WHO does a 180, now lauds Swedish model

[Logosone]

40 minutes ago, yuyiinthesky said:

And again, you're trying to compare a snapshot in time, not the end result (which we do not know yet, obviously). 
As in sports, the winner is known at the finish line, not a few minutes after the start. 

I wish Sweden and it's neighbors that this nightmare is over soon and that they all have a minimum of deaths and a minimum of destruction of their economy, no matter which strategy they chose.

 

It's amazing, the vitriol and hatred that has been thrown at Sweden for daring not to inflict lockdown on its people the way those flinging the mud have done.

 

"The Chinese paper Global Times, closely linked to the ruling Communist Party of China, accused Sweden of having capitulated to the virus, calling the country 'a black hole' and called for the international community to condemn Sweden's actions."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden#Debate

 

This from the Chinese who caused the whole mess in the first place. Unbelievable.

[Logosone]

On the rationale of Sweden's strategy: 

 

"In an interview with the journal Nature, Dr. Tegnell stated that his view on the closedown, lockdown, and closing borders imposed in other European countries – "nothing has a historical scientific basis ... We have looked at a number of European Union countries to see whether they have published any analysis of the effects of these measures before they were started and we saw almost none."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden#Debate

 

Of course the good Dr Tegnell could hardly  find any analysis before lockdown was put in place because there hardly was any. Neil Ferguson already confessed that he voted for lockdown because he saw China do it, their case numbers had abated so he reasoned the lockdown must work. Just a hunch. No proper analysis of the academic kind.

[yuyiinthesky]

3 hours ago, Logosone said:

Neil Ferguson already confessed that he voted for lockdown because he saw China do it, their case numbers had abated so he reasoned the lockdown must work. Just a hunch. No proper analysis of the academic kind.

This is what should be analyzed, and based on the data available by now, corrected (but better by more qualified people, not him with his lousy track record again). Urgently, now, today, not next month or year!

[chessman]

6 hours ago, Logosone said:

Neil Ferguson already confessed that he voted for lockdown

Please share more about this ‘vote’

[kingdong]

On 5/4/2020 at 3:04 PM, nauseus said:

Less population density than where?

The Gobi desert?

[nauseus]

19 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

The same which did allegedly breed the Covid 19 causing virus? If so, they should know best. ???? ????

Know best how to create havoc.

[balo]

Tomorrow Sweden will have more then 3000 deaths in total.  But I think the worst is over now. Still the numbers are so high compared to the rest of the Nordic countries that questions will be asked. 

I do not believe that Norway and Denmark will catch Sweden even when the restrictions are gone. 

[Stygge]

The United States are gradually opening up now.

Quoted from the BBC:

"The calculation being made here by the White House is simple. They saw themselves as having two options:

1) Keep the country closed unless and until an effective treatment for coronavirus emerges or a vaccine can be mass produced -- a likely lengthy wait that could send the economy into recession or even depression.

2) Reopen the country, knowing that doing so will lead to considerably more deaths from coronavirus but also will likely revive the stalled economy.

They chose option two. Which isn't all that surprising given that Trump has been hinting at just such a move for quite a while now.

"WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF," Trump tweeted way back on March 23. In the six weeks since, he's repeated that mantra over and over again -- suggesting that the time was almost here when things needed to start to get back to normal, no matter what the daily numbers on coronavirus looked like.

And Trump's push for states to reopen -- despite the vast majority not meeting the federal criteria for doing do -- was reflective of where this was all headed. "Many States moving to SAFELY & QUICKLY reopen!," he tweeted on April 28."

So, America is opening up. The cost is simply to high to keep lock down. They have not flattended the curb. They just understand lock down is an impossible strategy over time.

Swedish authorities understod this from the beginning. It´s better with restrictions, not as severe as a lock down and keep major economical functions going while protecting high risk groups. It will initially give a higher number of deaths med in the long run give a sustainable protection of it´s citizens.  Amercias death numbers will surely increase drastically now but they are willing to take it because the alternative is worse. America is, in fact, adopting the Swedish view of the fight against the Covid19 disease.

 

 

 

 

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, Stygge said:

So, America is opening up. The cost is simply to high to keep lock down. They have not flattended the curb. They just understand lock down is an impossible strategy over time.

Swedish authorities understod this from the beginning. It´s better with restrictions, not as severe as a lock down and keep major economical functions going while protecting high risk groups. It will initially give a higher number of deaths med in the long run give a sustainable protection of it´s citizens.  Amercias death numbers will surely increase drastically now but they are willing to take it because the alternative is worse. America is, in fact, adopting the Swedish view of the fight against the Covid19 disease.

 

The cost of lockdown was plainly too high for Professor Lockdown himself who while telling everyone how crucial lockdown rules are was on Ok Cupid trying to meet as many women as possible and got one groupie to come to his house, just after he got infected. This woman knew her own husband was infected at the time, and probably had the virus herself.

 

So, yah, even the most fanatical of fanatic lockdown fundamentalists, when it comes down to it, ignored the lockdown. The UK willl open up. The US will open.

 

We are all Sweden now. At last.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 5/5/2020 at 8:26 PM, Logosone said:

 

It's amazing, the vitriol and hatred that has been thrown at Sweden for daring not to inflict lockdown on its people the way those flinging the mud have done.

 

"The Chinese paper Global Times, closely linked to the ruling Communist Party of China, accused Sweden of having capitulated to the virus, calling the country 'a black hole' and called for the international community to condemn Sweden's actions."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden#Debate

 

This from the Chinese who caused the whole mess in the first place. Unbelievable.

IMO it's because they want everyone to be as miserable and inconvenienced without benefit as they have been.

When it's seen that Sweden does better out of this than the rest, will those that criticized Sweden apologise for being wrong?

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO it's because they want everyone to be as miserable and inconvenienced without benefit as they have been.

When it's seen that Sweden does better out of this than the rest, will those that criticized Sweden apologise for being wrong?

Yes, there's an element to that, just like when girls with braces, ugly girls, pick on good looking girls simply for the fact that they are better looking.

 

Equally, many would have looked enviously on Sweden, who did so little compared to what they did, yet were not as a result condemned to descend into a path of hellish chaos. The benefits of civilization came easy for them. So Sweden was vilified for being so pretty.

 

As a good looking man I can empathise with the suffering.

[Logosone]

Spectator journalist Toby Young on Neil Ferguson:

 

'God knows, there's enough evidence that his computer model, which predicted 250,000 would die if the government didn't place the country under house arrest, is about as reliable as Paul the Octopus.'

He said that in Sweden it was argued that their healthcare system would be overwhelmed 40-fold with nearly 96,000 dying of Covid-19 by the end of the year - and the model predicting a death toll of 40,000 by May 1. But Sweden's death toll from coronavirus stands at 2,854 and its hospitals are nowhere near the projected collapse, Mr Young wrote.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8293227/Questions-raised-revealed-Neil-Fergusons-affair-married-woman.html

 

So Ferguson predicted 40,000 would die in Sweden by 1 May. I have to say to compare this British expert's predictions to Paul the Octopus seems extremely unfair. To Paul the Octopus.

 

Paul the Octopus was amazingly accurate compared to Professor Sex-a-lot.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Logosone

[MikeyIdea]

10 hours ago, balo said:

Tomorrow Sweden will have more then 3000 deaths in total.  But I think the worst is over now. Still the numbers are so high compared to the rest of the Nordic countries that questions will be asked. 

I do not believe that Norway and Denmark will catch Sweden even when the restrictions are gone. 

Sweden has a rolling 7 day average of 70 deaths per day now, it could increase a bit but not dramatically. Sweden's second largest city Gothenburg is actually increasing a little bit slower than expected. 

 

The spread will continue and deaths will go down much slower when half the population don't care about restrictions much. Also, the antibody test from the worst affected areas 21 April showed discouraging figures, only 11%. It should also be noted that the Swedish authorities do not talk about immunity in relation to the antibody tests, because they don't know of course. 

 

This at the same time as they dodge questions about asymptomatic transmission but now recommend people to stay at home another day after they are symptom free. Perhaps Swedes should stay at home a day or two before they get symptoms too... 

 

You're right, the other Nordic countries will come nowhere near Sweden also with phased out restrictions, they can remove all today and they still won't come near. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by MikeyIdea

[yuyiinthesky]

11 hours ago, balo said:

I do not believe that Norway and Denmark will catch Sweden even when the restrictions are gone. 

As much as I like and prefer the Swedish model, I wish that the number of deaths in Sweden and Norway and Denmark and everywhere else are minimized, and not just the ones counted today but during the time until this ends. 

This is not about who's right or wrong. Wish them the best luck, all of them. 

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, MikeyIdea said:

Also, the antibody test from the worst affected areas 21 April showed discouraging figures, only 11%. It should also be noted that the Swedish authorities do not talk about immunity in relation to the antibody tests, because they don't know of course. 

 

In a study of recovered patients with Covid19 only 30% actually had antibodies. 

 

Antibodies are just one part of the immune response. People can defeat the virus and be immune to it without antibodies.

 

That's because the adaptive immune system has several weapons in its arsenal, there's antibodies but there's also T-cells that just destroy the virus. Some people who have a lot of T-cells just destroy the virus alltogether and don't need antibodies. Hence some recovered patients didn't show they had antibodies.

 

So very smart of the Swedish authorities not to talk about antibody related immunity. However, immunity is of course a given. Quibbling about immunity is just pointless. It's not a question of if there is immunity, but for how long.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Logosone

[MikeyIdea]

2 hours ago, Logosone said:

 

In a study of recovered patients with Covid19 only 30% actually had antibodies. 

Which study? which country? when? Size of study? 

[cmarshall]

Sweden failed.  Since SARS in 2003 they should have had a pandemic preparedness program in place including surveillance of emerging viral threats from China, Africa, and elsewhere.  With early awareness of an emerging epidemic threat they would have been able to contain it with well-known best practices: widespread testing, isolating of infected persons, and contact tracing.  That's exact what S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand have done.  The total death toll in S. Korea to date is about 256 in a country of 51 millions.  The infection rate in these five countries is currently close to zero.  

 

That's what Sweden, Germany, Italy, the US, and all the other Western should have been doing, but failed utterly to do out of simple incompetence.   Had they done so no lockdown would have been necessary and there would have been no significant impact on the economy, much less would their healthcare facilities have been overwhelmed.

[GroveHillWanderer]

18 hours ago, Logosone said:

In a study of recovered patients with Covid19 only 30% actually had antibodies. 

I haven't seen that study. Do you have a link? 

 

On the other hand I have seen a number of studies, and also statements from researchers and virologists saying that virtually everyone who has been infected with this novel coronavirus, has developed antibodies.

 

Here are some excerpts from one such study:

 

Quote

In their study of blood drawn from 285 people hospitalized with severe COVID-19, researchers in China, led by Ai-Long Huang, Chongqing Medical University, found that all had developed SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies within two to three weeks of their first symptoms. 

[...]

To confirm their results, the researchers turned to another group of 69 people diagnosed with COVID-19. The researchers collected blood samples from each person upon admission to the hospital and every three days thereafter until discharge. The team found that, with the exception of one woman and her daughter, the patients produced specific antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 within 20 days of their first symptoms of COVID-19.

Nearly everyone who recovers from CoVid-19 has antibodies

 

Here's another example (there are plenty more):

 

Quote

 

“The overwhelming majority of people so far called back who’ve had definite COVID-19 infection have got antibodies in their blood stream,”  [England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan] Van-Tam said at daily news conference.

Most CoVid-19 patients get antibodies

Edited May 8, 2020 by GroveHillWanderer

[sead]

On 5/4/2020 at 7:12 PM, geriatrickid said:

 

You are all over the place now . First, you rejected the  position that  education campaigns had not been effective with some high risk groups. Not possible you argued. Those groups  receive generous benefits.   I explained that the  issue wasn't benefits, but dissemination of the  message, and preventative measures.

 

Now, you come back with an argument that isn't particularly relevant, because you have confused cultural and social practices & customs with the inadequacy of the initial campaign to target the at risk groups. 

 

Yes, we can all agree that there are people who  have not listened or will not listen. We see this in India where Covid19  prevention health workers are attacked when they enter some neighborhoods. However, as  stated earlier, if people are to be educated, the message has to be provided to them in a manner they can  understand. It is a fundamental principle of public health  education that the message must be adapted for the target audience  cultural norms and  practices. It doesn't matter if someone is a religious nutter or has cultural practices that we do not like. What matters is that we  keep the person from being infected  so that we are in turn protected. If the people have not been educated on best practices, they won't understand.

 

Yes, it is a challenge to get the message to some groups, but it is possible. That is what my reference to the outreach efforts to the immigrant communities in the UK, USA (and Australia and Canada) was about. In those countries, imams and mosques are part of the outreach and some have done a fantastic job of it too. Mosques in these countries  initiated  virtual ramadam practices including online communal iftars. One can ridicule the  efforts all one wants, but they are making an important contribution.

 

If the initial Swedish strategy had been working, there would not have been a need to modify it, would there? Sweden changed its strategy. Now there is an effort to blanket the hot spot neighborhoods with information. Social and health workers in conjunction with the community activists are out in force, providing clearer instructions and documentation in languages the target audience understand. 

Ok. Well there is daily information that says wash your hands often. And again wash your hands often. I just came back to Sweden  from Denmark where I worked 3 months. Denmark has a lockdown where only takeaway food is allowed and all gyms/ fitness are closed. Sweden on the other hand has everything open. I haven't ate in a restaurant 3 months and that was the first thing I did.  None is wearing a mask. Everyone is socialising as before. It's as covid never have been here. And I'll gladly send you a picture. So as some groups/ cultures and religions are complaining about not been well informed noone cares in Sweden. I need you to understand that it started with some from Africa Somalia were infected ( six I think)and then they needed to defend themselves why so many were infected. And then the drama started about Sweden hasn't reached out as they should by informing all different immigrants. So it's just simple nonsense to get some attention but if you go seek out these who complained I guarantee you they are now sitting together having a cup of coffee

[steelepulse]

According to this video by Dr Berg ( who puts out a lot of videos for monetary gain) 40% of the deaths in Sweden come from the Somali community which makes up .84% of the country.  Add in the additional deaths from the nursing homes, and all of a sudden it seems the IFR is quite low for the ordinary population that is out and about.

 

He does put in a lot of links that back up his videos in the section right below his videos.

 

 

[Logosone]

11 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

I haven't seen that study. Do you have a link? 

 

On the other hand I have seen a number of studies, and also statements from researchers and virologists saying that virtually everyone who has been infected with this novel coronavirus, has developed antibodies.

 

Here are some excerpts from one such study:

 

Nearly everyone who recovers from CoVid-19 has antibodies

 

Here's another example (there are plenty more):

 

Most CoVid-19 patients get antibodies

You're right of course, I had quoted from memory, and it was 30% of patients who had very low levels of antibodies, ten of whom so low they could not be detected initially.

 

"About 30% of recovered patients generated very low titers of SARS-CoV-2- 222 specific NAbs"

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047365v2.full.pdf

[Logosone]

13 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Sweden failed.  Since SARS in 2003 they should have had a pandemic preparedness program in place including surveillance of emerging viral threats from China, Africa, and elsewhere.  With early awareness of an emerging epidemic threat they would have been able to contain it with well-known best practices: widespread testing, isolating of infected persons, and contact tracing.  That's exact what S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand have done.  The total death toll in S. Korea to date is about 256 in a country of 51 millions.  The infection rate in these five countries is currently close to zero.  

 

That's what Sweden, Germany, Italy, the US, and all the other Western should have been doing, but failed utterly to do out of simple incompetence.   Had they done so no lockdown would have been necessary and there would have been no significant impact on the economy, much less would their healthcare facilities have been overwhelmed.

A leading Oxford University expert has argued that the peak of Britain's coronavirus crisis was a week before lockdown was announced on March 23, and that the early warnings for people to try to social distance and to wash their hands regularly had an impact on their own.

 

Professor Heneghan argued ministers 'lost sight' of the evidence and rushed into a nationwide quarantine six days later. He said that they were instructed by scientific advisers who have been 'consistently wrong' during the crisis.

 

Professor Heneghan hailed Sweden - which has not enforced a lockdown despite fierce criticism - for 'holding its nerve' and avoiding a 'doomsday scenario'. He told MailOnline: 'The peak of deaths occurred on April 8, and if you understand that then you work backwards to find the peak of infections.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8294507/New-study-reveals-blueprint-getting-Covid-19-lockdown.html

[yuyiinthesky]

7 hours ago, sead said:

Ok. Well there is daily information that says wash your hands often. And again wash your hands often. I just came back to Sweden  from Denmark where I worked 3 months. Denmark has a lockdown where only takeaway food is allowed and all gyms/ fitness are closed. Sweden on the other hand has everything open. I haven't ate in a restaurant 3 months and that was the first thing I did.  None is wearing a mask. Everyone is socialising as before. It's as covid never have been here. And I'll gladly send you a picture. So as some groups/ cultures and religions are complaining about not been well informed noone cares in Sweden. I need you to understand that it started with some from Africa Somalia were infected ( six I think)and then they needed to defend themselves why so many were infected. And then the drama started about Sweden hasn't reached out as they should by informing all different immigrants. So it's just simple nonsense to get some attention but if you go seek out these who complained I guarantee you they are now sitting together having a cup of coffee

???? Sounds to me as if Sweden is one of the best countries to be now. And summer is coming, may be spend a while there.
Oh sh... no flights, lockdown here, cannot ????

[MikeyIdea]

1 hour ago, yuyiinthesky said:

???? Sounds to me as if Sweden is one of the best countries to be now. And summer is coming, may be spend a while there.
Oh sh... no flights, lockdown here, cannot ????

Sweden's just up to nineth deadliest country in the world per population. 

 

I can go out and have a cup of coffee any time I want but I don't dare to with my daughter and 85 year old multi sick mother to care for.

 

Sweden is a great country to be in for the young and selfish.

Edited May 8, 2020 by MikeyIdea

[steelepulse]

This isn't aimed at you Mikeyidea, you have posted some good stuff from Sweden.

 

However, I think a lot of people are over paranoid after looking at the facts and studies about which risk group you fall into.

 

If you are elderly, have underlying comorbidities, then you should take as many precautions as possible.  For those that are healthy and still support hunkering down and wearing masks...........

 

 

 

[Logosone]

7 minutes ago, MikeyIdea said:

Sweden's just up to nineth deadliest country in the world per population. 

 

I can go out and have a cup of coffee any time I want but I don't dare to with my daughter and 85 year old multi sick mother to care for.

 

Sweden is a great country for the young and selfish.

Oh yes, 0.031 percent of the population died.

 

Sounds terrifying.

[yuyiinthesky]

49 minutes ago, MikeyIdea said:

I can go out and have a cup of coffee any time I want but I don't dare to with my daughter and 85 year old multi sick mother to care for.

I think the one has nothing to do with the other. The elderly need to get protected, somewhat isolated, and not only from Covid 19, but also from influenza and similar. This is a key issue to keep the death rate down.

 

I don't think that is Sweden's fault, but the fault of the viruses and other germs making us sick, and applicable everywhere. These viruses and germs are much more dangerous to the vulnerable, weaker ones, and getting old unfortunately means also getting weaker (I hate that, but I didn't find a way to avoid it yet).

I wish you the best luck to keep your mother out of the danger as much as possible.

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, steelepulse said:

However, I think a lot of people are over paranoid after looking at the facts and studies about which risk group you fall into.

I know several people that are paranoid about it. I'll have to avoid mocking them after life returns to normal.

None of them know anyone that became infected.

[thaibeachlovers]

6 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

I think the one has nothing to do with the other. The elderly need to get protected, somewhat isolated, and not only from Covid 19, but also from influenza and similar. This is a key issue to keep the death rate down.

 

I don't think that is Sweden's fault, but the fault of the viruses and other germs making us sick, and applicable everywhere. These viruses and germs are much more dangerous to the vulnerable, weaker ones, and getting old unfortunately means also getting weaker (I hate that, but I didn't find a way to avoid it yet).

I wish you the best luck to keep your mother out of the danger as much as possible.

IMO the point he was making is that as he has BOTH a young child and an old person to look after, he can't let the child become infected as she would cause the elder to be come infected. IMO the child is not at risk ( unless has underlying medical problems ), but the elder definitely is.

[chessman]

11 hours ago, yuyiinthesky said:

The elderly need to get protected, somewhat isolated, and not only from Covid 19, but also from influenza and similar. This is a key issue to keep the death rate down.

Covid is the short-term threat and it's all very well having a strategy of just protecting the vulnerable but that is much more difficult if the people working at those homes have no restrictions at all. Sweden clearly (initially) failed with this (they openly admit this) but I have seen some very unfortunate excuses from people in charge about the reasons for this failure.

 

I did read this about how things have changed:

https://www.thelocal.se/20200506/coronavirus-what-went-wrong-in-swedens-care-homes

hopefully some of the steps taken will reduce the number of cases and deaths in Sweden.