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I'm not IN Sweden, so I only have the media image. Can you comment on what measures have brought down the infection numbers? Why were they so high in the begin

I'm not IN Sweden, so I only have the media image. Can you comment on what measures have brought down the infection numbers? Why were they so high in the beginning and why are they falling so quickly now? After implementing measures it can take a few weeks to show results since detected cases can lag a lot behind actual infection events and there's local transmission chains (inside families/communities) that need to burn out before case numbers fall. Also speaking of measures, to my knowledge, the government did not take hard measures but rather suggested a lot of the same things that other countries put into law and the Swedish population is very compliant. So it is hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison.

henrikschroder 6y ago
> Can you comment on what measures have brought down the infection numbers? Working from home, banning large gatherings, remote education for universities and secondary schools, reminders to keep the distance, table service only at restaurants and more space between tables. > the infection numbers? Sweden, like pretty much every other country, has no idea how large the number of unknown infections were back in March and April. The only certain numbers we have are ICU patients and deaths, and those have been declining constantly since mid-April. Presumably, actual cases follow the same curve. > Why were they so high in the beginning Exponential growth before any measures were taken. > why are they falling so quickly now? They're not falling quickly now, deaths and ICU patients have been falling linearly since mid-April. Death curve here: https://adamaltmejd.se/covid/ https://adamaltmejd.se/covid/ As to why, my best guess is that this virus simply wasn't much different from any other flu virus. A bit more deadly, but whatever measures people in Sweden took was enough to curb it. Also, herd immunity is probably much easier to achieve than earlier models suggest. Also, note that the death curves for Sweden and the UK are pretty much identical despite wildly different amount of restrictions implemented: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=SWE~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi... > After implementing measures it can take a few weeks to show results Yes, and actual analysis of mobility shows that people voluntarily took a lot of measures before actual recommendations were put into place. Same as everywhere else. Most EU countries implemented their lockdowns weeks after the peak. > Also speaking of measures, to my knowledge, the government did not take hard measures but rather suggested a lot of the same things that other countries put into law and the Swedish population is very compliant. Yes. That said, mobility dropped less in Sweden compared to neighbour countries who had stronger recommendations and rules in place. You can compare the mobility curves between countries at the bottom of this page: https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden > I'm not IN Sweden, so I only have the media image. I'm sorry, the media image is absolutely bananas. I have never seen such blatant bias to skew everything to make Sweden look like a zombie apocalypse to drum up support for lockdowns. But it looks like lockdowns are much less effective than people think. And it looks like a small amount of meaningful measures pushed the effects of this down to less than a regular flu season. Unmitigated, it would have been worse, but it's been mitigated everywhere, and here we are.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  I’m not sure that we could call the disease ‘mitigated’ in many places, it has been devastating. Have you got any sources on the “less than a regular flu season”? Sweden seems to have had a lot more deaths than it normally does and I haven’t seen anything saying otherwise - however you clearly have.
  - henrikschroder 6y ago
    > Sweden seems to have had a lot more deaths than it normally does and I haven’t seen anything saying otherwise - however you clearly have. Most countries experience excess deaths during flu season, and some flu seasons are worse than others. Sweden absolutely had excess deaths for a couple of months this year, but you have to look at the bigger picture. So here are graphs of total deaths per million per month for the past 40 years in Germany, Sweden, France, and Belgium: https://medium.com/@FrankfurtZack/unprecedented-overall-mortality-in-sweden-and-other-european-countries-cd8fcdd6174a https://medium.com/@FrankfurtZack/unprecedented-overall-mort... Now, 2020 isn't over yet, there might be a second wave of covid-19 in the winter, but given how the virus has died out with the small amount of measures taken, I don't think that's very likely. So far, 2020 in Sweden is tracking below average total deaths, even if you include all the covid-19 deaths. If this year was "devastating", then what would you call the flu season of 1988, 1993, or 1999? Those flu seasons saw higher excess deaths than 2020 in Sweden, and no-one noticed or cared. No news articles, no reports, no lockdowns, no face masks, no travel closures, nothing. We did nothing out of the ordinary. Now, covid-19 is more lethal than the viruses of those flu seasons, and we have no vaccine for this one, so some response is warranted. But the current worldwide hysteria is unprecedented, we have never before cared this much for this few deaths.
    - threatripper 6y ago
      Corona started when the flu season normally ends and it seems that summer with the majority of activity outdoors has quit some damping effect on the spread. We will have to live through the winter till next spring to do a comparison. If you want to compare COVID-19 with the flu I think that the data so far suggests that letality rate is about 10 times higher and the number of infections is also about 10 times higher due to lack of immunity from previous infections. I don't say that the "normal flu" is harmless, either. Nor that COVID-19 is like the plague or "harmless" like the flu. Nor that we should simply do nothing when the next infection wave comes.

henrikschroder 6y ago

> Can you comment on what measures have brought down the infection numbers? Working from home, banning large gatherings, remote education for universities and secondary schools, reminders to keep the distance, table service only at restaurants and more space between tables. > the infection numbers? Sweden, like pretty much every other country, has no idea how large the number of unknown infections were back in March and April. The only certain numbers we have are ICU patients and deaths, and those have been declining constantly since mid-April. Presumably, actual cases follow the same curve. > Why were they so high in the beginning Exponential growth before any measures were taken. > why are they falling so quickly now? They're not falling quickly now, deaths and ICU patients have been falling linearly since mid-April. Death curve here: https://adamaltmejd.se/covid/ https://adamaltmejd.se/covid/ As to why, my best guess is that this virus simply wasn't much different from any other flu virus. A bit more deadly, but whatever measures people in Sweden took was enough to curb it. Also, herd immunity is probably much easier to achieve than earlier models suggest. Also, note that the death curves for Sweden and the UK are pretty much identical despite wildly different amount of restrictions implemented: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=SWE~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi... > After implementing measures it can take a few weeks to show results Yes, and actual analysis of mobility shows that people voluntarily took a lot of measures before actual recommendations were put into place. Same as everywhere else. Most EU countries implemented their lockdowns weeks after the peak. > Also speaking of measures, to my knowledge, the government did not take hard measures but rather suggested a lot of the same things that other countries put into law and the Swedish population is very compliant. Yes. That said, mobility dropped less in Sweden compared to neighbour countries who had stronger recommendations and rules in place. You can compare the mobility curves between countries at the bottom of this page: https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden > I'm not IN Sweden, so I only have the media image. I'm sorry, the media image is absolutely bananas. I have never seen such blatant bias to skew everything to make Sweden look like a zombie apocalypse to drum up support for lockdowns. But it looks like lockdowns are much less effective than people think. And it looks like a small amount of meaningful measures pushed the effects of this down to less than a regular flu season. Unmitigated, it would have been worse, but it's been mitigated everywhere, and here we are.

lostlogin 6y ago
I’m not sure that we could call the disease ‘mitigated’ in many places, it has been devastating. Have you got any sources on the “less than a regular flu season”? Sweden seems to have had a lot more deaths than it normally does and I haven’t seen anything saying otherwise - however you clearly have.
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  > Sweden seems to have had a lot more deaths than it normally does and I haven’t seen anything saying otherwise - however you clearly have. Most countries experience excess deaths during flu season, and some flu seasons are worse than others. Sweden absolutely had excess deaths for a couple of months this year, but you have to look at the bigger picture. So here are graphs of total deaths per million per month for the past 40 years in Germany, Sweden, France, and Belgium: https://medium.com/@FrankfurtZack/unprecedented-overall-mortality-in-sweden-and-other-european-countries-cd8fcdd6174a https://medium.com/@FrankfurtZack/unprecedented-overall-mort... Now, 2020 isn't over yet, there might be a second wave of covid-19 in the winter, but given how the virus has died out with the small amount of measures taken, I don't think that's very likely. So far, 2020 in Sweden is tracking below average total deaths, even if you include all the covid-19 deaths. If this year was "devastating", then what would you call the flu season of 1988, 1993, or 1999? Those flu seasons saw higher excess deaths than 2020 in Sweden, and no-one noticed or cared. No news articles, no reports, no lockdowns, no face masks, no travel closures, nothing. We did nothing out of the ordinary. Now, covid-19 is more lethal than the viruses of those flu seasons, and we have no vaccine for this one, so some response is warranted. But the current worldwide hysteria is unprecedented, we have never before cared this much for this few deaths.
  - threatripper 6y ago
    Corona started when the flu season normally ends and it seems that summer with the majority of activity outdoors has quit some damping effect on the spread. We will have to live through the winter till next spring to do a comparison. If you want to compare COVID-19 with the flu I think that the data so far suggests that letality rate is about 10 times higher and the number of infections is also about 10 times higher due to lack of immunity from previous infections. I don't say that the "normal flu" is harmless, either. Nor that COVID-19 is like the plague or "harmless" like the flu. Nor that we should simply do nothing when the next infection wave comes.