Posted on 08/12/2020 8:52:38 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Stockholm (AFP) – Sweden’s economy shrank 8.6 percent in the second quarter, the nation’s statistics service said Wednesday, even though the country never imposed strict coronavirus lockdowns seen elsewhere in Europe.
The fall in gross domestic product (GDP) when compared to the second quarter of 2019 came in at 8.2 percent.
According to Statistics Sweden, the downturn represented the largest drop since at least 1980, which is as far back as comparable statistics are available.
Sweden’s government is expecting a six percent fall in GDP for the year as a whole — the largest since 1940.
The GDP figures presented are preliminary, with an update expected on August 28, and though the drop was significant, analysts had been expecting something in the ballpark.
“Nonetheless, the economic crunch over the first half of the year is in a different league entirely to the horror shows elsewhere in Europe,” Oxley added.
The eurozone’s GDP tumbled 12.1 percent in the second quarter, dragged down by even steeper falls in Spain, Italy and France where lockdowns hit the tourism sectors particularly hard.
No lockdown
Unlike most countries in Europe, Sweden never imposed a so-called lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, largely keeping businesses operating. But as the country’s economy is dependent on exports, the fallout from the global downturn was nonetheless swift.
Swedish officials have insisted their strategy was always aimed at public health, and never specifically at saving the economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
However, America's lockdown approach produced higher unemployment than Sweden's approach which yielded 9.1% in the second quarter vs 11.1% in the US in 2Q.
While Sweden relied upon "science" to set policy (again, this is the same nation that gave us Greta and her Climate Scientist) their citizenry is ok letting "experts" carve their way. I like the freedoms they let run free. I don't like the fatalities or letting bureaucrats set policy. Pick your poison.
But, but, but. They got mo deaths than Finland and Denmark per capita. A Fearper tells me that every day.
If Sweden has herd immunity, then their Q3 for both GDP and COVID deaths is when they should do well.
Just pointing out that Sweden for the last month has seen daily per-capita deaths of less than 1 in 1 million. Single digits per day.
In the U.S. over the last month it’s been about three times that, after employing our “15 days to flatten the curve.”
all MSM is headlining 5,000 figure, even though it’s ***5,400 or thereabouts!
12 Aug: BBC: Coronavirus: England death count review reduces UK toll by 5,000
A review of how deaths from coronavirus are counted in England has reduced the UK death toll by more than 5,000, to 41,329, the government has announced.
The recalculation is based on a new definition of who has died from Covid.
Previously, people in England who died at any point following a positive test, regardless of cause, were counted in the figures.
But there will now be a cut-off of 28 days, providing a more accurate picture of the epidemic.
This brings England’s measure in line with the other UK nations...
The new methodology for counting deaths means the total number of people in the UK who have died from Covid-19 comes down from 46,706 to 41,329 - a reduction of 12%.
And figures for deaths in England for the most recent week of data - 18 to 24 July - will drop by 75%, from 442 to 111...
Analysis by Hugh Pym, health editor
There is no yardstick endorsed by the World Health Organization and PHE argued there was no single ideal way of working out the total.
In future, death numbers for England will be published using both 28-day and 60-day cut off points.
The 28-day limit will, however, be the headline measure and will at least achieve consistency across the UK.
***Cutting around 5,400 from the death total will be a talking point among statisticians...
Someone who recovered from Covid-19 in March and died in a car crash in July would have been counted as a coronavirus death...
Prof Keith Neal, emeritus professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases, from the University of Nottingham: “The 28 days is widely used in many countries and England is now the same as the rest of the UK,” he said.
“The previous measure of always being a Covid death, even if recovered, was unscientific.”...
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53722711
more at the link:
30 May: UK Spectator: The way ‘Covid deaths’ are being counted is a national scandal
We have no idea how many lives have really been lost to the disease
by Dr. John Lee
I can think of no time in my medical career when it has been more important to have accurate diagnosis of a disease, and understanding of precisely why patients have died of it. Yet very early on in the epidemic, rules surrounding death certification were changed — in ways that make the statistics unreliable. Guidance was issued which tends to reduce, rather than increase, referrals for autopsy.
Normally, two doctors are needed to certify a death, one of whom has been treating the patient or who knows them and has seen them recently. That has changed. For Covid-19 only, the certification can be made by a single doctor, and there is no requirement for them to have examined, or even met, the patient. A video-link consultation in the four weeks prior to death is now felt to be sufficient for death to be attributed to Covid-19. For deaths in care homes the situation is even more extraordinary. Care home providers, most of whom are not medically trained, may make a statement to the effect that a patient has died of Covid-19. In the words of the Office for National Statistics, this ‘may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result, or be reflected in the death certification’. From 29 March the numbers of ‘Covid deaths’ have included all cases where Covid-19 was simply mentioned on the death certificate — irrespective of positive testing and whether or not it may have been incidental to, or directly responsible for, death. From 29 April the numbers include the care home cases simply considered likely to be Covid-19.
So at a time when accurate death statistics are more important than ever, the rules have been changed in ways that make them less reliable than ever. In what proportion of Covid-19 ‘mentions’ was the disease actually present? And in how many cases, if actually present, was Covid-19 responsible for death? Despite what you may have understood from the daily briefings, the shocking truth is that we just don’t know. How many of the excess deaths during the epidemic are due to Covid-19, and how many are due to our societal responses of healthcare reorganisation, lockdown and social distancing? Again, we don’t know. Despite claims that they’re all due to Covid-19, there’s strong evidence that many, perhaps even a majority, are the result of our responses rather than the disease itself...
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-way-covid-deaths-are-being-counted-is-a-national-scandal
more at the link:
11 Aug: UK Spectator: Summer flu is now more deadly than Covid
by Ross Clark
We are, of course, in the middle of a deadly pandemic of a novel infectious disease. It’s just that it is not, at present, killing remotely as many people in England and Wales as that boring old disease which no-one seems ever to worry about: the summer flu...
Yet few seem to have noticed, while we fret about whether reopening schools, bars and so on will cause a second wave of Covid-19, that flu is killing five times as many people in England and Wales. In the week ending 31 July, these are the Office for National Statistics tallies for cause of death (as measured by mentions on death certificates): influenza and pneumonia, 928; Covid-19, 193. This is nothing new: more people have been dying of flu than Covid-19 since the middle of June...
CHART
There is a certain amount of double-counting going on here: some people who have been recorded as a Covid-19 death may also have fallen into the category ‘influenza and pneumonia’ – given that, as with flu, it is often pneumonia which actually delivers the final blow. But even if all those 193 Covid deaths were also being counted in the ‘influenza and pneumonia’ column, it stands to reason that more people are dying of non-Covid related pneumonia than are dying of Covid-19...
Should we start worrying about a pandemic of summer flu instead? Perhaps not, for the simple reason that while flu deaths are running at about five times Covid-19 levels, they are markedly down on the average of the past five years...
It shows the sheer power of publishing a daily death toll. People are still paranoid about Covid-19 because they keep being fed with figures suggesting that dozens of people have died of Covid in the past 24 hours and they have no means of putting it into context...
tolls. Either stop publishing them – or publish them in conjunction with a daily toll of deaths from all causes.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/summer-flu-is-now-more-deadly-than-covid
speaker attempts to silence him, but fails. English subtitles:
Youtube: 4m40s: 6 May: Italian Parliament Leader Slams False COVID-19 Numbers
On Friday, April 24, 2020, Vittorio Sgarbi, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, denounced what he claims are false coronavirus death statistics. Sgarbi feels that fake statistics are being propagated by the government and the media to terrorize the citizens of Italy and establish a dictatorship.
The member of the Forza Italia party slammed the closure of 60% of Italian businesses for 25,000 Chinese-Coronavirus deaths from the floor of the legislature. “It’s not true,” he said. “Don’t use the deaths for rhetoric and terrorism.” According to the National Institute of Health, 96.3% did not die of coronavirus, but of other pathologies stated Sgarbi – which means that only 925 have died from the virus and 24,075 have died of other things claimed Sgarbi, “….the virus was little more than an influenza. Don’t lie! Tell the truth!”
Sgarbi challenged his colleagues to investigate the real numbers themselves and be united in the reporting the truth.
Sgarbi has been a member of the Italian Parliament several times and also served also in Milan’s municipal government. Sgarbi is also a famous art critic, historian, cultural commentator and television personality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4
23 March: UK Telegraph: Why have so many coronavirus patients died in Italy?
The country’s high death toll is due to an ageing population, overstretched health system and the way fatalities are reported
By Sarah Newey
According to Prof Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health, the country’s mortality rate is far higher due to demographics - the nation has the second oldest population worldwide - and the manner in which hospitals record deaths...
... Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities.
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,” he says...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/
Would it be easy to have a booming economy if the entire world is crashing into depression?
Your point is correct. As it says in the article: "... But as the country’s economy is dependent on exports, the fallout from the global downturn was nonetheless swift."
There is nothing here that indicates that Sweden's approach was not the correct one. If every country had followed it the world would be in a much better place right now.
Comparing Sweden to the entirety of the US is an idiot’s game.
So, de factor or de jure, they shut down the economy.
And that’s because.....?
They are a small country, reliant on trade.
And all of their trading partners took huge hits.
Has little to do with their virus strategy actually.
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