WHO does a 180, now lauds Swedish model

[yuyiinthesky]

9 hours ago, rumak said:

and hey,  just found a quote that fit my way of thinking.   I was surprised that there was some

other guy who had the same ( crazy, tin foil hat,  misinformed)  idea that i have .

Wow...... look at who that was !!    

????

[daveAustin]

10 hours ago, White Christmas13 said:

Sweden has less than half of Australia's population

Australia has about 6700 cases and 84 deaths

compare this with Sweden.

Can't compare any euro nation's figures with ones as remote as Oz/Nz. I see the latter countries patting themselves on the back at their response, but reality is they could have done nothing and would have been ok. It is purely down to where and how relatively little visited they are.

[White Christmas13]

8 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

Can't compare any euro nation's figures with ones as remote as Oz/Nz. I see the latter countries patting themselves on the back at their response, but reality is they could have done nothing and would have been ok. It is purely down to where and how relatively little visited they are.

Nonsense, do you know how many cruse liners docked in Australia in the last few

weeks,loaded with covid infected people?

[shy coconut]

8 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

Can't compare any euro nation's figures with ones as remote as Oz/Nz. I see the latter countries patting themselves on the back at their response, but reality is they could have done nothing and would have been ok. It is purely down to where and how relatively little visited they are.

Antipodeans are some of the most travelled people on the planet, Both Australia and

NZ are big tourist destinations especially for the young back packer types.

 

 

However...

It is easier to control entry as they are remote islands, so there are a relatively few

points of entry, which, once restrictions were put in place made it far easier to

keep on top of things.

 

There isn't one perfect way of dealing with this virus world wide,as every country and 

situation is different. The 2 most affected places so far are London and New York, both

densely populated cities with a significant percentage of BAME people, who seem to

be those worse hit.

 

 

[MikeyIdea]

3 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

Where did you buy your crystal ball?

It's only the neighbouring areas around the capital Stockholm that have been hit hard this far. Sweden's second largest city Göteborg (Gothenburg) has had a fairly slow but steady increase which is starting to increase more rapidly now. Infections in Sweden's third city Malmö is also expected to increase faster in May.

 

The mortality rate per 100,000 inhabitants will continue to increase for some time here. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by MikeyIdea

[gamb00ler]

1 hour ago, yuyiinthesky said:

You seem not to understand that all the lockdowns are not to contain or eliminate the infections, far too late for that, but to flatten the curve.

 

So whatever the strategy is, lockdown or not, closing businesses or not, eventually the same saturation level of people who had been infected will be reached everywhere. 

So if, and only if, it turns out to be the case that there are are infections which cause chronic or long lasting damage, then that will be the same everywhere.

You're kind of theoretically right.  With no changes in treatment/vaccination the same number of people would get sick or die with or without lockdowns.  But, you're neglecting the effect that time will have on the treatment/vaccination availability.  Flattening the curve shifts the total infections to the right (later in time).  In that period of time research MAY produce effective treatments or vaccines that at least somewhat reduce the infection rate and by doing so reduce the total number of infections and deaths.  The treatments may also reduce the severity of permanent damage that would have been caused by just letting the virus run rampant.

[timendres]

3 hours ago, nauseus said:

Don't cut the quote you reply to.

Valid point.

 

Problem is that TVF will not allow me to highlight the part of your post that I am referring to (say with underline or bold), so I see no other option than to quote just the part I am replying to. I do my best to avoid that quote being out of context. My apologies if that happened in your case. The ambiguity of the sentence I quoted was pointed out to me by @chessman, which I acknowledged. It would be nice if TVF provided some mechanism to accommodate highlighting the specific part of a post that someone is addressing in their post.

[balo]

The Swedish health authorities yesterday admitted they had failed protecting the elderly , more than 90% of the deaths are people over 70 ++ :

Now Norway and Denmark have less restrictions than a week ago , but still far behind Sweden , only 200 deaths in Norway, more than 2600 in Sweden. 
 

[kingdong]

21 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

No need for me to do a 180, as I've supported the Swedish model since I found out about it.

I think most of us will come to envy them.

How does Sweden's body count compare to its neighbouring countries? Well I don,t envy a country who s tactics promote euthanasia.

[Odysseus123]

So...in a nutshell..

 

The headline is distorted and the WHO has not made a 180 degree about turn.

 

"That's all folks!"

[PingRoundTheWorld]

6 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

Now please come back and tell us why Sweden's initial strategy was a success.

Antibodies tests indicate over 20% of the population in Stockholm likely had the disease already, within weeks or at most months they will reach some level of herd immunity, and while the rest of the world will be struggling with endless lockdowns and "waves" indefinitely (until a vaccine is available) Swedes will be laughing at the pub at how crazy other countries' policies are.

 

Initial high number of deaths - yes - but this is the peak - it'll only get better from now on for Sweden.

 

Sweden is not the only one either - Japan has not closed anything until April, and when they did it was voluntary and not enforceable (Japan's constitution does not allow such enforcement). There is no data, but I'd be very surprised if Tokyo isn't at 20-30% (at least!) already - they are the first country after China to get corona cases and until April there was no social distancing at all. Cold weather, dense population, and overpacked trains - you do the math...

[Salerno]

1 hour ago, kingdong said:

Well I don,t envy a country who s tactics promote euthanasia.

Involuntary euthanasia at that.

[thaibeachlovers]

22 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Envy them that they have the space, wealth, economic set up to do this. Many countries/people do not have this option. They cannot separate, work from home. How did the relatively relaxed Singapore model work out for the migrant workers?

Been nothing about it on TVF that I've seen so do tell.

[thaibeachlovers]

6 hours ago, daveAustin said:

how relatively little visited they are.

Rubbish. NZ gets loads of overseas tourists. What might have worked was closing the borders.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, timendres said:

Valid point.

 

Problem is that TVF will not allow me to highlight the part of your post that I am referring to (say with underline or bold), so I see no other option than to quote just the part I am replying to. I do my best to avoid that quote being out of context. My apologies if that happened in your case. The ambiguity of the sentence I quoted was pointed out to me by @chessman, which I acknowledged. It would be nice if TVF provided some mechanism to accommodate highlighting the specific part of a post that someone is addressing in their post.

Quote the entire post, then copy paste the part you want to emphasize to your part of the reply box and then bold it.

eg

Problem is that TVF will not allow me to highlight the part of your post that I am referring to (say with underline or bold),

[kingdong]

23 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

No need for me to do a 180, as I've supported the Swedish model since I found out about it.

I think most of us will come to envy them.

Well why don,t you go there then?

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

You're kind of theoretically right.  With no changes in treatment/vaccination the same number of people would get sick or die with or without lockdowns.  But, you're neglecting the effect that time will have on the treatment/vaccination availability.  Flattening the curve shifts the total infections to the right (later in time).  In that period of time research MAY produce effective treatments or vaccines that at least somewhat reduce the infection rate and by doing so reduce the total number of infections and deaths.  The treatments may also reduce the severity of permanent damage that would have been caused by just letting the virus run rampant.

For that to work they'd need to get it out in way less than 18 months. No economy can survive restrictions as in place now for a long period. Eventually they'd have to accept the inevitable. The difference between us and Sweden then would be that Sweden would still have a functioning economy.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 minutes ago, kingdong said:

Well why don,t you go there then?

What a brilliant suggestion. You are paying my fare and immigration costs then?

[kingdong]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

What a brilliant suggestion. You are paying my fare and immigration costs then?

Pay it yourself,if you can,t afford it try a " go fund me"

Edited May 2, 2020 by kingdong

[thaibeachlovers]

18 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

As New Zealand has shown, strict social distancing in  small population countries  works. New Zealand did not allow a  massive kill off of its citizens and the population will not be  plagued by chronic health conditions due to the long lasting secondary damage associated with Covid19.

Are you in NZ? You apparently have never been in a New Zealand supermarket during lockdown.

NZ may keep the susceptible alive but at the cost of thousands of unemployed with all the problems of poverty to come.

BTW poverty kills too.

[PingRoundTheWorld]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

BTW poverty kills too.

Far more than Covid-19 ever will. The world is already on track for a major starvation problem, the longer the economy is shut down, the worse it will be later on.

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, nauseus said:

Don't cut the quote you reply to.

Forum rules permit shortened quotes as long as the intention of the quoted part is not changed. The intention of the part he quoted was not changed, IMO.

[kingdong]

2 minutes ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

Far more than Covid-19 ever will. The world is already on track for a major starvation problem, the longer the economy is shut down, the worse it will be later on.

It's already started in africa,with a plague of locusts in to the bargain,the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse?

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

Far more than Covid-19 ever will. The world is already on track for a major starvation problem, the longer the economy is shut down, the worse it will be later on.

So many people, IMO, are so fixated on the present they forget that this too will end and people have to be able to earn a living to have quality of life.

Our forefathers would, IMO, scorn us for what we are doing. Compared to what they had to face this virus is not world ending. I doubt in 1918 they even considered a lockdown, even if it had been possible, and millions died then.

[thaibeachlovers]

19 minutes ago, kingdong said:

Pay it yourself,if you can,t afford it try a " go fund me"

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, shy coconut said:

The 2 most affected places so far are London and New York, both

densely populated cities with a significant percentage of BAME people, who seem to

be those worse hit.

Please don't use unusual abbreviations. Not everyone knows what that means and we shouldn't have to look it up.

You may be right, though London if full of those horrible row houses which may contribute to cross infection, IMO.

[geriatrickid]

8 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

Where did you buy your crystal ball?

 What part of a death rate that yesterday has passed 233/million do you not understand? Norway's is  now 38 per million.  

7 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

You seem not to understand that all the lockdowns are not to contain or eliminate the infections, far too late for that, but to flatten the curve.

So whatever the strategy is, lockdown or not, closing businesses or not, eventually the same saturation level of people who had been infected will be reached everywhere. 
So if, and only if, it turns out to be the case that there are are infections which cause chronic or long lasting damage, then that will be the same everywhere.

 

 Flattening the curve occurs by reducing the number of infections, which is in effect containing the spread of disease. If people are not exposed, the  number of infected people   is reduced and eventually eliminated. 

 

7 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

As said, Sweden depends on the International economy, on exports, and if the world is going down it affects Sweden too. This dependence cannot be changed by whatever Sweden does. 
At least in Sweden it is not collective suicide, coming from the inside, but externally induced.

Norway and Finland depend on the international economy and yet its population was not condemned to die slow and painful deaths. 

 

 

2 hours ago, kingdong said:

How does Sweden's body count compare to its neighbouring countries? Well I don,t envy a country who s tactics promote euthanasia.

Do not confuse the imposed  social experiment with what the country actually wanted. The reason Sweden changed its approach in the past weeks was in part driven by people seeing their family members die and realizing that it was avoidable.

 

1 hour ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

Antibodies tests indicate over 20% of the population in Stockholm likely had the disease already, within weeks or at most months they will reach some level of herd immunity, and while the rest of the world will be struggling with endless lockdowns and "waves" indefinitely (until a vaccine is available) Swedes will be laughing at the pub at how crazy other countries' policies are.

 

Initial high number of deaths - yes - but this is the peak - it'll only get better from now on for Sweden.

 

Sweden is not the only one either - Japan has not closed anything until April, and when they did it was voluntary and not enforceable (Japan's constitution does not allow such enforcement). There is no data, but I'd be very surprised if Tokyo isn't at 20-30% (at least!) already - they are the first country after China to get corona cases and until April there was no social distancing at all. Cold weather, dense population, and overpacked trains - you do the math...

These antibodies that you refer to, how do you know that they provide immunity? Can you provide the studies that support your position? Here's a hint- There are not any and this is why infectious disease specialists are very concerned when such a claim circulates. We will not really know until  next fall when the 2nd wave is expected to start.  Here's another hint - Some viruses that cause the common cold are corona viruses. No one  gets immunity from colds after an infection.  Yes, there may be short term immunity, but no one knows how long the immunity lasts. Do you think it is safe to work on the assumption that there will be long term immunity? Because if you do, you will be a pioneer in the field of immunology.

 

The initial  infection  rates were very low. They are high now because of the failed  strategy that Sweden had used up until  a few weeks ago.

There is no  infection or hospitalization or death curve in  Sweden. Sadly is a linear line that just keeps increasing. Sweden has one of the lowest testing rates in the west at only 12,000 per million. Norway is at 31,000, Denmark at 35,000. Even the USA is doing better at 20,000. Israel is at 42,00, and portugal at 40,000 and both countries  have  done well in containing the infection.  Countries who  relied on targeted tracking like Taiwan  and South Korea could afford to have lower rates of testing. Unfortunately, Sweden doesn't have the Taiwan or South Korean tracking  strategy.

 

Japan's strategy was driven by its PM's blind insistence on having the Olympics. He sacrificed  his country  for his ego.  However, aspects of japanese culture  helped prevent the spread of the infection. Unlike europe the japanese were quick to comply with face mask  benefits and have always been a fastidiously clean country. no one sneezes or coughs  like they do in SE Asia or the west. No one in Japan rushes up to kiss people like they do in Europe. More importantly and the key to Japan's success was that the japanese complied with  self isolation requirements after travel and the japanese tracked active cases and identified the infected, isolating them. No one was violating  containment  as they did in western countries.

Edited May 2, 2020 by geriatrickid

[rumak]

4 hours ago, timendres said:

Valid point.

 

Problem is that TVF will not allow me to highlight the part of your post that I am referring to (say with underline or bold), so I see no other option than to quote just the part I am replying to. I do my best to avoid that quote being out of context. My apologies if that happened in your case. The ambiguity of the sentence I quoted was pointed out to me by @chessman, which I acknowledged. It would be nice if TVF provided some mechanism to accommodate highlighting the specific part of a post that someone is addressing in their post.

it can be done.....   you post the quote,  then go to the part you want to highlight ,  delete it and then rewrite it in same context using the  B   you see at the top of where we post (click on it then type).       

If you need to protect yourself from another accusation         make a note that you did the highlight.    regards,  Rumak

Edited May 2, 2020 by rumak

[Stygge]

The problem is that this is a long distance race. Advocating the strategy of total lock down given a low death rate is like falling from a 10 store building and when passing the third floor falling down note the fact that so far all is fine. It all has to open up and then you will have the inevitable crash of increasing deaths.
In theory it´s better to restrict movment instead of stopping it completely to get a fair share of shielding same time you keep key areas of the economy running. It gives initially higher number of deaths but don´t see a high rise of deaths when the restrictions gradually easen up. As long as the health care system can keep up I think the Swedish system make sense and the high numbers of causalities in Sweden largely depends on a more honest way of counting Covid 19 deaths then many other countries, given Sweden also counts deaths outside hospitals, given an admitted failiure in protecting elderly in nursing homes, and also given the fact that total numbers of deaths doesn´t deviate very much from earlier years. The latter means that deaths mainly occurs in the age group over 80 and that they would stand a high risk of dying this period anyway but from another underlying factors.
And - locked down societies produce a bleeding economy that in the long run will cause numerous more deaths. Nothing is mor dangerous to your health than poverty.

[owl sees all]

On 5/1/2020 at 7:58 AM, Denim said:

The World Humbug Organization does another volte face. Getting used to it by now. Their bad advice up until now has without doubt cost lives.

There are people on the WHO payrole that are doing quite nicely; thank you! 

 

They are simply following the whims, and self-interest, of their funders.