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If so, you would think their government would have asked the population physical distancing already and work from home where one can. https://www.government.se/

If so, you would think their government would have asked the population physical distancing already and work from home where one can. https://www.government.se/articles/2020/03/s-work-in-the-areas-of-public-health-medical-care-social-care-and-social-insurance-with-regard-to-the-covid-19-virus/ https://www.government.se/articles/2020/03/s-work-in-the-are...

samvher 7y ago
I'm living in Sweden at the moment (am Dutch myself) and am quite disappointed with the response to the crisis. I live in a shared house (12 people) and many are still going to work as normal. One works in social services and sees dozens of asylum seekers every day, she has gotten very little guidance and there has been very little action in terms of prevention even though they have had people getting sick with COVID-19 already. Others are on paid leave now but it doesn't seem consistent across the board. The speech of the prime minister yesterday was very mild, basically just counting on citizens' personal responsibility. Not that I think the Netherlands is doing much better though. Overall I think it's very frustrating to see the extremely slow response in both Europe and the US after seeing multiple countries deal with the pandemic more or less successfully.
- Lewton 7y ago
  It's really depressing looking at how Sweden is handling it when sitting in Denmark. The contrast is pretty extreme Sweden seem to be prioritizing the economy heavily. Comparing the two responses is going to be interesting once this all blows over
  - marvin 7y ago
    Ditto in Norway. I'm shaking my head. Hope you guys over there will get through this okay.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  What do you think of the Belgian situation (closed borders, quarantine and generalized confinement) ? We are closing our borders and heavy fines are thrown around (4000€ for crossing the border) but it seems the Netherlands aren't going hard enough for the moment.
  - samvher 7y ago
    I can't say that I've followed what's going on in Belgium but I think that at the moment that's probably the wise thing to do. It sucks but even starting a lockdown right now the number of cases in ICU is likely to grow by more than 10 times over the next 2 weeks or so. It would be great if we could count on personal responsibility - in theory we should be able to go out and bike/hike without interacting with any people and avoid total imprisonment that way. But it doesn't look like that's working, people are still gathering and socializing quite a lot. Most people are just not aware of the urgency and don't fear for their own health, thereby discounting other people's health. Even this lack of personal fear is probably unjustified by now - by the time they'll get sick the hospital system will be overwhelmed.
    - johnchristopher 7y ago
      > Most people are just not aware of the urgency and don't fear for their own health, thereby discounting other people's health. Even this lack of personal fear is probably unjustified by now - by the time they'll get sick the hospital system will be overwhelmed. This is really problematic. It looks like outliers know-it-all could be ruining it for the rest of us. I wonder if governments could use a heavy hammer and broadcast 24/24 (or at random) footages from Italian hospitals.
- rapeisputinlies 7y ago
  You know what South Korea and Singapore did in December? They took photos of students in lectures, and used that for contact tracing. Also they keep track of where people enter and exit public transportation by tapping in and out of the gateways. They used that information in order to figure out where people have been and what train they have taken in order to disinfect and map people. Basically, only countries like South Korea, China and Singapore had a chance. The latter country even started producing their own n95 masks and distributed to their population with disinfectant while Swedish government propaganda machinery started saying "masks" are useless, very much like that did in the US. Til this day, you can't get n95 masks in Sweden. Basically only "police states" had chances to keep their numbers from growing. In the early days, Sweden would test every day and have 30% to 100% growth in new cases every day until they decided to re-evaluate how to test, now they got 8% and 6% new cases every week. Obviously they're full of shit about testing, but they really never had any chance. Honestly, only countries with where the police can actually solve crimes (assault, burglary, robbery) had a chance. Sweden can't handle the amount of crimes it has, cops shut down cases on a daily basis with the excuse "it happens all the time" - heard it twice ourselves. In a country where they can't handle weekly bombings and shootings, they really had no chance with a disease that lacks central leadership and lives off the land. How the hell would they? There is a distinct resolve and grit that is inherently lacking amongst their people. It's hard work, takes a lot of effort and offers very little reward. So it makes sense that the public sector in Sweden, or most of Europe for that matter has no ability to actually deal with this. Also, good luck if you need health care in Sweden, even before Covid, you had to wait a few months, two in my case, to actually seeing a doctor who will pretend to help you. But what choice do you have, you had already paid for that doctor... tsk tsk. Things are different in Asia where "giving up" wouldn't look good, but it's acceptable in Sweden. Anything else is Russian propaganda... obviously.
zekrioca 7y ago
Herd immunity in Sweden is the strategy since day 1. Same as Netherlands.
- samvher 7y ago
  That's true and I think it's irresponsible. Even if the spread would be perfectly controlled and kept so that the number of patients in ICU stay below capacity, I don't think we can manage to get 60% of the population infected in 12 months because we would be moving at a slower rate. And it would be very surprising if the spread can be perfectly controlled. This article also makes some very good arguments for why it's not the right strategy: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...
  - zekrioca 7y ago
    Thanks for article. It really seems the strategy behind Sweden’s decision is to allow old people to get infected to they can use the health care system before it floods. As you said, one cannot really control how the spread among 60% of population goes, for this amount of time. This will cost lives, specially of old ones.
- rapeisputinlies 7y ago
  They haven't gotten out and outright said it, but you are correct since every action or particular lack of points to it. I think the saw the bad PR UK got, and decided it's better to keep silent about it. Shady, but smart. They have to massage that Sweden image any way they can.
  - zekrioca 7y ago
    Yes, this is just based on actions/decisions. It is even trickier since population seems to have accepted it very well. Life in Stockholm and other cities seems rather normal when compared to other countries. Bars, pubs, and elementary schools are still opened. Yesterday prime minister gave a national speech. He didn’t say anything new, except “more lives of loved ones might be lost, and we should prepare and take responsibility to avoid that”. Nothing really new.

samvher 7y ago

I'm living in Sweden at the moment (am Dutch myself) and am quite disappointed with the response to the crisis. I live in a shared house (12 people) and many are still going to work as normal. One works in social services and sees dozens of asylum seekers every day, she has gotten very little guidance and there has been very little action in terms of prevention even though they have had people getting sick with COVID-19 already. Others are on paid leave now but it doesn't seem consistent across the board. The speech of the prime minister yesterday was very mild, basically just counting on citizens' personal responsibility. Not that I think the Netherlands is doing much better though. Overall I think it's very frustrating to see the extremely slow response in both Europe and the US after seeing multiple countries deal with the pandemic more or less successfully.

Lewton 7y ago
It's really depressing looking at how Sweden is handling it when sitting in Denmark. The contrast is pretty extreme Sweden seem to be prioritizing the economy heavily. Comparing the two responses is going to be interesting once this all blows over
- marvin 7y ago
  Ditto in Norway. I'm shaking my head. Hope you guys over there will get through this okay.
johnchristopher 7y ago
What do you think of the Belgian situation (closed borders, quarantine and generalized confinement) ? We are closing our borders and heavy fines are thrown around (4000€ for crossing the border) but it seems the Netherlands aren't going hard enough for the moment.
- samvher 7y ago
  I can't say that I've followed what's going on in Belgium but I think that at the moment that's probably the wise thing to do. It sucks but even starting a lockdown right now the number of cases in ICU is likely to grow by more than 10 times over the next 2 weeks or so. It would be great if we could count on personal responsibility - in theory we should be able to go out and bike/hike without interacting with any people and avoid total imprisonment that way. But it doesn't look like that's working, people are still gathering and socializing quite a lot. Most people are just not aware of the urgency and don't fear for their own health, thereby discounting other people's health. Even this lack of personal fear is probably unjustified by now - by the time they'll get sick the hospital system will be overwhelmed.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    > Most people are just not aware of the urgency and don't fear for their own health, thereby discounting other people's health. Even this lack of personal fear is probably unjustified by now - by the time they'll get sick the hospital system will be overwhelmed. This is really problematic. It looks like outliers know-it-all could be ruining it for the rest of us. I wonder if governments could use a heavy hammer and broadcast 24/24 (or at random) footages from Italian hospitals.
rapeisputinlies 7y ago
You know what South Korea and Singapore did in December? They took photos of students in lectures, and used that for contact tracing. Also they keep track of where people enter and exit public transportation by tapping in and out of the gateways. They used that information in order to figure out where people have been and what train they have taken in order to disinfect and map people. Basically, only countries like South Korea, China and Singapore had a chance. The latter country even started producing their own n95 masks and distributed to their population with disinfectant while Swedish government propaganda machinery started saying "masks" are useless, very much like that did in the US. Til this day, you can't get n95 masks in Sweden. Basically only "police states" had chances to keep their numbers from growing. In the early days, Sweden would test every day and have 30% to 100% growth in new cases every day until they decided to re-evaluate how to test, now they got 8% and 6% new cases every week. Obviously they're full of shit about testing, but they really never had any chance. Honestly, only countries with where the police can actually solve crimes (assault, burglary, robbery) had a chance. Sweden can't handle the amount of crimes it has, cops shut down cases on a daily basis with the excuse "it happens all the time" - heard it twice ourselves. In a country where they can't handle weekly bombings and shootings, they really had no chance with a disease that lacks central leadership and lives off the land. How the hell would they? There is a distinct resolve and grit that is inherently lacking amongst their people. It's hard work, takes a lot of effort and offers very little reward. So it makes sense that the public sector in Sweden, or most of Europe for that matter has no ability to actually deal with this. Also, good luck if you need health care in Sweden, even before Covid, you had to wait a few months, two in my case, to actually seeing a doctor who will pretend to help you. But what choice do you have, you had already paid for that doctor... tsk tsk. Things are different in Asia where "giving up" wouldn't look good, but it's acceptable in Sweden. Anything else is Russian propaganda... obviously.

zekrioca 7y ago

Herd immunity in Sweden is the strategy since day 1. Same as Netherlands.

samvher 7y ago
That's true and I think it's irresponsible. Even if the spread would be perfectly controlled and kept so that the number of patients in ICU stay below capacity, I don't think we can manage to get 60% of the population infected in 12 months because we would be moving at a slower rate. And it would be very surprising if the spread can be perfectly controlled. This article also makes some very good arguments for why it's not the right strategy: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...
- zekrioca 7y ago
  Thanks for article. It really seems the strategy behind Sweden’s decision is to allow old people to get infected to they can use the health care system before it floods. As you said, one cannot really control how the spread among 60% of population goes, for this amount of time. This will cost lives, specially of old ones.
rapeisputinlies 7y ago
They haven't gotten out and outright said it, but you are correct since every action or particular lack of points to it. I think the saw the bad PR UK got, and decided it's better to keep silent about it. Shady, but smart. They have to massage that Sweden image any way they can.
- zekrioca 7y ago
  Yes, this is just based on actions/decisions. It is even trickier since population seems to have accepted it very well. Life in Stockholm and other cities seems rather normal when compared to other countries. Bars, pubs, and elementary schools are still opened. Yesterday prime minister gave a national speech. He didn’t say anything new, except “more lives of loved ones might be lost, and we should prepare and take responsibility to avoid that”. Nothing really new.