3 ms·

Has Sweden’s coronavirus strategy failed?

3 points by sampo 6y ago

draugadrotten 6y ago
no login , google cache https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dCmxZy0dMZAJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/11/18/sweden-coronavirus-surge-policy/+&cd=1&hl=sv&ct=clnk&gl=se https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dCmxZy...
cycomanic 6y ago
It is quite surreal at times living as an expat in Sweden. Especially the talk around masks is exceptionally weird. There was just an article on SVT (the website of the biggest swedish TV/radio), with a headline somewhat translated to "Experts still uncertain about the benefits of masks". The funny thing about the article was citing several studies, which all showed a benefit of wearing masks (and the article even acknowledged it), but then went on to say that those studies have not fully proven that masks work. That's still an improvement over previous news, which essentially painted masks as dangerous (which directly contradicted what every other country in the world found). Tegnell definitely comes across as someone who can not admit to having been wrong. Regarding many things (masks, nonsymptomatic spreading, children's role in spreading COVID), he's always been saying that "evidence is still unclear" (even when WHO gave out contradicting advice), on the other hand he had no problem pointing to a study that attributed the different death rates between Sweden and the other nordic countries to different strength of the flu season. That "study" was essentially using two tweets as the main evidence. All that said, I do think that there are things to be learnt from the Swedish approach. The the strategy of continuing school and kindergarten is one of them and Tegnell and others are right that we need to look at this as a long term crisis.
- sampo 6y ago
  Population level intention-to-treat (giving a box of masks, or condoms, to people and asking them to use them) RCT studies also show, at best, weak and inconclusive statistical evidence that condoms work against STDs or unwanted pregnancies. https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219535 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
hikerclimber 6y ago
yes because it is a developed country so expect lots of death there.

3 points by sampo 6y ago

no login , google cache https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dCmxZy0dMZAJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/11/18/sweden-coronavirus-surge-policy/+&cd=1&hl=sv&ct=clnk&gl=se https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dCmxZy...

cycomanic 6y ago

It is quite surreal at times living as an expat in Sweden. Especially the talk around masks is exceptionally weird. There was just an article on SVT (the website of the biggest swedish TV/radio), with a headline somewhat translated to "Experts still uncertain about the benefits of masks". The funny thing about the article was citing several studies, which all showed a benefit of wearing masks (and the article even acknowledged it), but then went on to say that those studies have not fully proven that masks work. That's still an improvement over previous news, which essentially painted masks as dangerous (which directly contradicted what every other country in the world found). Tegnell definitely comes across as someone who can not admit to having been wrong. Regarding many things (masks, nonsymptomatic spreading, children's role in spreading COVID), he's always been saying that "evidence is still unclear" (even when WHO gave out contradicting advice), on the other hand he had no problem pointing to a study that attributed the different death rates between Sweden and the other nordic countries to different strength of the flu season. That "study" was essentially using two tweets as the main evidence. All that said, I do think that there are things to be learnt from the Swedish approach. The the strategy of continuing school and kindergarten is one of them and Tegnell and others are right that we need to look at this as a long term crisis.

sampo 6y ago
Population level intention-to-treat (giving a box of masks, or condoms, to people and asking them to use them) RCT studies also show, at best, weak and inconclusive statistical evidence that condoms work against STDs or unwanted pregnancies. https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219535 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

hikerclimber 6y ago

yes because it is a developed country so expect lots of death there.