29 ms·

Swedish epidemiology boss says questioned Covid-19 strategy seems to be working

92 points by mrfusion 6y ago

wrkronmiller 6y ago
I wish this article went into more detail about the relative death rates. The fact that Sweden’s death rate “far outstripped that of other nordic” countries (all else being equal) would tend to indicate the Swedish strategy failed, no? Are there important confounding variables that would explain the higher death rate?
- lbeltrame 6y ago
  I know for sure that a lot of the deaths are from nursing care homes (but I don't know in how large percentage), something seen also elsewhere in the world.
  - Ovah 6y ago
    47% of all deaths are from nursing homes (July 8th). https://www.svd.se/fortsatt-stor-andel-doda-pa-svenska-aldreboenden https://www.svd.se/fortsatt-stor-andel-doda-pa-svenska-aldre...
    - johnofthesea 6y ago
      For Norway that number is 58% according this page: https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/?utm_source=corona-widget&utm_term=d7#norway https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/?utm_source=corona-wid...
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Depends on whether a few more deaths now is better than whatever the alternatives are / were with regard to death rate and economic damage, no?
- matz1 6y ago
  The death rate maybe higher but they are in decline right now and that without lockdown, I would say the strategy succeed.
  - johnnyo 6y ago
    How so? If they achieved the same results as others on roughly the same timeline, yet with more deaths, how is that a successful strategy?
    - matz1 6y ago
      Because other countries implement lockdown. Lockdowns is not without cost.
    - Kiro 6y ago
      We don't know the results yet. Numbers are going up in countries that are lifting their lockdown.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      Lockdown has its own issues, economic and psychology / mental health. Plus, some types of death are an economic boon because they: a) cause economic churn and the associated fees, charges, and taxes b) free up resources that were tied up with non-producers
      - fanatic2pope 6y ago
        "non-producer"? Oh, you mean human being.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    They locked down, just not formally. They saw the same economic damage their neighbors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...
    - 6y ago
- Kiro 6y ago
  At its peak Sweden had over 100 daily deaths. Yesterday it was 7 and no longer any excess mortality.
  - KingOfCoders 6y ago
    For some more context to the numbers Germany had at it's peak ~300 deaths a day, it had 5 deaths on the 20th (83M people).
  - madspindel 6y ago
    21 new deaths today: "21 nya dödsfall med bekräftad covid-19 har inrapporterats det senaste dygnet, enligt Folkhälsomyndighetens senaste uppdatering."
    - nickexyz 6y ago
      21 new deaths with covid-19 reported the last 24 hours. The deaths are not necessarily from today. Edit: For those interested in the stats (English): https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/the-spread-of-the-coronavirus/ https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/the-spread-of-the-corona...
- ginko 6y ago
  Yes, here's a Norwegian site comparing the different Nordic countries per capita[1]. Other than Iceland being an outlier due to it being tiny, Sweden outstrips all other countries on pretty much any measure by a wide margin. It seems like the number of patients under intensive care is slowly falling for Sweden but they're not anywhere close to where the other Nordics were months ago. [1] https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/norden/ https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/norden/
  - glofish 6y ago
    You can't quite compare countries like that and claim that Sweden would have had the same rate as the other. The world is full of examples where neighboring countries have radically different caseloads. I don't know enough to meaningfully discuss the details but I suspect you can't just claim Norway is the same as Sweden. What is most remarkable is the trajectory the epidemic took within Sweden. No comparison is necessary to another country. That they have achieved a substantial reduction of their caseload without any of the invasive measures. Nobody would have ever believed that to be possible! Other countries should learn from Sweden rather than being in denial - it demonstrates that other measures can be just as effective, and we need to understand how that was possible and whether the measures are transferable.
    - jeromegv 6y ago
      But if their economy did worse than their neighbour, what was the point of avoiding invasive measures? They have more deaths, more cases, and worse economic output, what exactly is successful here?
      - hkeide 6y ago
        You should visit Scandinavia sometime. The Swedish and Norwegian economies cannot be compared easily.
      - glofish 6y ago
        because it simply not true, their economy did not do worse their people are happier and pretty much looks like they would agree to do it again the same way that is the real test of measures, would you do the exact same thing again? which country would want to take the same type of measures once more
- s9w 6y ago
  European (all-cause) mortality is conveniently reported on https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
  - glofish 6y ago
    Notably there are substantial excess in 2018 or 2019 during the same weeks. Not quite sure what to make of that. If you were subtracting 2020 from 2018 then it looks like you would end up with 80 thousand fewer deaths in the first 10 weeks of 2020. What is that about.
    - s9w 6y ago
      It's almost as if this isn't nearly as bad as people scream
- gridlockd 6y ago
  The comparison with other "nordic" countries seems arbitrary. If we go by latitude, why is there such a huge variance in death rates between Belgium, France, Netherlands and Germany? The biggest factor is probably outbreaks in retirement homes. I think you can make the argument that the strategy failed to protect these elderly people, but it might also be the conditions in these facilities that are to blame.
  - l33tman 6y ago
    Yes, in Sweden the problem was the nursing homes and they were run (and still are run) badly. The other measures that could have been done (within the covid response itself) would probably not have helped this, goes the argument (but certainly a major overhaul of how the nursing homes are staffed and run would have helped - that would never have been possible in the short timeframe though).
- jordanbeiber 6y ago
  In Sweden immigrants from Iraq, Syria, Somalia and other countries form a large part of deaths and ICU patients. It will be interesting to see why this is eventually. There’s language barriers, people living in close quarters and perhaps the vitamin D thing as well? Link to article in swedish MD magazine (in Swedish): https://lakartidningen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2020/04/utlandsfodda-ar-overrepresenterade-bland-de-smittade/ https://lakartidningen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2020/04/utlandsfo...
  - hedora 6y ago
    Poorer populations are dying of COVID at higher rates throughout the world. In the US, at least, the lockdown is mostly protecting the rich. I wonder if Sweden’s approach is more economically and racially equitable than full lockdowns. I’d love to see a study of this that’s backed by quality data.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      People always jumps to “it must be poverty!” when the Vitamin D thing comes up. There is a strong correlation between Vitamin D levels and COVID-19 outcome, regardless of skin color. Independently, there is a strong correlation between having low Vitamin D levels and living in an environment to which dark skin is not adapted to. That alone should be enough to raise some caution, there is no need to wait for better data because Vitamin D supplementation is in order either way. Unfortunately, the media is mostly silent on this, likely because it wants yet another social justice narrative instead.
      - vinay427 6y ago
        > Independently, there is a strong correlation between having low Vitamin D levels and living in an environment to which dark skin is not adapted to. Honest question: what skin color is actually adapted to western Europe or much of North America? Virtually everyone I know with a lighter skin tone needs to apply sunscreen for any outdoor activity to avoid rapid sunburns, and virtually everyone I know with a darker skin tone (jokingly or not) suspects they have a Vitamin D deficiency.
- XyC0 6y ago
  On twitter Jacob explained it in more detail: https://twitter.com/JacobGudiol/status/1283308801043636231?s=09 https://twitter.com/JacobGudiol/status/1283308801043636231?s... The death numbers is not counted the same way in Sweden and Norway, in Sweden they count every one that had covid-19 even if they died of something else after they recovered from corvid-19, they do not count it that way in Norway.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    This theory can be dismissed by looking at excess death counts. A very clear spike in overall, country-wide deaths - of all kinds - can be seen in Sweden that is not seen in Norway. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav... Screenshots of the current charting, for posterity: https://imgur.com/a/1DC95no https://imgur.com/a/1DC95no
    - refurb 6y ago
      But Sweden has roughly double the population of Finland and Norway, so Sweden (1000 weekly deaths) is comparable to Finland (500 weekly deaths) and not that far off of Norway (200 weekly deaths).
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        Irrelevant. It's how far the spikes go above normal per-capita that matters, which is why each chart has a different Y axis that fits that particular country. The pictured charts clearly show Sweden and the US seeing substantially more deaths than normal, while Finland and Norway stayed at roughly their normal rates.
      - zosima 6y ago
        The countries have significantly different lifespans and normal mortality, because of health care systems, age distribution, culture, genes etc. It doesn't really give anything sensible when you compare unadjusted total mortality per capita across countries.
  - 6y ago
- gpm 6y ago
  It's too early to say the Swedish strategy failed, because the Swedish strategy was "do badly at the start to do better later", and "later" isn't finished yet. On the flip side it would be possible to say it succeeded, if it did so much better that they are already better off than the rest of the world, but I don't think we're really there yet either (and the epidemiologists point is really just that there are signs that they might be there in the future).
  - basch 6y ago
    Right. The denominator in rate is per "unit of time" and we dont know the period. The two ways you could compare them are equal points on a bell curve, or equal time periods. What you can't do is compare two instantaneous speeds and then argue that one car has a faster average speed.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    > It's too early to say the Swedish strategy failed, because the Swedish strategy was "do badly at the start to do better later", and "later" isn't finished yet. So, at this moment we are only celebrating that Sweden succeeded at the "do badly at the start" part?
    - gpm 6y ago
      Of course not, the article is rather celebrating the signs that the "do better overall" part of the plan will work out. I think that celebration is a bit premature, from your reaction I assume you do to, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real thing.
      - Viliam1234 6y ago
        To me it seems that Sweden's strategy has been celebrated since the first day, and the celebrations never stopped. At this moment I wonder what would it actually take to make the celebrations stop.
- ArkVark 6y ago
  Lockdown kills too. In Australia there were about 700 excess deaths from January to April 2020 due to people being unwilling or unable to access normal medical care: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/07/covid-19-drives-up-australias-mortality-rate/ https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/07/covid-19-drives-up-...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jug 6y ago
  Yeah, Sweden has a remarkably high death rate due to very old populations like 80+ or 85+. I mean, really high, it's been pretty terrible. So would probably be quite different and more "normal" numbers if it hadn't hit our nursing homes like it did. Death rate is very low in comparison if you instead look at figures for age 70 and lower. This problem has also been acknowledged as probably the greatest problem and a failure during the coronavirus crisis by Swedish epidemiologists despite "Protect the elderly!" being an early, daily mantra. It's been asked why Sweden then had this problem and not our Nordic friends. Some answers might be understaffing or underestimated equipment needs. When the crisis hit them, there was already a global shortage of disinfectants etc. It's also been asked how the virus entered the nursing homes to begin with. A too liberal stance for visitors a bit too long? Or brought in by staff using too crowded public transports? Many questions and the investigations are still ongoing. Compounding the death rate problem in Sweden was probably also a lack of centralized detail management and confusing directives that even led to palliative care for elderly in nursing homes not even being covid-19 victims. In Sweden, nursing homes work quite independently from each other, and even hospitals are strongly regionally controlled rather than directly state controlled even in a crisis like this. (there are some exceptions though, in these catastrophies, staff can be flewn across the country to help man understaffed hospitals etc) tl;dr I think nursing home infections are the single outstanding factor for the abnormal Swedish death rates. If they are infected, they already have particularly weak immune systems that can often not even begin to fight this beast off. Hell, they probably often already have respiratory diseases and/or use immunosuppressants.
  - zosima 6y ago
    As far as I know the age distribution of covid-19 related deaths have been exactly the same in Sweden as other countries (+/- some standard deviation) Do you have data to demonstrate that the age distribution is different?
    - hedora 6y ago
      Many other countries (especially the US) also screwed up their handling of old folks homes. Also, I don’t know what data you are citing, but note that many data sets are normalized by number of estimated or confirmed of cases, not by total population size.
- nprz 6y ago
  I believe one of the Swedish epidemiologists who helped engineer Sweden's COVID response said not to compare the death rates today, but a year from today and see how they compare then.
- bluGill 6y ago
  We don't know. If there is no vaccine ever, and no long term immunity from getting it, then it doesn't matter what you do every country will eventually be infected and have the same death rate. Sweden just happens to be there first but everyone will get there. Of course my assumptions are big. If there is a vaccine then it is personally worth a lock down to not get it. If there is herd immunity I want everyone else to get it while I personally lock down.
- m0llusk 6y ago
  This is not really true. For one thing both cases and deaths have been strongly clustered so that population level rates are not so interesting. What matters is whether your ancestors adapted to life in northern latitudes, what your weight, insulin resistance, and vitamin D levels are, and how densely urbanized your environment is. Another factor is that Sweden aggressively labeled all hospitalizations and deaths involving a COVID-19 diagnosis as being COVID-19 cases and deaths even if the patients were very old and had chronic health problems. This is a major difference between both Denmark and Finland which tended to be very cautious about labeling hospitalizations and deaths as COVID-19 related and had low testing rates as well. Looking at all cause mortality figures yields very different results.
- lsllc 6y ago
  I found it interesting that the general consensus seems to be that Sweden failed, and yet NY state was just hailed as "doing it correctly" by Dr. Fauci [0] (despite one of the very highest per-capita death rates in the world). We didn't do much better here in MA in terms of deaths, although like NY we're only seeing a very small (and importantly flat) number of cases here. Meanwhile Australia, a country that was previously hailed as having done it right and contained COVID-19 has now locked down 6.6 million people [1], closed state borders between Queensland and NSW [2] and currently seeing record numbers of infections [3]. Only time will tell which is the best strategy. [0] https://abc7ny.com/covid-19-ny-fauci-anthony-cuomo/6324584/ https://abc7ny.com/covid-19-ny-fauci-anthony-cuomo/6324584/ [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-coron... [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-shutting-border-between-two-biggest-states-as-covid-19-surges-in-melbourne-2020-07-06 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-shutting-border-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/australia-sets-record-for-coronavirus-cases-with-victoria-surge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/australia...
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > found it interesting that the general consensus seems to be that Sweden failed, and yet NY state was just hailed as "doing it correctly" by Dr. Fauci [0] You should read the sources you quote. Dr. Fauci's comments are on NY's approach on "how to successfully bring down cases of coronavirus." It says nothing about what enabled the epidemic to spread like wildfire, which is Sweden's case. Taken right from your own source: "Again, we have a problem. We need to admit it and own it. But we have got to do the things that are very clear that we need to do to turn this around, remembering we can do it," Fauci said."
    - lsllc 6y ago
      I did read it. My point was that it seems to me that Sweden and NY are at about the same place now. Sweden basically just let it happen and NY locked down and imposed significant measures. Both had significant deaths in the elderly population (although significantly more in NY than Sweden) and both now have very few new cases & deaths, so the outcome has been similar. Also interesting is that CA took very similar measures to NY with very similar timing and now are seeing the exact opposite to NY (although the media seem to be a bit quiet on that!).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sdinsn 6y ago
  > The fact that Sweden’s death rate “far outstripped that of other nordic” countries (all else being equal) would tend to indicate the Swedish strategy failed, no? Why are we only comparing Sweden to other nordic countries?
  - postcynical 6y ago
    They are very comparable. Similar geographical- and population size, density, culture, climate, lifestyle.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  They pushed their deaths forward by dealing with the pandemic with a light hand. I have a feeling two years from now the total damage will be comparable to other countries in Europe.
anoraca 6y ago
Interesting to see this after reading this article yesterday: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronaviru...
- reportgunner 6y ago
  Thanks for the link, I think the OP's article is from a month earlier.
Pfhreak 6y ago
Doesn't this person have a vested interest in saying their approach is successful? Also, the article fails to define success -- death toll, economic impact, and long term health consequences from exposure to covid are certainly all factors and the article only mentions one.
- hkeide 6y ago
  Don't other people who recommended other approaches have the same biases? Politicians and scientists alike
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Of course. When we evaluate the efficacy of a strategy, maybe we shouldn't just repeat what the author of that strategy says. This is a place where we can look at data and draw conclusions rather than just become a mouthpiece for someone.
    - hkeide 6y ago
      Yes, I agree, the debate needs to be open. I also think that being allowed to champion your own opinions and defend your past choices is a given, not least since these people whom I may disagree with may have good arguments that should be considered.
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  it says: "decline in new critical COVID-19 cases alongside slowing death rates"
- walkingolof 6y ago
  Belgium is (about) the same size in Sweden, has (almost) twice the mortality rate. Why? Nobody really now yet, and its not over either, the pandemic still very much a thing. But some clues points towards that the virus slipped into the nursing home system in both countries.
  - 6y ago
dry_soup 6y ago
All it cost was approximately 4600-5200 lives! (depending on which highly comparable neighboring country you compare it to)[1] [1]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%285646+%2F+%28population+of+sweden%29%29+-+%28611+%2F+%28population+of+denmark%29%29%29+*+%28population+of+sweden%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%285646+%2F+%28popu...
- hkeide 6y ago
  The counting methodology is not the same so it's not necessarily an apples to apples comparison
  - dry_soup 6y ago
    Sure, but we're not talking about differences within a margin of error here.
tharne 6y ago
This sounds like a desperate attempt to save face. Basically, their argument boils down to, "Well some countries did better than us and some did worse, so really our strategy wasn't so bad". The fact is a whole lot of people died in Sweden both in absolute numbers and relative to their neighbors. I know Sweden is used to being the smartest country in the room, but sometimes even the best among us make mistakes. It's ok, just own it. No one has a perfect answer to this situation. You tried something different and it didn't work out.
- Kiro 6y ago
  You speak like the pandemic is over. We don't know yet. If it turns out that countries now lifting their lockdown will catch up I think Sweden's strategy was the correct one. No lockdown, no overwhelmed hospitals, currently no excess mortality and the least impact on the economy: https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/sweden-coronavirus-economy-relaxed-lockdown-stronger-rest-of-europe-2020-7-1029415101 https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/sweden-coronavi...
- dgellow 6y ago
  > I know Sweden is used to being the smartest country in the room Sweden being "smarter" than other countries is just a common American trope. For some reasons Scandinavian countries are misrepresented all the time by US politicians and media trying to make a point.
  - tharne 6y ago
    Fair enough. The American left worships Sweden.
    - raxxorrax 6y ago
      They certainly have a strong fetish for blonde white people right now.
    - dgellow 6y ago
      From what I've seen they seem to worship a version of Sweden that doesn't match reality, though I'm not that well informed on the American left specifically.
dgut 6y ago
It's not clear how Sweden's strategy is working compared to other Nordic countries. Norway has at the time of writing 255 deaths, Sweden 5646, and 19 vs 769 new cases today.[1][2] Norwegians are more or less back to normal life. Economically, Sweden did far worse than Norway as of 25. of June, with 25% more bankruptcies than previous year - same period - vs only 6.5% increase in Norway.[3] [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/norway/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/norway/ [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ [3] https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/AdjrvM/svenskene-fikk-konkursrush-selv-om-de-ikke-stengte-landet https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/AdjrvM/svenskene-fikk-konkursru...
- glofish 6y ago
  Don't you think Sweden would have done even worse had they locked down? This argument that hey look Sweden is still doing badly is ludicrous. Of course they do badly, no country is unaffected, Sweden is more industrialized and depends more on exports than Norway. Norway has a 1 trillion dollar stock market reserve from the oil. They will do fine. The idea that locking down would have made things better in Sweden is absurd.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Don't you think Sweden would have done even worse had they locked down? I mean, we've only got all the other Nordic countries to compare against to evaluate this...
    - glofish 6y ago
      This dodges the question that I posed. Let me ask again: Are you arguing that Sweden would have done better economically if they locked down? Because that is what we are talking about.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        No, I'm arguing Sweden saw the same economic damage - because people aren't stupid, and avoided doing the things a formal lockdown would have restricted anyways - without the infection control benefits of a formally managed one. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...
tgb 6y ago
Does falling death rates really indicate widespread immunity? I'd like to see the randomized immunology tests to back that up (maybe he has them, but this article doesn't indicate it). I haven't heard of anywhere near herd-immunity levels yet.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  Yeah, this sounds like an assertion that is entirely based on wishful thinking rather than evidence. Don't get me wrong, it might be true -- but you really need to provide some evidence if you're going to make claims like that.
  - oxymoron 6y ago
    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/22/science.abc6810 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/22/scie... It’s at least plausible. The traditional definition of herd immunity assumes a homogenous population as the term has mainly been used in a vaccine strategy context. The above paper revises the definition based on a heterogenous model with the conclusion that the dynamics may be quite different in an actual epidemic.
- Reimersholme 6y ago
  According to FHM (Swedens CDC), they believe there is around 40% immunity in the Stockholm area (which has had the most spread in Sweden) currently. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9vyO8M/40-procent-av-stockholmarna-kan-ha-immunitet-mot-corona https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9vyO8M/40-procent-av-st...
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  antibodies tests shows the opposite, but antibodies do not explain immunity fully (T cells have an important role as well)
- Kiro 6y ago
  The 40% immunity number (antibodies + t-cell) is based on randomized immunology tests.
DangerousPie 6y ago
In comparison to their neighbours they have a vastly higher death rate and their economy has not done any better, despite their lighter lockdown. So unless this person is claiming that no further infections would occur if Sweden would stop all containment measures and go back to life as usual I don't see how this could be called "working" in any sense of the word.
cblconfederate 6y ago
There is absolutely no reason to make such handwavy statements. Immunity can be measured, and he is the one who can measure it. this is soo unscientific
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  I'm afraid it's not that easy to measure, antibodies are only part of the picture
mhandley 6y ago
I don't think we're going to have any idea which strategies actually worked for another year or so. If there's a large second wave this winter in other countries, and Sweden doesn't suffer from that due to immunity already acquired, then we may say Sweden's strategy worked. But if other countries that locked down early manage to keep it under control into the winter without having to lock down again (and suffer the economic, psychological and non-covid health consequences of that), and then a vaccine becomes available or other methods to reduce the death toll and health consequences, then we would conclude that the deaths so far were unnecessary and Sweden got it wrong. Most European countries are at the end of the beginning right now, but not necessarily the beginning of the end.
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  exactly, thanks for expressing this correctly and clearly. It's all speculations now. The only thing we can say is that the contagion is under control at the moment (contrary to what many predicted) but the strategy has costed a number of (probably) preventable deaths. Let's review this in 6 months or so. EDIT: rephrasing.
  - glofish 6y ago
    the problem is with your word "preventable" what you mean by "preventable" is "at a cost that we don't have a way to quantify", hence will call that cost "inconvenience" and only focus on what we have "prevented" all these measures that we take will kill many times more people than the disease. It is just the new deaths and damage are a diffuse costs whereas the benefits are concentrated and visible.
    - Viliam1234 6y ago
      > all these measures that we take will kill many times more people than the disease. I have seen this claim repeatedly, but always without numbers. I completely agree that the measures have economic consequences, and the economic consequences will cost lives. But how do you know that the number is greater than the fraction of population killed by the coronavirus? For example, the coronavirus in Sweden killed 0.05% of the population. Also, at least 0.7% got sick, with various consequences. Could you estimate what fraction of their population have other countries killed by the lockdowns? Ten percent? One percent? Zero point one percent?
dominik3 6y ago
Their strategy might be working if you look at the cases however, lockdowns still seem to be the way more efficient strategy. Sweden is still far away from herd immunity and other European countries which had lockdowns have lowered the cases weeks ago. Even Swedens economy isn't doing much better.
- w0utert 6y ago
  >> Sweden is still far away from herd immunity The point this guy is trying to make is that Sweden appears to be quite close to herd immunity, considering both infections and deaths are apparently declining by itself now. What makes you think this is impossible?
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Summer tends to give other reasons for a decline. We will see what next winter brings.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      And yet summer fails to bring that decline in the US and other places.
      - bluGill 6y ago
        Compared to what?
        beagle3 6y ago
        Sweden; GP claimed Sweden’s numbers are I declined thanks to “the summer”, a claim which is disproved by the lack of decline in other places that experience summer at the same time.
        bluGill 6y ago
        The US has been exiting lockdown, which is a factor. I don't know what it means - there isn't a true control where we can say X is different.
raziel2p 6y ago
Looking at the graphs of Sweden's infection rate, it seems like it peaked in early June and then went down. In May/June restrictions were only loosened, not made stricter. So any decrease in infections has to be in spite of the government's strategy, not because of it... right? And as other commenters have pointed out, the death toll and mortality rate is inexcusable, and there was no economic gain from Sweden's approach. Just because the trend is going in the right direction now doesn't excuse the fact that their response had terrible results compared to neighboring countries.
- jeltz 6y ago
  No, it most likely peaked in early April if you look at the number of deaths and ICU admissions. The infection rate is mostly useless since we have changed testing strategy several times.
dgellow 6y ago
At this point in time, asking the question "Was Sweden correct?" feels like pure speculation, more like a betting game. The players (i.e: European countries) did play their cards, but it's way too early to know the result. What's the point of continuously asking?
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  it's what media are doing all the time. Comparisons are quite meaningless in general (different populations, climate, density, conditions, behaviours, healthcare systems, genes, luck), more so if the pandemic is far from over
- m12k 6y ago
  I live just across the border from Sweden, in Denmark. Our health authorities proposed the same strategy as Sweden - but our prime minister overruled them, and chose a bigger lockdown quickly, after a serious warning from the Italian health minister about the grievous ramifications of doing just a 'measured response' like the epidemic playbooks prescribe. I'm glad she did. She chose a strategy that bought us time - and since then we've learned several important things: One is that social distancing is a much more effective weapon against viruses than we had imagined - so it's not inevitable that everyone will eventually get sick. And the other thing we've learned is that in addition to its relatively high mortality rate, this virus causes many more side effects by messing with our blood vessels, causing all sorts of organ damage. A significant number of those infected end up with decreased lung capacity or neural damage causing decreased cognitive function and/or decreased motor skills. So yes, Sweden probably took a smaller initial hit to their economy compared to ours in the first months, by not locking fully down. But what percentage of the population needs to get permanent nerve damage before it can be felt on your GDP for the next generation? Sweden's strategy does not allow them to avoid this, because the infection has already run much of its course. I'm glad we chose a more cautious approach. I think Sweden executed more or less what was considered best practice in the epidemic playbooks - but I think those playbooks will be re-written based on what this virus has taught us.
iantrt 6y ago
Whether their strategy was successful or not depends on the definition of success, but -- more importantly -- I think it is still too early to tell. Much will depend on the endgame: if there is a vaccine soon, Sweden's strategy will look foolish, since it would have been better to enforce stricter measures and wait for the vaccine. If the vaccine takes a long time to arrive, they may have immunised a larger portion of the population much quicker than those with stricter measures (basically their Nordic neighbours) and will be in a position to return to "normal" much quicker. Sweden has a high death-toll at the moment, but I think their strategy was a valid choice. It seems that there are strong diminishing to the measures. That is, even fairly light measures slow down the spread a lot, and the stricter measures have very little punch, but much economic impact. Running the numbers on this, my team and I guesstimated that measures representing a 5% economic slowdown already reduce the infection rate by 60%, whilst a 10% economic slowdown would buy a infection rate reduction of around 70%. A 15% slowdown would buy an infection rate reduction of around 75%. So the thing is, the trade-off is not constant between economic impacts and the reduction in the infection rate, the policies seem to have (strong!) decreasing returns. Sweden is closer to herd immunity than its neighbours. If the vaccine comes soon, the strategy of their neighbours will look better. If the vaccine takes a long time, Sweden's strategy may turn out to have been the better strategy. It is, quite simply, too early to say at this point.
- qqqwerty 6y ago
  I mostly agree, but I think there are some caveats here. If the duration of immunity is shorter than expected, or if long term health issues turn out to be fairly significant and prevalent, then Sweden's strategy won't end up looking too good. And of course the other caveat is that when these strategies were implemented, the number of unknowns about COVID was much higher. So even if the outcome of their strategy ends up being acceptable, that still doesn't mean they made the correct decision base on the knowledge that was available at the time.
dmurray 6y ago
It seems to me that the lesson we should be learning from Sweden is different. The measures undertaken in Sweden weren't sufficient to control the spread of the coronavirus at the start. They saw exponential growth like anywhere else that did not impose a lockdown. But the growth stopped faster than predicted by any models of herd immunity. They're now seeing 300 new cases a day, compared to 1100 at their peak. They've had about 1% of the population test positive, and about 0.1% of population die - and neither of those numbers look likely to grow significantly. You can quibble over testing statistics or death reporting, but they've had about 50% of the testing rate of Florida [0] and the excess deaths are within a factor of two of reported deaths[1]. If only 20% of people are immune to Covid-19, with a base reproductive rate of well over 1, this slowdown simply couldn't happen. The truth is there's something else going on: either it's way more infectious (but less dangerous) than realised, or more likely, a very large proportion of people have baseline immunity to the infection. It spreads rapidly through those who had no previous immunity and then burns out. So it's not that Sweden did things right. They chose to be the control case for the lockdown experiment, and they got lucky that the virus isn't as bad as we thought. Back in March, it was a totally reasonable belief that the virus if unchecked will spread to 60-70% of people and kill 1% of those - we'd only seen the spread rates from the early days of the pandemic in China. Now, the only observation we have from leaving the virus unchecked points to a much lower number. It's still rational for governments to err on the side of caution and wait for more data (especially on long-term effects), and to manage the pandemic to avoid saturating hospital and ICU use. But it's not rational to treat a disease that threatens to kill 0.1% in the same way as one that threatens 1%. If we see similar results in Florida - a region with good data and a reckless/casual approach to lockdown - we should see a peak in terms of new cases/day in the next three weeks and then it will be time to really accept that the risk is lower than we thought. [0] almost all stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ [1] excess deaths from https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
- glofish 6y ago
  Come on, it was pretty obvious from very early on (during the Wuhan outbreak, then validated in Italy soon after) that the disease did not kill 1%, the symptoms for the vast majority of those that get sick are mild (to even being asymptomatic), moreover that the age skew was extremely strong. The median age of death is over 80! All these factors together were used to decide on the strategy. Subscribing it to luck is unfair. It is more about expertise or lack thereof. A bureaucrat with little practical expertise is less likely to take risks since they are afraid of being exposed as lacking knowledge. Anders Tegnell most certainly was not afraid of going against the grain. Introducing lockdowns in nursing homes early on would have avoided probably 60%-80% of deaths. This applies to Sweden and other countries as well.
imartin2k 6y ago
Some important context not mentioned in the article: During summer, Swedes are spending as much time as possible outside (to make up for the dark cold winter months). Most offices are closed anyway, and unlike many other countries in Europe which have removed their previous limits, Sweden still has a 50 people limit on public gatherings and strict rules for how restaurants and bars can operate (for example, only table service, no bar service, even for outdoor venues). Amusement parks are closed. The authorities still ask people not to use public transport if they don't have to. Plus, people in risk groups (who don't have antibodies) are still asked to limit their interactions with others and to limit their mobility. So considering that infections are happening mostly indoors, that Sweden nowadays has more restrictions in place than many European countries that locked down and then opened up, and that Swedes generally protect their personal space and don't get too touchy with others (in comparison to some other cultures), it's not a surprise that the numbers in Sweden are going down. I'm happy about this trend. The way I see it, the country gets a second chance now to get things right ahead of fall/winter. Sadly, considering that the state epidemiologist and his team still are the same (and that he evidently mostly cares about telling everybody how great his strategy is/was), I guess they'll find ways to screw things up again.
- manojlds 6y ago
  You are also describing reasons why Sweden went for this strategy - their availability of space, limited physical contact etc. The argument is whether the strategy is working or not for Sweden vs a full lockdown in Sweden and not whether Sweden's strategy would have worked in other countries.
  - black_puppydog 6y ago
    This would be okay if the strategy was explicitly "we will let people die and then hope that everything goes well once everyone's outdoors in summer." At least then people would honestly debate whether that's a morally/economically solid stance to take. But in that case they'll also have to explain what their strategy will be at the end of summer.
    - 6y ago
vmchale 6y ago
How? A bunch of people died. Compared to Finland, Denmark, or Norway it looks like a disaster.
addHocker 6y ago
Sweden has euthanized a large part of of its elderly population with covid19 in the bygone months. Euthanized as in "not even considered any treatment except palliative treatment". If the circumstances were not that extra-ordinary, people would demand for swedens leader ship to be shipped to Den Haag.
mamon 6y ago
Some studies claim that immunity for SARS-CoV-2 only lasts for two weeks, which would make that "herd immunity" strategy completely foolish. https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-immunity.html https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-immunity.html
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
The quote below is what has stayed with me from the moment Anders Tegnell started appearing in news items online. It's from an interview published in 21 April 2020 in Nature: The big debate we are facing right now is around care homes for older people, where we registered very unfortunate outbreaks of the coronavirus. This accounts for Sweden’s higher death rate, compared with our neighbours. Investigations are ongoing, because we must understand which reccommendations have not been followed, and why. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x The quote betrays a complete and utter unwillingness to assume any responsibility for the Swedish Publich Health Agency's "recommendations" and blame everything on others for failing to follow them. Note that the PHA's "recommendations" were based on an equally recalcitrant unwillingness to accept that asymptomatic carriers can spread the disease. From the same article: There is a possibility that asymptomatics might be contagious, and some recent studies indicate that. But the amount of spread is probably fairly small compared to people who show symptoms. In the normal distribution of a bell curve asymptomatics sit at the margin, whereas most of the curve is occupied by symptomatics, the ones that we really need to stop. Because of this unwillingness to consider unsymptomatic carriers' potential for spreading the disease, the Swedish PHA's recommendations for care home workers were inadequate to protect care home residents: The agency’s advice to those managing and working at nursing homes, like its policy towards coronavirus in general, has been based on its judgment that the “spread from those without symptoms is responsible for a very limited share” of those who get infected. Its advice to the care workers and nurses looking after older people such as Bondesson’s 69-year-old mother is that they should not wear protective masks or use other protective equipment unless they are dealing with a resident in the home they have reason to suspect is infected. Otherwise the central protective measure in place is that staff should stay home if they detect any symptoms in themselves. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as-elderly-pay-price-for-coronavirus-strategy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-swede...
viburnum 6y ago
Every country that tried full eradication has succeeded (Vietnam, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mongolia, etc). Trying to live with it does not work.
- beagle3 6y ago
  Many countries tried full eradication. You listed the only ones that succeeded so far (at least temporarily.... the thing about Sweden’s strategy is that it can likely continue indefinitely, whereas New Zeland’s is unlikely to continue for long)
- gknapp 6y ago
  Vietnam does not have the capacity to accurately test any reasonable swathe of the country, nor are they known for being transparent with any government data. I would take any data published from them with a lot of skepticism.
  - viburnum 6y ago
    Vietnam absolutely does have the capacity to test. They have an incredibly advanced public health system, unlike the United States.
h3ll0k4ll3 6y ago
For many people understanding Swedish Bureaucracy can be difficult. But you should be aware that in Sweden the political government cant fire Anders Tegnell. Its prevented by the Swedish constitution. Politicians cant involve themselves in Swedish government agencies. And due to labor laws he cant be prosecuted or dismissed from his service if he does not violate the labor laws. He cant be fired for "murdering" thousands of Swedish citizens with his advice ( that directly opposes the advice of CDC, WHO, or any other expert organization in 100+ countries). Please Stop and Ask yourselves. Why Would This Person. Anders Tegnell ( working for a tiny swedish no so special agency ) Know better than the rest of the competence of the entire world. "Folkhälsomyndigheten" have done all in their power to silence any objections from within the agency and the broader Swedish research community. Explicitly choosing an think-tank of outside experts not objecting the strategy. We are talking about an government organisation where like-mindedness is the norm. They dont publish their sources for estimations, calculations or any of their "theories & strategies" either. Here are 25 of the prominent swedish researchers objecting the "strategy" urging the rest of the world to please not Listen to Anders Tegnell. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus...
- walkingolof 6y ago
  This reads like some conspiracy Nonsense, he can at any point be relived of his duties, also, the agency is not Tegnell, there is a lot of good people working there that would step up if needed.
reportgunner 6y ago
> June 23rd > epidemology boss says "epdemic is being slowed down" > all time high daily new cases in Sweden one day later[0] [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

92 points by mrfusion 6y ago

I wish this article went into more detail about the relative death rates. The fact that Sweden’s death rate “far outstripped that of other nordic” countries (all else being equal) would tend to indicate the Swedish strategy failed, no? Are there important confounding variables that would explain the higher death rate?

lbeltrame 6y ago
I know for sure that a lot of the deaths are from nursing care homes (but I don't know in how large percentage), something seen also elsewhere in the world.
- Ovah 6y ago
  47% of all deaths are from nursing homes (July 8th). https://www.svd.se/fortsatt-stor-andel-doda-pa-svenska-aldreboenden https://www.svd.se/fortsatt-stor-andel-doda-pa-svenska-aldre...
  - johnofthesea 6y ago
    For Norway that number is 58% according this page: https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/?utm_source=corona-widget&utm_term=d7#norway https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/?utm_source=corona-wid...
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Depends on whether a few more deaths now is better than whatever the alternatives are / were with regard to death rate and economic damage, no?
matz1 6y ago
The death rate maybe higher but they are in decline right now and that without lockdown, I would say the strategy succeed.
- johnnyo 6y ago
  How so? If they achieved the same results as others on roughly the same timeline, yet with more deaths, how is that a successful strategy?
  - matz1 6y ago
    Because other countries implement lockdown. Lockdowns is not without cost.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    We don't know the results yet. Numbers are going up in countries that are lifting their lockdown.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    Lockdown has its own issues, economic and psychology / mental health. Plus, some types of death are an economic boon because they: a) cause economic churn and the associated fees, charges, and taxes b) free up resources that were tied up with non-producers
    - fanatic2pope 6y ago
      "non-producer"? Oh, you mean human being.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  They locked down, just not formally. They saw the same economic damage their neighbors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...
  - 6y ago
Kiro 6y ago
At its peak Sweden had over 100 daily deaths. Yesterday it was 7 and no longer any excess mortality.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  For some more context to the numbers Germany had at it's peak ~300 deaths a day, it had 5 deaths on the 20th (83M people).
- madspindel 6y ago
  21 new deaths today: "21 nya dödsfall med bekräftad covid-19 har inrapporterats det senaste dygnet, enligt Folkhälsomyndighetens senaste uppdatering."
  - nickexyz 6y ago
    21 new deaths with covid-19 reported the last 24 hours. The deaths are not necessarily from today. Edit: For those interested in the stats (English): https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/the-spread-of-the-coronavirus/ https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/the-spread-of-the-corona...
ginko 6y ago
Yes, here's a Norwegian site comparing the different Nordic countries per capita[1]. Other than Iceland being an outlier due to it being tiny, Sweden outstrips all other countries on pretty much any measure by a wide margin. It seems like the number of patients under intensive care is slowly falling for Sweden but they're not anywhere close to where the other Nordics were months ago. [1] https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/norden/ https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/corona/norden/
- glofish 6y ago
  You can't quite compare countries like that and claim that Sweden would have had the same rate as the other. The world is full of examples where neighboring countries have radically different caseloads. I don't know enough to meaningfully discuss the details but I suspect you can't just claim Norway is the same as Sweden. What is most remarkable is the trajectory the epidemic took within Sweden. No comparison is necessary to another country. That they have achieved a substantial reduction of their caseload without any of the invasive measures. Nobody would have ever believed that to be possible! Other countries should learn from Sweden rather than being in denial - it demonstrates that other measures can be just as effective, and we need to understand how that was possible and whether the measures are transferable.
  - jeromegv 6y ago
    But if their economy did worse than their neighbour, what was the point of avoiding invasive measures? They have more deaths, more cases, and worse economic output, what exactly is successful here?
    - hkeide 6y ago
      You should visit Scandinavia sometime. The Swedish and Norwegian economies cannot be compared easily.
    - glofish 6y ago
      because it simply not true, their economy did not do worse their people are happier and pretty much looks like they would agree to do it again the same way that is the real test of measures, would you do the exact same thing again? which country would want to take the same type of measures once more
s9w 6y ago
European (all-cause) mortality is conveniently reported on https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
- glofish 6y ago
  Notably there are substantial excess in 2018 or 2019 during the same weeks. Not quite sure what to make of that. If you were subtracting 2020 from 2018 then it looks like you would end up with 80 thousand fewer deaths in the first 10 weeks of 2020. What is that about.
  - s9w 6y ago
    It's almost as if this isn't nearly as bad as people scream
gridlockd 6y ago
The comparison with other "nordic" countries seems arbitrary. If we go by latitude, why is there such a huge variance in death rates between Belgium, France, Netherlands and Germany? The biggest factor is probably outbreaks in retirement homes. I think you can make the argument that the strategy failed to protect these elderly people, but it might also be the conditions in these facilities that are to blame.
- l33tman 6y ago
  Yes, in Sweden the problem was the nursing homes and they were run (and still are run) badly. The other measures that could have been done (within the covid response itself) would probably not have helped this, goes the argument (but certainly a major overhaul of how the nursing homes are staffed and run would have helped - that would never have been possible in the short timeframe though).
jordanbeiber 6y ago
In Sweden immigrants from Iraq, Syria, Somalia and other countries form a large part of deaths and ICU patients. It will be interesting to see why this is eventually. There’s language barriers, people living in close quarters and perhaps the vitamin D thing as well? Link to article in swedish MD magazine (in Swedish): https://lakartidningen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2020/04/utlandsfodda-ar-overrepresenterade-bland-de-smittade/ https://lakartidningen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/2020/04/utlandsfo...
- hedora 6y ago
  Poorer populations are dying of COVID at higher rates throughout the world. In the US, at least, the lockdown is mostly protecting the rich. I wonder if Sweden’s approach is more economically and racially equitable than full lockdowns. I’d love to see a study of this that’s backed by quality data.
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    People always jumps to “it must be poverty!” when the Vitamin D thing comes up. There is a strong correlation between Vitamin D levels and COVID-19 outcome, regardless of skin color. Independently, there is a strong correlation between having low Vitamin D levels and living in an environment to which dark skin is not adapted to. That alone should be enough to raise some caution, there is no need to wait for better data because Vitamin D supplementation is in order either way. Unfortunately, the media is mostly silent on this, likely because it wants yet another social justice narrative instead.
    - vinay427 6y ago
      > Independently, there is a strong correlation between having low Vitamin D levels and living in an environment to which dark skin is not adapted to. Honest question: what skin color is actually adapted to western Europe or much of North America? Virtually everyone I know with a lighter skin tone needs to apply sunscreen for any outdoor activity to avoid rapid sunburns, and virtually everyone I know with a darker skin tone (jokingly or not) suspects they have a Vitamin D deficiency.
XyC0 6y ago
On twitter Jacob explained it in more detail: https://twitter.com/JacobGudiol/status/1283308801043636231?s=09 https://twitter.com/JacobGudiol/status/1283308801043636231?s... The death numbers is not counted the same way in Sweden and Norway, in Sweden they count every one that had covid-19 even if they died of something else after they recovered from corvid-19, they do not count it that way in Norway.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  This theory can be dismissed by looking at excess death counts. A very clear spike in overall, country-wide deaths - of all kinds - can be seen in Sweden that is not seen in Norway. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav... Screenshots of the current charting, for posterity: https://imgur.com/a/1DC95no https://imgur.com/a/1DC95no
  - refurb 6y ago
    But Sweden has roughly double the population of Finland and Norway, so Sweden (1000 weekly deaths) is comparable to Finland (500 weekly deaths) and not that far off of Norway (200 weekly deaths).
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      Irrelevant. It's how far the spikes go above normal per-capita that matters, which is why each chart has a different Y axis that fits that particular country. The pictured charts clearly show Sweden and the US seeing substantially more deaths than normal, while Finland and Norway stayed at roughly their normal rates.
    - zosima 6y ago
      The countries have significantly different lifespans and normal mortality, because of health care systems, age distribution, culture, genes etc. It doesn't really give anything sensible when you compare unadjusted total mortality per capita across countries.
- 6y ago
gpm 6y ago
It's too early to say the Swedish strategy failed, because the Swedish strategy was "do badly at the start to do better later", and "later" isn't finished yet. On the flip side it would be possible to say it succeeded, if it did so much better that they are already better off than the rest of the world, but I don't think we're really there yet either (and the epidemiologists point is really just that there are signs that they might be there in the future).
- basch 6y ago
  Right. The denominator in rate is per "unit of time" and we dont know the period. The two ways you could compare them are equal points on a bell curve, or equal time periods. What you can't do is compare two instantaneous speeds and then argue that one car has a faster average speed.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > It's too early to say the Swedish strategy failed, because the Swedish strategy was "do badly at the start to do better later", and "later" isn't finished yet. So, at this moment we are only celebrating that Sweden succeeded at the "do badly at the start" part?
  - gpm 6y ago
    Of course not, the article is rather celebrating the signs that the "do better overall" part of the plan will work out. I think that celebration is a bit premature, from your reaction I assume you do to, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real thing.
    - Viliam1234 6y ago
      To me it seems that Sweden's strategy has been celebrated since the first day, and the celebrations never stopped. At this moment I wonder what would it actually take to make the celebrations stop.
ArkVark 6y ago
Lockdown kills too. In Australia there were about 700 excess deaths from January to April 2020 due to people being unwilling or unable to access normal medical care: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/07/covid-19-drives-up-australias-mortality-rate/ https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/07/covid-19-drives-up-...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jug 6y ago
Yeah, Sweden has a remarkably high death rate due to very old populations like 80+ or 85+. I mean, really high, it's been pretty terrible. So would probably be quite different and more "normal" numbers if it hadn't hit our nursing homes like it did. Death rate is very low in comparison if you instead look at figures for age 70 and lower. This problem has also been acknowledged as probably the greatest problem and a failure during the coronavirus crisis by Swedish epidemiologists despite "Protect the elderly!" being an early, daily mantra. It's been asked why Sweden then had this problem and not our Nordic friends. Some answers might be understaffing or underestimated equipment needs. When the crisis hit them, there was already a global shortage of disinfectants etc. It's also been asked how the virus entered the nursing homes to begin with. A too liberal stance for visitors a bit too long? Or brought in by staff using too crowded public transports? Many questions and the investigations are still ongoing. Compounding the death rate problem in Sweden was probably also a lack of centralized detail management and confusing directives that even led to palliative care for elderly in nursing homes not even being covid-19 victims. In Sweden, nursing homes work quite independently from each other, and even hospitals are strongly regionally controlled rather than directly state controlled even in a crisis like this. (there are some exceptions though, in these catastrophies, staff can be flewn across the country to help man understaffed hospitals etc) tl;dr I think nursing home infections are the single outstanding factor for the abnormal Swedish death rates. If they are infected, they already have particularly weak immune systems that can often not even begin to fight this beast off. Hell, they probably often already have respiratory diseases and/or use immunosuppressants.
- zosima 6y ago
  As far as I know the age distribution of covid-19 related deaths have been exactly the same in Sweden as other countries (+/- some standard deviation) Do you have data to demonstrate that the age distribution is different?
  - hedora 6y ago
    Many other countries (especially the US) also screwed up their handling of old folks homes. Also, I don’t know what data you are citing, but note that many data sets are normalized by number of estimated or confirmed of cases, not by total population size.
nprz 6y ago
I believe one of the Swedish epidemiologists who helped engineer Sweden's COVID response said not to compare the death rates today, but a year from today and see how they compare then.
bluGill 6y ago
We don't know. If there is no vaccine ever, and no long term immunity from getting it, then it doesn't matter what you do every country will eventually be infected and have the same death rate. Sweden just happens to be there first but everyone will get there. Of course my assumptions are big. If there is a vaccine then it is personally worth a lock down to not get it. If there is herd immunity I want everyone else to get it while I personally lock down.
m0llusk 6y ago
This is not really true. For one thing both cases and deaths have been strongly clustered so that population level rates are not so interesting. What matters is whether your ancestors adapted to life in northern latitudes, what your weight, insulin resistance, and vitamin D levels are, and how densely urbanized your environment is. Another factor is that Sweden aggressively labeled all hospitalizations and deaths involving a COVID-19 diagnosis as being COVID-19 cases and deaths even if the patients were very old and had chronic health problems. This is a major difference between both Denmark and Finland which tended to be very cautious about labeling hospitalizations and deaths as COVID-19 related and had low testing rates as well. Looking at all cause mortality figures yields very different results.
lsllc 6y ago
I found it interesting that the general consensus seems to be that Sweden failed, and yet NY state was just hailed as "doing it correctly" by Dr. Fauci [0] (despite one of the very highest per-capita death rates in the world). We didn't do much better here in MA in terms of deaths, although like NY we're only seeing a very small (and importantly flat) number of cases here. Meanwhile Australia, a country that was previously hailed as having done it right and contained COVID-19 has now locked down 6.6 million people [1], closed state borders between Queensland and NSW [2] and currently seeing record numbers of infections [3]. Only time will tell which is the best strategy. [0] https://abc7ny.com/covid-19-ny-fauci-anthony-cuomo/6324584/ https://abc7ny.com/covid-19-ny-fauci-anthony-cuomo/6324584/ [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-coron... [2] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-shutting-border-between-two-biggest-states-as-covid-19-surges-in-melbourne-2020-07-06 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-shutting-border-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/australia-sets-record-for-coronavirus-cases-with-victoria-surge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/australia...
- rumanator 6y ago
  > found it interesting that the general consensus seems to be that Sweden failed, and yet NY state was just hailed as "doing it correctly" by Dr. Fauci [0] You should read the sources you quote. Dr. Fauci's comments are on NY's approach on "how to successfully bring down cases of coronavirus." It says nothing about what enabled the epidemic to spread like wildfire, which is Sweden's case. Taken right from your own source: "Again, we have a problem. We need to admit it and own it. But we have got to do the things that are very clear that we need to do to turn this around, remembering we can do it," Fauci said."
  - lsllc 6y ago
    I did read it. My point was that it seems to me that Sweden and NY are at about the same place now. Sweden basically just let it happen and NY locked down and imposed significant measures. Both had significant deaths in the elderly population (although significantly more in NY than Sweden) and both now have very few new cases & deaths, so the outcome has been similar. Also interesting is that CA took very similar measures to NY with very similar timing and now are seeing the exact opposite to NY (although the media seem to be a bit quiet on that!).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sdinsn 6y ago
> The fact that Sweden’s death rate “far outstripped that of other nordic” countries (all else being equal) would tend to indicate the Swedish strategy failed, no? Why are we only comparing Sweden to other nordic countries?
- postcynical 6y ago
  They are very comparable. Similar geographical- and population size, density, culture, climate, lifestyle.
mixmastamyk 6y ago
They pushed their deaths forward by dealing with the pandemic with a light hand. I have a feeling two years from now the total damage will be comparable to other countries in Europe.

anoraca 6y ago

Interesting to see this after reading this article yesterday: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronaviru...

reportgunner 6y ago
Thanks for the link, I think the OP's article is from a month earlier.

Pfhreak 6y ago

Doesn't this person have a vested interest in saying their approach is successful? Also, the article fails to define success -- death toll, economic impact, and long term health consequences from exposure to covid are certainly all factors and the article only mentions one.

hkeide 6y ago
Don't other people who recommended other approaches have the same biases? Politicians and scientists alike
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Of course. When we evaluate the efficacy of a strategy, maybe we shouldn't just repeat what the author of that strategy says. This is a place where we can look at data and draw conclusions rather than just become a mouthpiece for someone.
  - hkeide 6y ago
    Yes, I agree, the debate needs to be open. I also think that being allowed to champion your own opinions and defend your past choices is a given, not least since these people whom I may disagree with may have good arguments that should be considered.
dariosalvi78 6y ago
it says: "decline in new critical COVID-19 cases alongside slowing death rates"
walkingolof 6y ago
Belgium is (about) the same size in Sweden, has (almost) twice the mortality rate. Why? Nobody really now yet, and its not over either, the pandemic still very much a thing. But some clues points towards that the virus slipped into the nursing home system in both countries.
- 6y ago

dry_soup 6y ago

All it cost was approximately 4600-5200 lives! (depending on which highly comparable neighboring country you compare it to)[1] [1]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%285646+%2F+%28population+of+sweden%29%29+-+%28611+%2F+%28population+of+denmark%29%29%29+*+%28population+of+sweden%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%285646+%2F+%28popu...

hkeide 6y ago
The counting methodology is not the same so it's not necessarily an apples to apples comparison
- dry_soup 6y ago
  Sure, but we're not talking about differences within a margin of error here.

tharne 6y ago

This sounds like a desperate attempt to save face. Basically, their argument boils down to, "Well some countries did better than us and some did worse, so really our strategy wasn't so bad". The fact is a whole lot of people died in Sweden both in absolute numbers and relative to their neighbors. I know Sweden is used to being the smartest country in the room, but sometimes even the best among us make mistakes. It's ok, just own it. No one has a perfect answer to this situation. You tried something different and it didn't work out.

Kiro 6y ago
You speak like the pandemic is over. We don't know yet. If it turns out that countries now lifting their lockdown will catch up I think Sweden's strategy was the correct one. No lockdown, no overwhelmed hospitals, currently no excess mortality and the least impact on the economy: https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/sweden-coronavirus-economy-relaxed-lockdown-stronger-rest-of-europe-2020-7-1029415101 https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/sweden-coronavi...
dgellow 6y ago
> I know Sweden is used to being the smartest country in the room Sweden being "smarter" than other countries is just a common American trope. For some reasons Scandinavian countries are misrepresented all the time by US politicians and media trying to make a point.
- tharne 6y ago
  Fair enough. The American left worships Sweden.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    They certainly have a strong fetish for blonde white people right now.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    From what I've seen they seem to worship a version of Sweden that doesn't match reality, though I'm not that well informed on the American left specifically.

dgut 6y ago

It's not clear how Sweden's strategy is working compared to other Nordic countries. Norway has at the time of writing 255 deaths, Sweden 5646, and 19 vs 769 new cases today.[1][2] Norwegians are more or less back to normal life. Economically, Sweden did far worse than Norway as of 25. of June, with 25% more bankruptcies than previous year - same period - vs only 6.5% increase in Norway.[3] [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/norway/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/norway/ [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ [3] https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/AdjrvM/svenskene-fikk-konkursrush-selv-om-de-ikke-stengte-landet https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/AdjrvM/svenskene-fikk-konkursru...

glofish 6y ago
Don't you think Sweden would have done even worse had they locked down? This argument that hey look Sweden is still doing badly is ludicrous. Of course they do badly, no country is unaffected, Sweden is more industrialized and depends more on exports than Norway. Norway has a 1 trillion dollar stock market reserve from the oil. They will do fine. The idea that locking down would have made things better in Sweden is absurd.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Don't you think Sweden would have done even worse had they locked down? I mean, we've only got all the other Nordic countries to compare against to evaluate this...
  - glofish 6y ago
    This dodges the question that I posed. Let me ask again: Are you arguing that Sweden would have done better economically if they locked down? Because that is what we are talking about.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      No, I'm arguing Sweden saw the same economic damage - because people aren't stupid, and avoided doing the things a formal lockdown would have restricted anyways - without the infection control benefits of a formally managed one. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...

tgb 6y ago

Does falling death rates really indicate widespread immunity? I'd like to see the randomized immunology tests to back that up (maybe he has them, but this article doesn't indicate it). I haven't heard of anywhere near herd-immunity levels yet.

DangerousPie 6y ago
Yeah, this sounds like an assertion that is entirely based on wishful thinking rather than evidence. Don't get me wrong, it might be true -- but you really need to provide some evidence if you're going to make claims like that.
- oxymoron 6y ago
  https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/22/science.abc6810 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/22/scie... It’s at least plausible. The traditional definition of herd immunity assumes a homogenous population as the term has mainly been used in a vaccine strategy context. The above paper revises the definition based on a heterogenous model with the conclusion that the dynamics may be quite different in an actual epidemic.
Reimersholme 6y ago
According to FHM (Swedens CDC), they believe there is around 40% immunity in the Stockholm area (which has had the most spread in Sweden) currently. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9vyO8M/40-procent-av-stockholmarna-kan-ha-immunitet-mot-corona https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9vyO8M/40-procent-av-st...
dariosalvi78 6y ago
antibodies tests shows the opposite, but antibodies do not explain immunity fully (T cells have an important role as well)
Kiro 6y ago
The 40% immunity number (antibodies + t-cell) is based on randomized immunology tests.

DangerousPie 6y ago

In comparison to their neighbours they have a vastly higher death rate and their economy has not done any better, despite their lighter lockdown. So unless this person is claiming that no further infections would occur if Sweden would stop all containment measures and go back to life as usual I don't see how this could be called "working" in any sense of the word.

cblconfederate 6y ago

There is absolutely no reason to make such handwavy statements. Immunity can be measured, and he is the one who can measure it. this is soo unscientific

dariosalvi78 6y ago
I'm afraid it's not that easy to measure, antibodies are only part of the picture

mhandley 6y ago

I don't think we're going to have any idea which strategies actually worked for another year or so. If there's a large second wave this winter in other countries, and Sweden doesn't suffer from that due to immunity already acquired, then we may say Sweden's strategy worked. But if other countries that locked down early manage to keep it under control into the winter without having to lock down again (and suffer the economic, psychological and non-covid health consequences of that), and then a vaccine becomes available or other methods to reduce the death toll and health consequences, then we would conclude that the deaths so far were unnecessary and Sweden got it wrong. Most European countries are at the end of the beginning right now, but not necessarily the beginning of the end.

dariosalvi78 6y ago
exactly, thanks for expressing this correctly and clearly. It's all speculations now. The only thing we can say is that the contagion is under control at the moment (contrary to what many predicted) but the strategy has costed a number of (probably) preventable deaths. Let's review this in 6 months or so. EDIT: rephrasing.
- glofish 6y ago
  the problem is with your word "preventable" what you mean by "preventable" is "at a cost that we don't have a way to quantify", hence will call that cost "inconvenience" and only focus on what we have "prevented" all these measures that we take will kill many times more people than the disease. It is just the new deaths and damage are a diffuse costs whereas the benefits are concentrated and visible.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    > all these measures that we take will kill many times more people than the disease. I have seen this claim repeatedly, but always without numbers. I completely agree that the measures have economic consequences, and the economic consequences will cost lives. But how do you know that the number is greater than the fraction of population killed by the coronavirus? For example, the coronavirus in Sweden killed 0.05% of the population. Also, at least 0.7% got sick, with various consequences. Could you estimate what fraction of their population have other countries killed by the lockdowns? Ten percent? One percent? Zero point one percent?

dominik3 6y ago

Their strategy might be working if you look at the cases however, lockdowns still seem to be the way more efficient strategy. Sweden is still far away from herd immunity and other European countries which had lockdowns have lowered the cases weeks ago. Even Swedens economy isn't doing much better.

w0utert 6y ago
>> Sweden is still far away from herd immunity The point this guy is trying to make is that Sweden appears to be quite close to herd immunity, considering both infections and deaths are apparently declining by itself now. What makes you think this is impossible?
- bluGill 6y ago
  Summer tends to give other reasons for a decline. We will see what next winter brings.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    And yet summer fails to bring that decline in the US and other places.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Compared to what?
      - beagle3 6y ago
        Sweden; GP claimed Sweden’s numbers are I declined thanks to “the summer”, a claim which is disproved by the lack of decline in other places that experience summer at the same time.
        bluGill 6y ago
        The US has been exiting lockdown, which is a factor. I don't know what it means - there isn't a true control where we can say X is different.

raziel2p 6y ago

Looking at the graphs of Sweden's infection rate, it seems like it peaked in early June and then went down. In May/June restrictions were only loosened, not made stricter. So any decrease in infections has to be in spite of the government's strategy, not because of it... right? And as other commenters have pointed out, the death toll and mortality rate is inexcusable, and there was no economic gain from Sweden's approach. Just because the trend is going in the right direction now doesn't excuse the fact that their response had terrible results compared to neighboring countries.

jeltz 6y ago
No, it most likely peaked in early April if you look at the number of deaths and ICU admissions. The infection rate is mostly useless since we have changed testing strategy several times.

dgellow 6y ago

At this point in time, asking the question "Was Sweden correct?" feels like pure speculation, more like a betting game. The players (i.e: European countries) did play their cards, but it's way too early to know the result. What's the point of continuously asking?

dariosalvi78 6y ago
it's what media are doing all the time. Comparisons are quite meaningless in general (different populations, climate, density, conditions, behaviours, healthcare systems, genes, luck), more so if the pandemic is far from over
m12k 6y ago
I live just across the border from Sweden, in Denmark. Our health authorities proposed the same strategy as Sweden - but our prime minister overruled them, and chose a bigger lockdown quickly, after a serious warning from the Italian health minister about the grievous ramifications of doing just a 'measured response' like the epidemic playbooks prescribe. I'm glad she did. She chose a strategy that bought us time - and since then we've learned several important things: One is that social distancing is a much more effective weapon against viruses than we had imagined - so it's not inevitable that everyone will eventually get sick. And the other thing we've learned is that in addition to its relatively high mortality rate, this virus causes many more side effects by messing with our blood vessels, causing all sorts of organ damage. A significant number of those infected end up with decreased lung capacity or neural damage causing decreased cognitive function and/or decreased motor skills. So yes, Sweden probably took a smaller initial hit to their economy compared to ours in the first months, by not locking fully down. But what percentage of the population needs to get permanent nerve damage before it can be felt on your GDP for the next generation? Sweden's strategy does not allow them to avoid this, because the infection has already run much of its course. I'm glad we chose a more cautious approach. I think Sweden executed more or less what was considered best practice in the epidemic playbooks - but I think those playbooks will be re-written based on what this virus has taught us.

iantrt 6y ago

Whether their strategy was successful or not depends on the definition of success, but -- more importantly -- I think it is still too early to tell. Much will depend on the endgame: if there is a vaccine soon, Sweden's strategy will look foolish, since it would have been better to enforce stricter measures and wait for the vaccine. If the vaccine takes a long time to arrive, they may have immunised a larger portion of the population much quicker than those with stricter measures (basically their Nordic neighbours) and will be in a position to return to "normal" much quicker. Sweden has a high death-toll at the moment, but I think their strategy was a valid choice. It seems that there are strong diminishing to the measures. That is, even fairly light measures slow down the spread a lot, and the stricter measures have very little punch, but much economic impact. Running the numbers on this, my team and I guesstimated that measures representing a 5% economic slowdown already reduce the infection rate by 60%, whilst a 10% economic slowdown would buy a infection rate reduction of around 70%. A 15% slowdown would buy an infection rate reduction of around 75%. So the thing is, the trade-off is not constant between economic impacts and the reduction in the infection rate, the policies seem to have (strong!) decreasing returns. Sweden is closer to herd immunity than its neighbours. If the vaccine comes soon, the strategy of their neighbours will look better. If the vaccine takes a long time, Sweden's strategy may turn out to have been the better strategy. It is, quite simply, too early to say at this point.

qqqwerty 6y ago
I mostly agree, but I think there are some caveats here. If the duration of immunity is shorter than expected, or if long term health issues turn out to be fairly significant and prevalent, then Sweden's strategy won't end up looking too good. And of course the other caveat is that when these strategies were implemented, the number of unknowns about COVID was much higher. So even if the outcome of their strategy ends up being acceptable, that still doesn't mean they made the correct decision base on the knowledge that was available at the time.

dmurray 6y ago

It seems to me that the lesson we should be learning from Sweden is different. The measures undertaken in Sweden weren't sufficient to control the spread of the coronavirus at the start. They saw exponential growth like anywhere else that did not impose a lockdown. But the growth stopped faster than predicted by any models of herd immunity. They're now seeing 300 new cases a day, compared to 1100 at their peak. They've had about 1% of the population test positive, and about 0.1% of population die - and neither of those numbers look likely to grow significantly. You can quibble over testing statistics or death reporting, but they've had about 50% of the testing rate of Florida [0] and the excess deaths are within a factor of two of reported deaths[1]. If only 20% of people are immune to Covid-19, with a base reproductive rate of well over 1, this slowdown simply couldn't happen. The truth is there's something else going on: either it's way more infectious (but less dangerous) than realised, or more likely, a very large proportion of people have baseline immunity to the infection. It spreads rapidly through those who had no previous immunity and then burns out. So it's not that Sweden did things right. They chose to be the control case for the lockdown experiment, and they got lucky that the virus isn't as bad as we thought. Back in March, it was a totally reasonable belief that the virus if unchecked will spread to 60-70% of people and kill 1% of those - we'd only seen the spread rates from the early days of the pandemic in China. Now, the only observation we have from leaving the virus unchecked points to a much lower number. It's still rational for governments to err on the side of caution and wait for more data (especially on long-term effects), and to manage the pandemic to avoid saturating hospital and ICU use. But it's not rational to treat a disease that threatens to kill 0.1% in the same way as one that threatens 1%. If we see similar results in Florida - a region with good data and a reckless/casual approach to lockdown - we should see a peak in terms of new cases/day in the next three weeks and then it will be time to really accept that the risk is lower than we thought. [0] almost all stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ [1] excess deaths from https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

glofish 6y ago
Come on, it was pretty obvious from very early on (during the Wuhan outbreak, then validated in Italy soon after) that the disease did not kill 1%, the symptoms for the vast majority of those that get sick are mild (to even being asymptomatic), moreover that the age skew was extremely strong. The median age of death is over 80! All these factors together were used to decide on the strategy. Subscribing it to luck is unfair. It is more about expertise or lack thereof. A bureaucrat with little practical expertise is less likely to take risks since they are afraid of being exposed as lacking knowledge. Anders Tegnell most certainly was not afraid of going against the grain. Introducing lockdowns in nursing homes early on would have avoided probably 60%-80% of deaths. This applies to Sweden and other countries as well.

imartin2k 6y ago

Some important context not mentioned in the article: During summer, Swedes are spending as much time as possible outside (to make up for the dark cold winter months). Most offices are closed anyway, and unlike many other countries in Europe which have removed their previous limits, Sweden still has a 50 people limit on public gatherings and strict rules for how restaurants and bars can operate (for example, only table service, no bar service, even for outdoor venues). Amusement parks are closed. The authorities still ask people not to use public transport if they don't have to. Plus, people in risk groups (who don't have antibodies) are still asked to limit their interactions with others and to limit their mobility. So considering that infections are happening mostly indoors, that Sweden nowadays has more restrictions in place than many European countries that locked down and then opened up, and that Swedes generally protect their personal space and don't get too touchy with others (in comparison to some other cultures), it's not a surprise that the numbers in Sweden are going down. I'm happy about this trend. The way I see it, the country gets a second chance now to get things right ahead of fall/winter. Sadly, considering that the state epidemiologist and his team still are the same (and that he evidently mostly cares about telling everybody how great his strategy is/was), I guess they'll find ways to screw things up again.

manojlds 6y ago
You are also describing reasons why Sweden went for this strategy - their availability of space, limited physical contact etc. The argument is whether the strategy is working or not for Sweden vs a full lockdown in Sweden and not whether Sweden's strategy would have worked in other countries.
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  This would be okay if the strategy was explicitly "we will let people die and then hope that everything goes well once everyone's outdoors in summer." At least then people would honestly debate whether that's a morally/economically solid stance to take. But in that case they'll also have to explain what their strategy will be at the end of summer.
  - 6y ago

vmchale 6y ago

How? A bunch of people died. Compared to Finland, Denmark, or Norway it looks like a disaster.

addHocker 6y ago

Sweden has euthanized a large part of of its elderly population with covid19 in the bygone months. Euthanized as in "not even considered any treatment except palliative treatment". If the circumstances were not that extra-ordinary, people would demand for swedens leader ship to be shipped to Den Haag.

mamon 6y ago

Some studies claim that immunity for SARS-CoV-2 only lasts for two weeks, which would make that "herd immunity" strategy completely foolish. https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-immunity.html https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-immunity.html

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

The quote below is what has stayed with me from the moment Anders Tegnell started appearing in news items online. It's from an interview published in 21 April 2020 in Nature: The big debate we are facing right now is around care homes for older people, where we registered very unfortunate outbreaks of the coronavirus. This accounts for Sweden’s higher death rate, compared with our neighbours. Investigations are ongoing, because we must understand which reccommendations have not been followed, and why. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x The quote betrays a complete and utter unwillingness to assume any responsibility for the Swedish Publich Health Agency's "recommendations" and blame everything on others for failing to follow them. Note that the PHA's "recommendations" were based on an equally recalcitrant unwillingness to accept that asymptomatic carriers can spread the disease. From the same article: There is a possibility that asymptomatics might be contagious, and some recent studies indicate that. But the amount of spread is probably fairly small compared to people who show symptoms. In the normal distribution of a bell curve asymptomatics sit at the margin, whereas most of the curve is occupied by symptomatics, the ones that we really need to stop. Because of this unwillingness to consider unsymptomatic carriers' potential for spreading the disease, the Swedish PHA's recommendations for care home workers were inadequate to protect care home residents: The agency’s advice to those managing and working at nursing homes, like its policy towards coronavirus in general, has been based on its judgment that the “spread from those without symptoms is responsible for a very limited share” of those who get infected. Its advice to the care workers and nurses looking after older people such as Bondesson’s 69-year-old mother is that they should not wear protective masks or use other protective equipment unless they are dealing with a resident in the home they have reason to suspect is infected. Otherwise the central protective measure in place is that staff should stay home if they detect any symptoms in themselves. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as-elderly-pay-price-for-coronavirus-strategy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-swede...

viburnum 6y ago

Every country that tried full eradication has succeeded (Vietnam, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mongolia, etc). Trying to live with it does not work.

beagle3 6y ago
Many countries tried full eradication. You listed the only ones that succeeded so far (at least temporarily.... the thing about Sweden’s strategy is that it can likely continue indefinitely, whereas New Zeland’s is unlikely to continue for long)
gknapp 6y ago
Vietnam does not have the capacity to accurately test any reasonable swathe of the country, nor are they known for being transparent with any government data. I would take any data published from them with a lot of skepticism.
- viburnum 6y ago
  Vietnam absolutely does have the capacity to test. They have an incredibly advanced public health system, unlike the United States.

h3ll0k4ll3 6y ago

For many people understanding Swedish Bureaucracy can be difficult. But you should be aware that in Sweden the political government cant fire Anders Tegnell. Its prevented by the Swedish constitution. Politicians cant involve themselves in Swedish government agencies. And due to labor laws he cant be prosecuted or dismissed from his service if he does not violate the labor laws. He cant be fired for "murdering" thousands of Swedish citizens with his advice ( that directly opposes the advice of CDC, WHO, or any other expert organization in 100+ countries). Please Stop and Ask yourselves. Why Would This Person. Anders Tegnell ( working for a tiny swedish no so special agency ) Know better than the rest of the competence of the entire world. "Folkhälsomyndigheten" have done all in their power to silence any objections from within the agency and the broader Swedish research community. Explicitly choosing an think-tank of outside experts not objecting the strategy. We are talking about an government organisation where like-mindedness is the norm. They dont publish their sources for estimations, calculations or any of their "theories & strategies" either. Here are 25 of the prominent swedish researchers objecting the "strategy" urging the rest of the world to please not Listen to Anders Tegnell. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus...

walkingolof 6y ago
This reads like some conspiracy Nonsense, he can at any point be relived of his duties, also, the agency is not Tegnell, there is a lot of good people working there that would step up if needed.

reportgunner 6y ago

> June 23rd > epidemology boss says "epdemic is being slowed down" > all time high daily new cases in Sweden one day later[0] [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/