Posted on 05/17/2020 2:55:50 PM PDT by thecodont
By late March, nearly every country in Europe had closed schools and businesses, restricted travel and ordered citizens to stay home. But one country stood out for its decision to stay open: Sweden.
The countrys moderated response to the coronavirus outbreak has drawn praise from some U.S. politicians, who see Sweden as a possible model for the United States as it begins to reopen.
We need to observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, said at a hearing Tuesday.
But while Sweden has avoided the devastating tolls of outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain, it also has seen an extraordinary increase in deaths, mortality data show.
In Stockholm, where the virus spread through migrant communities, more than twice the usual number of people died last month. That increase far surpasses the rise in deaths in U.S. cities like Boston and Chicago, and approaches the increase seen in Paris.
[...]
Swedish public health officials have defended their strategy, while acknowledging that the country has failed to protect the elderly. The goal is to limit the spread of the infection without having to lock everything down, they said.
Once you get into a lockdown, its difficult to get out of it, said Swedens state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell. How do you reopen? When?
Instead of imposing strict lockdowns, public health officials said that Swedes could be relied on to go out less and follow sanitation guidelines. That proved to be true: As a whole, Swedes visited restaurants, retail shops and other recreation spots almost as little as residents of neighboring countries, according to Google mobility figures.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Scumbag presstitutes lying again!
So NYT criticizes Sweden for failing to protect the elderly yet nary a peep against the NY Gov.?
Yeah, another way of saying that is that Covid-19 is about as lethal as a typical pneumonia year.
Remind me the last time we shut down the nation, lost $7 trillion in wealth, added $5 trillion to the National Debt, catalyzed tens of thousands of business bankruptcies and put 33 million people out of work.
Right. Never.
I don’t think the shut down was a bad idea during the first 30 days when we had no idea what we were dealing with. Now that we know we are not dealing with something like Small Pox or Cholera, but something on the order of a typical winter flu bug, the entire nation should be brought back to normal, unmasked, back to work, back to school and open, and those people at extreme risk such as the very old, people with lung disease, heart disease, and obesity, should voluntarily practice social distancing and wear masks for their own protection.
A month in, we should have acknowledged that Covid 19 was not that much more dangerous than the common flu bugs or pneumonia, and opened everything up.
It is always tragic when people die. People die to the flu. People die to pneumonia. Poeople die to Covid 19. What’s the difference? You don’t collapse a national economy, soar National Debt, and destroy the savings and livelihoods of millions of small business owners for it.
This is not the Black Death we are talking about here.
There’s no “lockdown.” We shouldn’t allow the left to choose the words we use. The truth is that customers will go to trusted businesses, and market changes should be acknowledged and accommodated.
“But while Sweden has avoided the devastating tolls of outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain
This sentence defeats the purpose of the article.”
It’s simply a waste of time reading anything in the Slimes, the Compost and their brethrens. Whatever the subject it guaranteed to have a leftist spin.
It’s just propaganda
Wow... complete and total orwellian propaganda from the NYTimes.
Chocolate rations in sweden along with Covid-19 deaths are UP.
No duh you stupid twits - the point is that the deaths will be the same in the countries that destroyed their economies and civilization - except that will lead to MOAR deaths.
Flattening the curve drops the spike but extends the death count over a year, rather than a few months. If the Genteel NYTimes would recall this was done to prevent a medical system overload - not to prevent deaths.
If the virus isn’t contained (and it’s not) any reopening will cause deaths to take off again until herd immunity is achieved - and Sweden is already there.
They locked NY and its record is aabysmal. They are #1 in the world for deaths per capita. But the media would have you believe they did a great job.
The one question that nobody will answer, not just for Sweden but for other European countries as well: what percentage of those who died were immigrants?
I don’t care about a linear constant being a little different between a couple different countries. No exponential explosion. No overrun of the medical system. Sweden was right.
Every place that is opening up, however timidly, is showing no true spike. No exponential “roar back”. Barely any difference, really, which to me indicates that the more draconian lockdown s**t ran into serious diminishing returns over simple, basic, commonsense infection control like hand washing and avoiding large crowds when a nasty bug is going around.
This is about control, not health or safety.
“So what makes this Covid 19 epidemic so special?”
It was made in a Chinese bio weapons facility for one.
“This virus will spread throughout America until every citizen has either caught it or rejected it, that’s how viruses operate as evidenced by every epidemic that has swept thru this country in my life time.”
You mean like Typhoid, Smallpox, Diphtheria, and Tuberculosis...? But then maybe your lifetime was after these major epidemics.
Oh, and need I also mention.. Don’t be an idiot and put infectious people in nursing homes. You’d have to be absolutely mentally retarded to do that, right? Right? Mr. Cuomo. Mr/Mrs/It freak whatever you are in PA? Right?
*crickets* from the media on that one.
100 in 1,000,000 -or- 1 in 10,000
Statistically insignificant
Where are your links comparing infection and deaths rates to the UK Italy Spain Belgium New York State and New Jersey which are all far worse off than Sweden.
What is this “we” you are talking about?
Why don’t you compare Sweden to NY NJ or Michigan who are doing far worse than Sweden?
That’s an additional 1 in 10,000, right?
Don’t forget France. They lower than France too. Sounds like these guys sifted the stats to find something, anything! where Sweden was worse, then wrote the article on that.
And many more won't. The best stat to look at IMO is deaths versus cases. We don't know about all the cases until we get antibody tests, but for now we have to use what we got:
Spain 591 / 5,940: 9.9%
Italy 528 / 3,728: 14%
UK 511 / 3,592: 14%
France 431 / 2,752: 16%
Sweden 365 / 2,987: 12%
USA 275 / 4,615: 6%
Norway 43 / 1,522: 2.8%
Like you said we have to wait a year to see how this works out but the early numbers show that Norway has done the best keeping the deaths down from the inevitable cases. Cases are inevitable, especially if you buy into Sweden's theory. Deaths are not as inevitable. Some are and some are not.
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