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> or Sweden Please note that the reporting on Sweden from outside Sweden is completely bananas. The idea of how Sweden is handling the pandemic, alongside cher

> or Sweden Please note that the reporting on Sweden from outside Sweden is completely bananas. The idea of how Sweden is handling the pandemic, alongside cherry-picked data, is being used to argue for whatever lockdown theory people seem to have. The facts though are that Sweden is not an outlier in any way shape or form. Compared to other European countries, Sweden is boringly in the middle of the pack, and showing the same trajectories as every other country. Swedes are working from home, isolating themselves, going out less, traveling less, staying home from school, closing non-essential businesses, and washing their hands just like everyone else.

aaron_m04 7y ago
OK that's good to know. Is their government handling it any differently than other countries? Or has it in the past?
- anewguy9000 7y ago
  absolutley: public schools remain open for example. rather than enforce mandatory rules the government is encouraging personal responsibility. wfh is at 50% as is transit usage. source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/sweden-coronavirus-death-toll-reaches-1000 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/sweden-coronav...
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    > public schools remain open for example. Universities and high schools have been closed for almost a month now, that's pretty much the same timeline as most other countries. Elementary schools are not closed, but they're very empty, most kids are staying home. The reasoning behind this is that elementary schools function as babysitters, and this frees up adults in essential occupations so that they can go to work normally, instead of having to stay at home with their kids. There's also starting to appear evidence that kids might not be a serious disease vector, contrary to pretty much everyone's gut feeling. And this is what I mean by the reporting being bananas. It's very easy to look at the fact that "schools are open" and assume it's business as usual in Sweden. It absolutely isn't. It's also pretty funny that you linked an article from The Guardian, which breathlessly exclaims that Sweden has a death rate that's twice that of Denmark. Yeah, ok, but the death rate in the UK is twice that of Sweden. Pot meet kettle. If Sweden is doing twice as good as the UK, who the fuck are people in the UK to criticize Sweden's actions? It's as if a Swedish newspaper would criticize Denmark for having twice the death rate of Finland. It's absurd. The reporting is bananas. It's agenda-driven, not fact-driven.
    - lbeltrame 7y ago
      > There's also starting to appear evidence that kids might not be a serious disease vector, contrary to pretty much everyone's gut feeling. This is intriguing. Any source where I can dig up further?
      - henrikschroder 7y ago
        https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/apr/school-closures-play-marginal-role-containing-covid-19-are-key-restarting-society https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/apr/school-closures-play-mar... "Professor Russell Viner (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health) said, "We know from previous studies that school closures are likely to have the greatest effect if the virus has low transmissibility and attack rates are higher in children. This is the opposite of COVID-19.""
        lbeltrame 7y ago
        Thanks a lot. The article had also a link to the paper, which I read. It's for sure interesting that with SARS the results were inconsistent, as opposed to flu pandemics.
danieltillett 7y ago
Not compared to Norway. How did Norway have more cases a month ago and now Sweden has double and 10x as many deaths.
- mardifoufs 7y ago
  Belgium and Sweden have had a similar timeline yet Belgium has a much higher number of deaths/capita. Same could be said for a lot of countries that have had much more fatalities. Look at the higher fatality rates in Quebec too, even though the province set in place really strict lockdowns and has had it's first deaths much later than Sweden. My point here is that Sweden is well in the middle of the pack. So what gives? Shouldn't Sweden be a complete outlier with a much higher number of fatal cases? It compares negatively to Norway, sure but it has much better results than a lot more similar countries too. How is that possible? We are absolutely starting to move the goalposts if we went from predicting spanish flu mortality rates without a lockdown to a slightly higher death count per capita compared to a few neighbors but a much better one compared to a lot more. Also, I don't know why people assume Sweden simply has had the virus later than everyone else and that's why they haven't been hit as hard yet. There's no basis for that, it's not like travel routes are slow and it still takes weeks to spread a disease. There's no reason to assume that when Belgium or Germany got the virus, Sweden was just magically spared for a few more weeks. We should've been seeing an impossible to miss outlier numbers from Sweden by now and the complete opposite is happening .
  - danieltillett 7y ago
    There are so many confounding factors that it is very hard to say. Sweden does look like an outlier compared to the other Scandinavian countries. Testing criteria between countries are so different that it is very hard to make any comparison. About the only number I trust is all cause deaths and even that is laggy.
  - cycomanic 7y ago
    Actually compared to many other countries Sweden did have community spread significantly later (10 days or so if I remember correctly). Also Sweden has large variations within the country, Stockholm was really a week or so ahead of everyone else
kaitai 7y ago
In some sense, you're right -- Swedes are doing lots of things differently these days, and the reporting I've seen is broadly terrible and used to support various contentions. I'm most interested in the numbers. Sweden has twice the population and ~20 times the fatalities of Finland, its next-door neighbor. I'll be watching carefully to see how things play out.

aaron_m04 7y ago

OK that's good to know. Is their government handling it any differently than other countries? Or has it in the past?

anewguy9000 7y ago
absolutley: public schools remain open for example. rather than enforce mandatory rules the government is encouraging personal responsibility. wfh is at 50% as is transit usage. source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/sweden-coronavirus-death-toll-reaches-1000 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/sweden-coronav...
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  > public schools remain open for example. Universities and high schools have been closed for almost a month now, that's pretty much the same timeline as most other countries. Elementary schools are not closed, but they're very empty, most kids are staying home. The reasoning behind this is that elementary schools function as babysitters, and this frees up adults in essential occupations so that they can go to work normally, instead of having to stay at home with their kids. There's also starting to appear evidence that kids might not be a serious disease vector, contrary to pretty much everyone's gut feeling. And this is what I mean by the reporting being bananas. It's very easy to look at the fact that "schools are open" and assume it's business as usual in Sweden. It absolutely isn't. It's also pretty funny that you linked an article from The Guardian, which breathlessly exclaims that Sweden has a death rate that's twice that of Denmark. Yeah, ok, but the death rate in the UK is twice that of Sweden. Pot meet kettle. If Sweden is doing twice as good as the UK, who the fuck are people in the UK to criticize Sweden's actions? It's as if a Swedish newspaper would criticize Denmark for having twice the death rate of Finland. It's absurd. The reporting is bananas. It's agenda-driven, not fact-driven.
  - lbeltrame 7y ago
    > There's also starting to appear evidence that kids might not be a serious disease vector, contrary to pretty much everyone's gut feeling. This is intriguing. Any source where I can dig up further?
    - henrikschroder 7y ago
      https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/apr/school-closures-play-marginal-role-containing-covid-19-are-key-restarting-society https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/apr/school-closures-play-mar... "Professor Russell Viner (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health) said, "We know from previous studies that school closures are likely to have the greatest effect if the virus has low transmissibility and attack rates are higher in children. This is the opposite of COVID-19.""
      - lbeltrame 7y ago
        Thanks a lot. The article had also a link to the paper, which I read. It's for sure interesting that with SARS the results were inconsistent, as opposed to flu pandemics.

danieltillett 7y ago

Not compared to Norway. How did Norway have more cases a month ago and now Sweden has double and 10x as many deaths.

mardifoufs 7y ago
Belgium and Sweden have had a similar timeline yet Belgium has a much higher number of deaths/capita. Same could be said for a lot of countries that have had much more fatalities. Look at the higher fatality rates in Quebec too, even though the province set in place really strict lockdowns and has had it's first deaths much later than Sweden. My point here is that Sweden is well in the middle of the pack. So what gives? Shouldn't Sweden be a complete outlier with a much higher number of fatal cases? It compares negatively to Norway, sure but it has much better results than a lot more similar countries too. How is that possible? We are absolutely starting to move the goalposts if we went from predicting spanish flu mortality rates without a lockdown to a slightly higher death count per capita compared to a few neighbors but a much better one compared to a lot more. Also, I don't know why people assume Sweden simply has had the virus later than everyone else and that's why they haven't been hit as hard yet. There's no basis for that, it's not like travel routes are slow and it still takes weeks to spread a disease. There's no reason to assume that when Belgium or Germany got the virus, Sweden was just magically spared for a few more weeks. We should've been seeing an impossible to miss outlier numbers from Sweden by now and the complete opposite is happening .
- danieltillett 7y ago
  There are so many confounding factors that it is very hard to say. Sweden does look like an outlier compared to the other Scandinavian countries. Testing criteria between countries are so different that it is very hard to make any comparison. About the only number I trust is all cause deaths and even that is laggy.
- cycomanic 7y ago
  Actually compared to many other countries Sweden did have community spread significantly later (10 days or so if I remember correctly). Also Sweden has large variations within the country, Stockholm was really a week or so ahead of everyone else

kaitai 7y ago

In some sense, you're right -- Swedes are doing lots of things differently these days, and the reporting I've seen is broadly terrible and used to support various contentions. I'm most interested in the numbers. Sweden has twice the population and ~20 times the fatalities of Finland, its next-door neighbor. I'll be watching carefully to see how things play out.