4 ms·

Sweden is quite different from other countries, that explains the slow spread of the virus. Many companies allow employees to stay home for minor flu symptoms

Sweden is quite different from other countries, that explains the slow spread of the virus. Many companies allow employees to stay home for minor flu symptoms of the employee or their children. You will be fired in countries like Spain if you remained home so often. (update: I mean that you can do this always, not just now because the new virus) Stockholm, the "big" city, has 2.5 million habitants in its extended metropolitan area. So, not so big. Swedish are not in love of big gatherings. Cultural behaviour than is the opposite than that of Italy or Spain. All my friends at companies like Electronic Arts, Epic, King, Klarna... are already working from home. Stockholm is a technological hub. Office work has been moved home fast and eficciently thank to the tradition of “VAB'ing”. In any given meeting some one is working from home, anyway. The subway is emptier than ever. Many companies have shut down offices and operations continue from home. But, that is something that you do not read in the news. The virus growth is exponential, we may not need complete isolation just yet. Probably it is just a matter of time. So, getting to conclusions right now is premature.

Symbiote 7y ago
Denmark is roughly the same, culturally and regarding worker's rights, yet had a very strong response from around 12 March.
- hedgew 7y ago
  Finland and Norway have also had much stronger responses than Sweden.
  - EmilStenstrom 7y ago
    What does "strong" mean in this case? The health care department issues statements in Norway that politicians were not acting on their recommendations, but rather that they were making "political decisions". I guess they want their population to look at them as strong leaders. We should not confuse that kind of strong, with measures that elicit a strong decline in cases. We only need the latter right now.
    - scandinavegan 7y ago
      Same thing with Denmark. Their Ministry of Health said that closing the borders was a political decision and not based on public health. Sweden has stayed consistent with what experts have been saying. There's no use in closing the borders when the virus is already in the country. Same thing with outlawing movement in and out of Stockholm. There's already a very clear recommendation and instruction to avoid travel within the country to avoid spreading the virus. There's no real way of enforcing a full quarantine unless you divert police officers who could be doing other things, or the military which we are reluctant to do (see Ådalen 1931, which is a reason why you don't want armed military to interact with citizens).
      - Dahoon 7y ago
        >Sweden has stayed consistent with what experts have been saying Letting up to 499 people gather freely is not what experts will tell you is the way to stop this, so clearly they have not. If anything Sweden is among those that have listened least to medical experts. Norway and Denmark is following the advice much closer, closing borders or not.
        otippat 7y ago
        The maximum number of invidivuals allowed in public gatherings has been lowered to 50, after being requested to do so by the Swedish public health agency.
  - huxflux 7y ago
    The troll is out.
- Hokusai 7y ago
  > Denmark is roughly the same culturally and regarding worker's rights So, all the Swedish jokes about Denmark are wrong? ;) > yet had a very strong response from around 12 March. I think that Sweden is in the wrong not taking it more seriously. My point is that it is going to take some time until numbers show the mistake. I expect the initial curve to be less pronounced than in Mediterranean countries. Once reached a critical point, that difference does not matter, thou. To double the number of cases each three days or two days, even being a big difference, will still overflow hospital capacity.
- duttish 7y ago
  I'm really curious how their "deep freeze the whole economy for three month"-experiment will go. Looking forward to the analysis in a year or something when we have more information. I have no clue whether they're doing the right thing. Could very well be they're buying 3 months respite for everyone. 3 months feels like a year or two now when things are moving so quickly.
xiphias2 7y ago
This would be probably enough if people would be wearing masks on the street, have temperature checks everywhere and increase hygene significantly generally to pair the remote work culture with everything that can decrease the infection rate to under 1. I don't know what the situation is there (hopefully people accept other people better), but in Hungary I have heared of my friends being mask shamed multiple times: people speak badly of them because they wear masks when they go shopping. In Taiwan it's the opposite: people who don't wear masks (at least a home made one) are the ones looked down upon, as they are infecting other people.
asjw 7y ago
> Many companies allow employees to stay home for minor flu symptoms of the employee or their children. You will be fired in countries like Spain if you remained home so often. (update: I mean that you can do this always, not just now because the new virus) That doesn't explain the difference In Italy as employee I can't stay home as long as 18 continuous months if I'm I'll and I can't be fired after that, they just start cutting my salary We have now a third of deaths in the world It isn't explained by intensive care either Probably in Sweden people live already far from each other and population density is low, while also being a bit younger on the average
- scandinavegan 7y ago
  There are a bunch of things that work in Sweden's favor in this case. Looking at Stockholm, hardest hit in Sweden, numbers from 2014 said that 45% of the people had moved there from elsewhere, and since then more and more people have moved here. For people moving within Sweden, that usually means leaving their parents in their hometown, which makes it very easy to avoid having contact with them as soon as everyone realized how serious this is. Another factor is that in Sweden there's always been a distance between the older generation and the younger. Since preschools and after-school care is inexpensively available to everyone, you don't need to rely on grandparents watching their grandchildren. People who live in Stockholm and have the grandparents here may arrange for them to pick up the kids a couple of days a week, but as I said above, a lot of people don't even have the grandparents in Stockholm. It's been reported as a problem for a long time that a lot of old people live alone in Sweden and lack social contacts. In this specific case that may actually be a good thing! People usually live in households with two parents and one or two children, or alone in single households. The areas that have been hardest hit in Stockholm have been poorer suburbs with a high amount of immigrants, and it's a lot more common in these areas to live many generations in the same small apartment. Unfortunately, this means that the virus is easily transmitted from the children to the grandparents. Outside of the largest cities, it's very common to live in a house, which makes it easy to keep your distance to the neighbors. Swedes have been accused for a long time of being socially distant already. A Swedish wedding will never compare in number of guests with a Turkish or Indian wedding. There's an old joke that if you leave your apartment and hear someone else in the stairs leaving theirs at the same time, you wait a while so you don't have to talk to them. People make an effort to not meet people, in contrast with socially warmer cultures. Even before the virus, people would fill subway cars in Stockholm by using one of four seats for themselves, and you'd stick out if you shared a four-seat group with someone if there was an empty group of four seats available. I talked to international colleagues before all this started, and they were surprised that no one wanted to do small talk in the subway. They came from cultures where it was expected that you sit down next to the only other person in the subway car and started talking to them, while in Sweden that would make you seem like a drunk or a crazy person. The social distance is built in. Also, no tradition of kissing on the cheek. Hugs are common between friends, and handshakes when you meet new people, but no kissing. I have a feeling this would be more common in Italy and Spain, as well as multi-generational gatherings. All that said, it's way too early to say that everything is going to be fine in Sweden. I hope it is, but we're still in the unknown part of this. We still have a lot of people who live in cramped conditions in certain areas, and we had issues with the bus companies using fewer buses in Stockholm when all this started which led to overcrowding.
HappyDreamer 7y ago
> Swedish are not in love of big gatherings What? I think there used to be lots of big gatherings. Dance places with hundred(s) of people, crowded restaurants indoors and outdoors, picnic parks and beaches filled with people (in the summers), running groups with sometimes 30 sometimes 100 people. (I'm in Stockholm b.t.w.)
- Jommi 7y ago
  This does not dispute what the OP said. If you've lived in Sweden for the majority of your live you can't really realize the gathering/social culture that some other societ s might have. E.g. Italy common to spend lots of time with extended family
SJetKaran 7y ago
While I agree with you partly, many of these arguments sound like some feeling of Swedish exceptionalism to me. As someone living and working in Sweden, I hope we are doing the right thing. Your last point of "getting to conclusions right now is premature" is on point.

Symbiote 7y ago

Denmark is roughly the same, culturally and regarding worker's rights, yet had a very strong response from around 12 March.

hedgew 7y ago
Finland and Norway have also had much stronger responses than Sweden.
- EmilStenstrom 7y ago
  What does "strong" mean in this case? The health care department issues statements in Norway that politicians were not acting on their recommendations, but rather that they were making "political decisions". I guess they want their population to look at them as strong leaders. We should not confuse that kind of strong, with measures that elicit a strong decline in cases. We only need the latter right now.
  - scandinavegan 7y ago
    Same thing with Denmark. Their Ministry of Health said that closing the borders was a political decision and not based on public health. Sweden has stayed consistent with what experts have been saying. There's no use in closing the borders when the virus is already in the country. Same thing with outlawing movement in and out of Stockholm. There's already a very clear recommendation and instruction to avoid travel within the country to avoid spreading the virus. There's no real way of enforcing a full quarantine unless you divert police officers who could be doing other things, or the military which we are reluctant to do (see Ådalen 1931, which is a reason why you don't want armed military to interact with citizens).
    - Dahoon 7y ago
      >Sweden has stayed consistent with what experts have been saying Letting up to 499 people gather freely is not what experts will tell you is the way to stop this, so clearly they have not. If anything Sweden is among those that have listened least to medical experts. Norway and Denmark is following the advice much closer, closing borders or not.
      - otippat 7y ago
        The maximum number of invidivuals allowed in public gatherings has been lowered to 50, after being requested to do so by the Swedish public health agency.
- huxflux 7y ago
  The troll is out.
Hokusai 7y ago
> Denmark is roughly the same culturally and regarding worker's rights So, all the Swedish jokes about Denmark are wrong? ;) > yet had a very strong response from around 12 March. I think that Sweden is in the wrong not taking it more seriously. My point is that it is going to take some time until numbers show the mistake. I expect the initial curve to be less pronounced than in Mediterranean countries. Once reached a critical point, that difference does not matter, thou. To double the number of cases each three days or two days, even being a big difference, will still overflow hospital capacity.
duttish 7y ago
I'm really curious how their "deep freeze the whole economy for three month"-experiment will go. Looking forward to the analysis in a year or something when we have more information. I have no clue whether they're doing the right thing. Could very well be they're buying 3 months respite for everyone. 3 months feels like a year or two now when things are moving so quickly.

xiphias2 7y ago

This would be probably enough if people would be wearing masks on the street, have temperature checks everywhere and increase hygene significantly generally to pair the remote work culture with everything that can decrease the infection rate to under 1. I don't know what the situation is there (hopefully people accept other people better), but in Hungary I have heared of my friends being mask shamed multiple times: people speak badly of them because they wear masks when they go shopping. In Taiwan it's the opposite: people who don't wear masks (at least a home made one) are the ones looked down upon, as they are infecting other people.

asjw 7y ago

> Many companies allow employees to stay home for minor flu symptoms of the employee or their children. You will be fired in countries like Spain if you remained home so often. (update: I mean that you can do this always, not just now because the new virus) That doesn't explain the difference In Italy as employee I can't stay home as long as 18 continuous months if I'm I'll and I can't be fired after that, they just start cutting my salary We have now a third of deaths in the world It isn't explained by intensive care either Probably in Sweden people live already far from each other and population density is low, while also being a bit younger on the average

scandinavegan 7y ago
There are a bunch of things that work in Sweden's favor in this case. Looking at Stockholm, hardest hit in Sweden, numbers from 2014 said that 45% of the people had moved there from elsewhere, and since then more and more people have moved here. For people moving within Sweden, that usually means leaving their parents in their hometown, which makes it very easy to avoid having contact with them as soon as everyone realized how serious this is. Another factor is that in Sweden there's always been a distance between the older generation and the younger. Since preschools and after-school care is inexpensively available to everyone, you don't need to rely on grandparents watching their grandchildren. People who live in Stockholm and have the grandparents here may arrange for them to pick up the kids a couple of days a week, but as I said above, a lot of people don't even have the grandparents in Stockholm. It's been reported as a problem for a long time that a lot of old people live alone in Sweden and lack social contacts. In this specific case that may actually be a good thing! People usually live in households with two parents and one or two children, or alone in single households. The areas that have been hardest hit in Stockholm have been poorer suburbs with a high amount of immigrants, and it's a lot more common in these areas to live many generations in the same small apartment. Unfortunately, this means that the virus is easily transmitted from the children to the grandparents. Outside of the largest cities, it's very common to live in a house, which makes it easy to keep your distance to the neighbors. Swedes have been accused for a long time of being socially distant already. A Swedish wedding will never compare in number of guests with a Turkish or Indian wedding. There's an old joke that if you leave your apartment and hear someone else in the stairs leaving theirs at the same time, you wait a while so you don't have to talk to them. People make an effort to not meet people, in contrast with socially warmer cultures. Even before the virus, people would fill subway cars in Stockholm by using one of four seats for themselves, and you'd stick out if you shared a four-seat group with someone if there was an empty group of four seats available. I talked to international colleagues before all this started, and they were surprised that no one wanted to do small talk in the subway. They came from cultures where it was expected that you sit down next to the only other person in the subway car and started talking to them, while in Sweden that would make you seem like a drunk or a crazy person. The social distance is built in. Also, no tradition of kissing on the cheek. Hugs are common between friends, and handshakes when you meet new people, but no kissing. I have a feeling this would be more common in Italy and Spain, as well as multi-generational gatherings. All that said, it's way too early to say that everything is going to be fine in Sweden. I hope it is, but we're still in the unknown part of this. We still have a lot of people who live in cramped conditions in certain areas, and we had issues with the bus companies using fewer buses in Stockholm when all this started which led to overcrowding.

HappyDreamer 7y ago

> Swedish are not in love of big gatherings What? I think there used to be lots of big gatherings. Dance places with hundred(s) of people, crowded restaurants indoors and outdoors, picnic parks and beaches filled with people (in the summers), running groups with sometimes 30 sometimes 100 people. (I'm in Stockholm b.t.w.)

Jommi 7y ago
This does not dispute what the OP said. If you've lived in Sweden for the majority of your live you can't really realize the gathering/social culture that some other societ s might have. E.g. Italy common to spend lots of time with extended family

SJetKaran 7y ago

While I agree with you partly, many of these arguments sound like some feeling of Swedish exceptionalism to me. As someone living and working in Sweden, I hope we are doing the right thing. Your last point of "getting to conclusions right now is premature" is on point.