up for political reasons.
How do we know Sweden isn’t bumping it down for the same reason?
RE: We know NYC bumped the death toll up for political reasons.
How do we know Sweden isn’t bumping it down for the same reason?
____________________________
Maybe we should be asking the same question of every country out there....
I don’t think lockdown has accomplished one single thing in preventing deaths, but it sure has destroyed the world economy...
The Fauci gang needs to send some super-spreaders to Sweden quick, or boy will they be exposed.
They may have reached saturation.
The thing is - the lockdown should’ve done the same thing - but it didn’t.
This thing doesn’t “behave” right
The seasonal excess death and the number of fatalities due to the corona virus infection do not differ that much in Sweden, so in all likelihood most of the fatalities have been acounted for.
Thanks for a very reasonable view on the epidemic in Sweden. Just as you write it is too early to say what the final outcome will be, but eventually there will be a possibility to compare the different strategies.
However, one cannot just look at the overall picture while avoiding the granularity of the events - the real day-to-day policy decisions.
Sweden's policy has not aimed for a herd immunity, but a middle-of-the-road policy of keeping the contagion down (some social distancing, some lock-down) to manage to not overload the health-care system, while to the largest extent possible avoiding damage to the economy. That may sound like a rather intelligent policy, but rightly or wrongly I feel it came about because our authorities and politicians are unable to make hard decisions. That is my personal opinion and it will take too long to give my reasoning, so take it or leave it. In any way, it is of minor importance to the question of which strategy works the best.
What is more interesting are a number of policy decisions that possibly could have changed the outcome for Sweden.
During the initial period (the first case occurred early in February; a Swedish woman returning from work in China) the health authorities carried out classical epidemiological work - finding the victims, isolating them, tracking the contagion and performing secondary isolation. This worked very well and no evidence of any community spread was evident until the first days of March.
However, during this time
a) the amount of test-kits were not increased to the extent needed
b) PPE were not procured to the extent needed
c) direct flights from China, South Korea, and Teheran were not stopped, nor were quarantine procedures instigated at the ports of entry (despite plenty of time). Not until the EU demanded partial closure of the borders did this come about.
d) The winter holidays (one free week for the school children during February, usually week 7 - 10 for different parts of the country) meant that a lot of people traveled to the Alps for skiing holidays. By week 8 - 9 it was obvious that something very bad was going on in Italy. Despite this the authorities did not just not warn people, they actually encouraged people to travel!
e) The effect of this February holiday was that the contagion suddenly overextended the infection tracing and isolation that had worked well during the first month of (the known) contagion period.
f) From mid March the testing was no longer carried out on anyone except hospital cases and people in risk categories.
g) Again, it took too long for our authorities to isolate the care homes for the elderly. Also, due to the lack of testing equipment the caretakers both in the care-homes and home carers for elderly people living at home could not be tested.
h) The authorities did not understand (did not want to...?) how badly official information in Swedish are spread in our immigrant rich suburbs. After the "skiers" had been contained there appeared what seemed to be a second wave of contagion in Stockholm. This was mainly in the poor immigrant rich areas. Big problem - because of those who actually work and live in those areas, a large portion are cleaners (hospitals) or nursing staff in hospitals, care-homes etc. Our authorities did not see this coming until it was much too late and the contagion had galloped through the care-homes.
There are much more to be said, but these policy mistakes are enough to explain the relatively large death rate in Sweden, and mainly Stockholm (where the February holidays took place week 9, when the contagion in Italy was rampant).
It may be that our strategy is more vulnerable to mistakes than a complete lock-down, however I feel that it would not have been too hard to avoid these mistakes given politicians and administrators mentally prepared and trained to handle an emergency situation like this. Unfortunately, we have not had such governance since the end of the Cold War, when everlasting peace, prosperity, and health broke out!
Bull,Shit,
.
Sweden has 10 million people.
67 = 2200 in the US
Their total deaths equal= 87500 inUS.
Denmark has 460 dead, Norway 210
Far lower then Sweden.
You need to reach over 80% infected to reach herd immunity with this disease and they are nowhere near that number.
the article said sweden was lower than italy france and spain all who locked down. The lockdown has done nothing but crash the economy and trample civil rights
I lived in NYC for 15 years. It's easily one of the most corrupt places I've ever lived at. And in my lifetime, I have lived in quite a few countries.
Sweden ? I haven't looked at the world corruption chart yet, but I feel pretty confident that Sweden will rank pretty low in the corruption index.
The US is at 65,000 deaths with many more to come.
Looks like Sweden will better than the US as their death toll declines while the US death toll mounts over the next two years of flattening.
The flattened economy will cost the US far more lives then then nominal 20,000 lives (based on population adjusted numbers) saves by the tyrannical lockdowns.
We’ll see.
This is slashing their long term obligations for pension and health care. Bigtime. Money speaks.
“ International opinion has been mixed, with Donald Trump taking aim at Sweden yesterday and claiming that it is ‘paying heavily for its decision’.“
He can’t leave Georgia alone and now Sweden? Who is helping him with the math on these comparisons? Especially when adjusted to reflect the “cure being worse than the virus”?
Adjusted for population Sweden is about 20,000 deaths ahead of the US. Eventually the US will catch Sweden and will probably surpass it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.