How bad is covid really? (A Swedish doctor’s perspective)

Real Clear Politics ^ | August 7,2020 | Sebastian Rushworth M.D.

[Hojczyk]

Ok, I want to preface this article by stating that it is entirely anecdotal and based on my experience working as a doctor in the emergency room of one of the big hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden, and of living as a citizen in Sweden.

Covid hit Stockholm like a storm in mid-March. One day I was seeing people with appendicitis and kidney stones, the usual things you see in the emergency room. The next day all those patients were gone and the only thing coming in to the hospital was covid. Practically everyone who was tested had covid, regardless of what the presenting symtom was. People came in with a nose bleed and they had covid. They came in with stomach pain and they had covid.

Then, after a few months, all the covid patients disappeared. It is now four months since the start of the pandemic, and I haven’t seen a single covid patient in over a month. When I do test someone because they have a cough or a fever, the test invariably comes back negative.

At the peak three months back, a hundred people were dying a day of covid in Sweden, a country with a population of ten million. We are now down to around five people dying per day in the whole country, and that number continues to drop. Since people generally die around three weeks after infection, that means virtually no-one is getting infected any more.

And remember, the risk of dying is at the very most 1 in 200 if you actually do get infected. And that was three weeks ago. Basically, covid is in all practical senses over and done with in Sweden. After four months.

[MissEdie]

Two of my co-workers had Covid back in July. One tested positive July 5, the other one July 6. During their illness their husbands contracted it as well. They both said it was the sickest either one of them had ever been. Interesting thing was their symptoms were sometimes similar, but not all. One had loss of taste/smell; diarrhea; feeling of weakness; cough; and low grade fever for a couple of days. The other one had chest pains, bad cough, and low grade fever for over 20 days. They both said their husbands’ symptoms were worse than theirs.

[zeestephen]

You did not read carefully.

The Swedish doctor is talking about case fatality rates.

The total estimated number of infections in Sweden is in the range of 11%-12% of the population - about 1.2 million.

That is where the 0.5% CFR (1 in 200) comes from.

[Svartalfiar]

Downplaying the seriousness of Covid-19 does no one any favors. While it might help to fuel conspiracy theories, all it tangibly accomplishes is to make people complacent. And complacency leads to failure to take the appropriate measures to stop the spread, which in turn has brought us to this situation where we are *still* dealing with this pandemic.

And overhyping the seriousness of it helps even less. That's why we have $3T bills being passed by the House, and $2T bills being put into law, and now Presidents putting out even more executive orders that aren't close to Constitutional. But, it's ok because it "helps" and it comes from our side...

Dallas County is currently a "hotspot" for the virus, and they have ~50M "cases" out of 2.6MM people. Less than 2%, and that's cumulative since March. And includes every single false positive, fake positive, and repeat customers. After you subtract out recovered people, and figure the majority of current positives are staying at home / in the hospital, that leaves the random guy at the grocery store having a what, .001% chance of having it? With a small chance of you even catching it from him, if you magically find the guy that does have it and is contagious?

[Theoria]

Sweden isn't special. They helped to kill off the old, New York style.

Coronavirus Is Taking a High Toll on Sweden’s Elderly. Families Blame the Government.

[momincombatboots]

Same my two coworkers experienced, yet we are still wasting scarece test materials on people with a sore throat n no other sx. And, they are negative. Happens every flu season. Scardy cats demand to be tested multiple times abusing the system and using up scarce resources
. Every year. Same flippin idiots. In the lab we just think they should be charged a fee of 500 cash the next time they come in for being an idiot.
We have lives to save. You dont need a test if you have covid.. its pretty harsh, even for healthy people. The asymptomatic myth has been dismissed by the data.