Swedish approach to fighting COVID-19 takes a turn as cases spike Coronavirus cases have doubled in Sweden in just three weeks as the wheels fall off the country’s vaunted approach to tackling COVID-19. https://www.news.com.au/world/europ...e/news-story/f6a717f462db065dcb0be94dee5292b9 Coronavirus cases have exploded in Sweden as authorities try to keep hold of twin battles – containing the virus and controlling the narrative. The breakaway Nordic nation divided experts by refusing to lock down its citizens when the virus swept through the country earlier this year. But a devastating second wave has forced a dramatic rethink as infections threaten to derail any gains that were achieved by taking a now notoriously relaxed approach to the pandemic. Regions have been effectively locked down to contain a doubling of COVID-19 cases in just three weeks. David Steadson, an Australian former public health researcher now living in Sweden, told news.com.au the region where he lives is experiencing a disturbing rate of new infections. “Sweden has now seen a doubling in cases in three weeks, hitting more than 1000 new cases in one day for the first time since June,” he said. “Hospitalisation and ICU numbers are also starting to increase.” He said Uppsala, north of Stockholm, where he and his family live, has seen more than double the total number of infections in the last two weeks, forcing authorities to introduce new restrictions. “While most Swedes won’t call it lockdown, the key takeaway is, where possible, to avoid all contact with people outside your own family. “(Authorities are) explicitly stating not to have social events and work from home if at all possible.” Time magazine reports that Sweden’s per-capita death rate as of last week was 58.6 per 100,000 people and that average daily cases rose by 173 per cent from early September to early October “with particularly dramatic increases in cities such as Stockholm and Uppsala”. The Washington Post reports that Sweden’s cumulative death total from infections is 10 times higher than neighbouring Norway and Finland and five times higher than Denmark. “Registered cases in Sweden are slightly above 106,300, compared with around 13,800 in Finland and 16,600 in Norway – each with about half the population of Sweden,” the Post reports. And the UK Times reports that new cases each day have risen on average from 160 in September to almost 700 in October. Mr Steadson, who used to work for the University of Queensland, says the Swedish government is looking at changing the law – “and if necessary the constitution” – to make requirements “law” rather than expect the population to do the right thing voluntarily. “They expect it will take months to do, so it’s in anticipation of future crises and won’t be ready until next summer,” he said. Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is reportedly travelling to regions impacted by COVID-19 to discuss their respective lockdown measures. He told the public broadcaster: “If they don’t seem to have an effect … then of course we need to consider other ways to constrain these opportunities for transmission.” Dr Tegnell, who has achieved a cult status in Sweden, has rarely swayed from his position. He told New Statesman in April that “locking people up at home won’t work in the longer term”. “Sooner or later, people are going to go out anyway,” he said. “I want to make it clear, no, we did not lock down like many other countries, but we definitely had a virtual lockdown.” He said Swedes “changed their behaviour enormously” and did so without laws needing to be enforced as they are in other countries including Australia. “We stopped travelling even more than our neighbouring countries. The airports had no flights anywhere, the trains were running at a few per cent of normal service, so there were enormous changes in society.” But Mr Steadson, who caught COVID-19 in March and is still suffering from a range of symptoms, including difficulty breathing, said the goal for Sweden was to achieve “herd immunity”, which, as a scientist, made no sense to him. “Allowing a deadly virus to just spread in the hope of eventual ‘herd immunity’ made no sense to me scientifically, given our then limited knowledge, and it absolutely made no sense to me ethically,” he told news.com.au earlier this year. “People would die unnecessarily and I was frankly disgusted with what I was hearing from the Swedish Public Health Authority.” Dr Nick Talley, editor-in-chief of the Medical Journal of Australia, agreed that Sweden got it wrong. “In my view, the Swedish model has not been a success, at least to date,” he told news.com.au. “One clear goal at least early on was to reach herd immunity – but this was not achieved, not even close, and this was arguably predictable. “There were restrictions put in place but the philosophy was voluntary rather than compulsory.”
Did Sweden’s coronavirus experiment pay off? Not really While much of Europe locked-down, Sweden went with a different plan, but the data suggests that the country's relaxed approach didn't work https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sweden-coronavirus-response-experiment On October 16, Andrew Ewing, a professor at the University of Gothenburg gave a damning appraisal of Sweden’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. “So many people have died unnecessarily because of the mistakes we have made,” Ewing told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. With new cases mounting from the second wave – between October 6 and 19, Sweden reported nearly 9,000 new Covid-19 infections – Ewing criticised the continued lack of measures taken by the Folkhälsomyndigheten (FHM), Sweden’s Public Health Agency, to limit the spread of the virus. Over the next few days, Ewing received a deluge of hate mail from members of the public unhappy with his remarks. “Many here did not like it and I received many threatening emails,” he says. Ewing is a member of a 200-strong scientific collective in Sweden who call themselves the Vetenskapsforum or Science Forum Covid-19. Since March they have been outspoken critics of Sweden’s unique approach to the pandemic, which has been notably out of sync with the rest of the globe. While most countries enforced lockdowns in the spring, Sweden remained a remarkably free society, a policy which was internationally dubbed ‘the Swedish experiment.’ Bars, shops, restaurants, and other public spaces stayed open, while children up to the age of 16 continued to attend school. While it has commonly been described as pursuing a herd immunity strategy – something the FHM has never publicly admitted to – Sweden did introduce some rules to try and control the virus spread. In late March, bans on gathering of more than 50 people were introduced, while employees were urged to work from home, and schools were closed to over 16s for three months, along with universities. Physical distancing was made mandatory in bars, restaurants, and at events, while non-essential travel was discouraged. Data on movement patterns from the telecom company Telia’s mobile network shows that, in Sweden as a whole, travel decreased by more than 20 per cent in response to these restrictions. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist and the architect of the national response, has described the decision to keep society open as a holistic view of public health, aiming to balance the risk of the virus with avoiding the long-term consequences of closing schools and businesses. It is a popular view among many Swedes. “In one way, I believe the Swedish strategy has been advantageous because of its clear focus to keep society working and keep children at school,” says Jonas Ludvigsson, an epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute. “Learning is important for future health. And with a crashing economy, there will not only be less money for healthcare, but budget cuts which means there will be less money to help the teenagers with drug problems, single mums with small children. How much would that affect their health in the long term?” Sweden’s economy has performed better than other nations, although it still shrank 8.6 per cent between April and June, as exports and consumer spending dropped. In contrast, the UK’s economy shrank 20.4 per cent during the same period. However, the Vetenskapsforum argue that protecting the economy through Tegnell’s holistic approach has come at a terrible cost. As of October 21, Sweden stood 15th on the grim global ranking list of Covid-19 deaths per capita, and fifth in Europe, below only Belgium, Italy, Spain, and UK. Its tally of 581 deaths per million people is many times that of Germany, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The impact has been most severe in the elderly. Statistics show that 89 per cent of Sweden’s 5,929 Covid-19 deaths so far have been over 69. During the first wave, the virus wreaked havoc in nursing homes, where nearly 1,000 people died in a matter of weeks. Even more worrying, evidence has emerged that many sick elderly patients were effectively automatically denied access to treatment, to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed. One March 17 FHM directive to Stockholm hospitals stated any patients over 80 or with a body mass index above 40 should not be admitted to intensive care, because they were less likely to recover. Other reports describe sick care home residents being administered a palliative cocktail of morphine and midazolam, because the homes were not equipped to administer oxygen, something some doctors have described as ‘active euthanasia.’ “The government didn’t protect the most vulnerable members of society,” says Ewing. “People were triaged out of healthcare and given ‘No Hospital’ notes on their journals, before they got sick. And this was not only for patients who were suspected of having Covid-19. A person who got a urinary tract infection and required hospitalisation, for example for IV antibiotics or fluids, would not get that care either. They received palliative medicine instead.” As a result, much of the anger that scientists such as Ewing have towards the FHM’s handling of the pandemic is not so much because Sweden kept public places open. After all, there were other nations who did not implement lockdown such as Taiwan, and fared far better than Sweden by implementing rigorous testing, tracing, and quarantines financed by social care packages. In comparison, Taiwan has so far had just 548 cases of Covid-19 (Sweden has had 109,000) and seven deaths. Instead their anger is because they feel there has been gross negligence in protecting the vulnerable, as well an active evasion of strategies such as face coverings, and quarantines for anyone who might have come in contact with the virus which could have reduced the excess toll. Such measures had already proved to be effective early in the pandemic in countries such as South Korea, which has still only had 453 deaths in total. For the first eight months of the pandemic, Sweden did not enforce any quarantines for infected households. While evidence pointed to the risk of asymptomatic spreaders, Sweden’s official policy was that those without obvious symptoms are very unlikely to spread the virus. Other nations rushed to procure masks and personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and carers in nursing homes, but Swedish authorities discouraged their use. There have been numerous reports of medical professionals being reprimanded or even dismissed for wearing a mask at work, because it was deemed to spread panic. “The clinicians among us are still fighting for the right to wear masks when seeing patients, and for extra protective equipment,” says Nele Brusselaers, another member of the Vetenskapsforum. “I know one pneumologist who was fired because she wore a mask. People are afraid to go into hospital, since they know healthcare workers don’t wear masks.” Some factors were arguably beyond Sweden’s control. Despite having the ideal infrastructure for testing and tracing – the system which has helped South Korea and other Asian countries to suppress the virus so effectively – due to its commonplace digital identity system used to access public services, this was barely utilised due to an inability to source testing equipment. Statistics show that as of May 24, Sweden carried out just 23.64 tests per 1,000 people, one of the lowest rates in Europe. When more tests were finally obtained in the summer, many were of poor quality. In August around 3,700 tests were found to have reported false-positive results. “Everyone wanted to test more, but there were no tests,” says Ludvigsson. “We did not produce the equipment ourselves, and other nations had banned any exports to keep whatever equipment there was in their own countries. When finally Sweden got hold of test equipment from abroad, the quality was so poor that the tests could not be trusted.” But despite the comparatively high fatalities, testing failures, and reports of medical negligence in nursing homes, Sweden’s Covid-19 approach still enjoys a relatively high degree of support amongst its citizens. An opinion poll in September, reported that 63 per cent of respondents retained trust in Tegnell’s approach although this was a slight decline from a figure of 69 per cent in April. Even within the scientific community, views remain polarised as to whether it has been successful or not. Members of the Vetenskapsforum have even been reprimanded as ‘troublemakers’ by their own institutions for publicly criticising the high fatality rate, and received threatening emails from the general public. “Some of us even got death threats, for ‘damaging the reputation of Sweden,’” says Brusselaers. One of the reasons why many Swedes see their country’s Covid-19 strategy in a favourable light is because the impact of the first wave of the virus was not uniformly spread. The majority of cases and fatalities occurred in the Stockholm urban area, while other cities remained relatively unaffected. The per capita mortality rate in Malmö – Sweden's third largest city – was lower in May than in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, which had been under lockdown. This might be down to the lower population density of those cities, and Swedish people taking their own precautions against Covid-19. “Broad segments of the public have taken their own action to help control the virus,” says Peter Kasson, an associate professor at Uppsala University and the University of Virginia. In addition, Sweden’s existing tendencies towards home working – the Swedish Internet Foundation estimated that even before the pandemic, approximately a third of Swedes worked from home on a daily or weekly basis – is likely to have helped. However with cases steadily rising again in recent weeks from the Covid-19 second wave, with new spikes in cities like Uppsala which had previously avoided the worst of the virus, there are signs that Sweden may be altering its approach more towards those of other European nations. Earlier this week, the FHM announced new recommendations allowing local authorities to instruct citizens to avoid public transport, visiting care home residents, gathering in indoor environments like shops and gyms, and avoid physical contact with those outside their households. Residents of Uppsala are currently being advised to follow these recommendations. With some noting that these recommendations are very similar to the local lockdowns being implemented in other European countries – although they are still guidelines rather than law – it may seem like the so-called Swedish experiment is over. However, in the eyes of the Vetenskapsforum scientists more needs to be done if Sweden is to avoid incurring further fatalities amongst the most vulnerable. “Masks should be used especially for everyone working in healthcare and elderly homes,” says Brusselaers. “Testing capacity has been ramped up the previous months, but there is also still no functional system up and running for contact tracing, so many people do not know if they have been potentially exposed. And there are no efforts to trace back to see where super-spreader events have occurred. Everyone should have the right to healthcare and to be protected. You cannot make decisions that you know may kill thousands of people for the greater good.”
Sweden's goal was to achieve herd immunity along with minimizing the economic cost. I do remember all the statements by many individuals here at ET that were hyping in the past few months that Sweden did achieve herd immunity but they could not provide any supporting data. Therefore, why has Sweden's infection numbers been rising ? Just as comical, the same group of individuals here at ET had been saying that United States had achieved herd immunity. Glad they aren't managing this Pandemic and we still have not hit the worst of the Pandemic when many people will begin socializing more indoors as the winter months arrive...then become colder. wrbtrader
7 day average of 0 Covid deaths a day in Sweden today. First time I have seen it at 0. Infections may be troubling.. it depends on the amount of high risk getting infected. As I said a month or so ago... Cases may blip up... but they are done dying in Sweden. Well that last part may have been a bit over confident... if the infections keep going up... but... amazingly... you can see Sweden has a 7 day average of 0 deaths... at the moment. That will change because I have never seen it that low. So far its amazing given the fear monger shit being posted. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ a deeper look at the Swedish website shows that they are consistently having super low ICU admits also... 1, 2. or 3 a day for last few months. Nya intensivvårdade fall per dag https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada Canada is a big mess... 24 deaths... on the 7 day average infections exploding past their previous levels. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany GWB choice... for best Covid response... big mess also 34 deaths a day. Exploding infections. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain Really big mess 155 deaths https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark infections way over previous levels Deaths at 3 Conclusion... Any rational thinker would say.. zero deaths a day right now. Swedes look to have one of the best responses since they closed down the old folks homes. Swedes were correct. Caveat... now. I am concerned they are opening up the old folks homes for humanitarian reasons. It is probably the right thing to do... morally. But it will likely result in deaths.
Hey... GWB what the hell is happening in Germany? Just about a week ago you told us how great their approach was. Cases are exploding.. this seems like a parody... of the lefties here on this thread... this is the best shit I have ever read... its like nine morons blaming Americans and the administration. "Spahn deliberately blames the general population to conceal what is actually driving the pandemic: The explosion of case numbers in Germany and other countries is a direct result of the insecure return to workplaces and schools and is closely linked to the capitalist exploitation of the working class. This has been particularly acute since the beginning of the pandemic in the factories of meat-processing billionaire Clemens Tönnies." Reopening of German schools leads to explosion of COVID-19 infections https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/10/geco-o10.html On Thursday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced that 4,516 people in Germany had become infected with the coronavirus in the previous 24 hours. That is nearly 1,700 more than on Wednesday, which with 2,828 new infections had already marked the highest increase since April. The rate of positive tests (from 1.22 to 1.64 percent) as well as the average age—and thus the potential death rate of those infected—also rose sharply in the past week. According to the RKI, twice as many cases occurred last week as in the first week of September. The ruling class knows that it is preparing a catastrophe with its ruthless policy of opening up the economy and its refusal to take serious measures to contain the virus. Social Democratic Party (SPD) health expert Karl Lauterbach declared that if the average age of those infected continued to converge with that of the population, a death rate of at least 1 percent could be expected—i.e., hundreds of deaths per day. This, however, assumes that the health system would not collapse. At the end of September, Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) announced she expected 19,200 new infections daily until Christmas. This gloomy forecast has already been exceeded by the events of the past few days. If the trend continues, there is a risk of around 30,000 new infections per day by the end of the year. This would be in the order of magnitude of the United States—a country with a population four times larger. In the United States, the Trump administration’s callous response to the pandemic has so far claimed 212,000 lives, but with a far larger total number of infected people. The much-vaunted “low death toll” in Germany is almost identical to that of the US in relation to the number of infections. According to the figures of Johns Hopkins University in the US, the number of deaths in Germany would exceed 231,000, once the same number of people who had become infected there. If, in the long term, as Merkel predicted in March, 60 to 70 percent of the German population were to become infected, this would mean between 1.53 and 1.78 million deaths at the current mortality rate. This roughly corresponds to the warning in a paper prepared in April and published later by the Federal Interior Ministry, which assumes a “worst-case scenario” of “over 1 million deaths in 2020” in Germany alone. The sharp rise in the number of infections is the result of the criminal and deliberate policy of the federal and state governments allowing the virus to spread. In recent weeks and months, they have done everything in their power to force workers back into factories, opening schools under unsafe conditions, covering up outbreaks and at the same time refusing to invest in protection against the pandemic. According to the teachers’ initiative #Bildungabersicher (#Educationbutsafe), there have been cases of infection in more than 1,000 schools and day-care centres in Germany so far. According to a recent official study from Britain, schools and educational institutions now account for almost half of the incidences of infection. At a press conference on Thursday, called because of the exploding number of cases, Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) described the situation at kindergartens and schools as “comparatively good.” Spahn demanded that a “second lockdown” should not be the subject of a media “debate.” He said that the blame for the new infections was not the policy of the federal and state governments in reopening the economy, but private “celebrations,” “weddings” and “religious gatherings.” Spahn deliberately blames the general population to conceal what is actually driving the pandemic: The explosion of case numbers in Germany and other countries is a direct result of the insecure return to workplaces and schools and is closely linked to the capitalist exploitation of the working class. This has been particularly acute since the beginning of the pandemic in the factories of meat-processing billionaire Clemens Tönnies. For example, 112 of the 2,000 workers at the Tönnies processing plant in Weidemark in Sögel, Emsland, have already been infected, while production continues. Instead of ordering a comprehensive quarantine and mobilising teams of doctors, the responsible district authority declared on Wednesday that workers in the slaughterhouse must continue working until Friday—those in the cutting plant even until Sunday. This is to be done “so that no goods are spoiled.” The municipal schools are also to remain open as usual. Meanwhile, the Tönnies subsidiary announced it would apply for an injunction against the closure to “maintain proportionality” in the balance between profit and human life. Furthermore, the company stated that the slaughtering of currently 8,000 pigs per day—instead of the previous 15,000—represented an unacceptable “pressure on agricultural production chains” and endangered “animal welfare on farms in the region.” In a Vion meat processing facility in Emstek (Lower Saxony), where 63 employees have been infected so far, work is also continuing. The Cloppenburg district administration has agreed to this with the company, reported broadcaster NDR. In nearby Vechta, two residents of a nursing home where 50 coronavirus cases occurred last week also died. This “profits before life” policy is accompanied by a right-wing propaganda campaign by business, politics and the media, which plays down the virus. In an interview with Wolfram Weimer—the former editor-in-chief of Die Welt and the Berliner Morgenpost, as well as the founder of the right-wing magazine Cicero — the Bonn virologist and advocate of “herd immunity” Hendrik Streeck complains that the population is “too afraid” of a virus that is “deadly only to a few,” After all, the risk posed by the virus is “now well calculable,” he said. Weimer and Streeck met on the fringes of the Hamburg economic summit “New Thinking,” which was also attended by former SPD Chairman and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, billionaire Erich Sixt, former EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger and the president of the CDU Economic Council Astrid Hamker. Streeck and Weimer agreed that the danger of a global pandemic should “not be overdramatised.”
Infections and deaths don't "explode" in California they just sustain at high levels for months. It's because of irresponsible members of the public like you who have to have their beach time and think safety precautions may ruin their attempt at natural herd immunity. I feel badly about all the people who are hospitalized or dying in California because of selfish people like you. Canada's supposedly "exploding" with Covid according to Jem. All sounds great until one looks at the data ( apparently a B. of Arts is poor preparation for such work ). If only "Jem" could get Covid in control in his own state first, but he's drank the Trump koolaid.
Yes... and Germany is taking all the proper steps to handle the issue -- unlike the U.S. --- the government in Germany is using a science based approach and taking the situation seriously. They outlined that fully re-opening schools was a significant risk even before allowing the schools to open. The numbers of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths per capita in Germany over the recent days is much less than most other European countries. Germany is still considered the model for a successful COVID response. So at least we know now that you are a fan of of the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) and you believe the communist philosophy articles they post spout the truth. Good to see your true colors finally come out.
It won't be long before the countries that are better managing Covid flatten the second wave and parts of the US will be back to dominating the data in a bad way ( some might say several states still are ). Jem is already behind the curve on Canada; Ontario for example has at least stemmed the new infections at 600-900 every day for a week now and those numbers aren't bad at all with schools fully open. Quebec for some reason has the highest numbers all the time in Canada; I did read that pretty much every school in Quebec has at least one Covid case. Jem is an enigma, a guy who hasn't thought things through. Sweden is more of a socialist state then Canada, full of "lefties" in his terminology. He chooses to live in California a high tax left leaning state by US standards. In fact, California may have higher taxes then Canada despite health care not being included.