Yeah, he forgets easily that this thread is about Scandinavia and Sweden. In fact, I don't understand why many in this thread do not like sticking to the thread title about Sweden in comparison to its neighboring Scandinavian countries. I like to compare the Covid-19 performances of the Scandinavian countries with each other. It's very telling instead of comparing Sweden to like New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea...other countries clearly outperforming Sweden in the Covid-19 metrics. Buy1Sell2 and Turveyd finally smart up about their twisted beliefs in Sweden but apparently Jem and a few others still have not gotten the same message from the Sweden government / Sweden Health Officials. Natural Herd Immunity failed. Very strange to see someone with no vested concern with Sweden...get so twisted about it as if it has impact on him or his state in California. I myself use to complain about Canada...country I live in...nobody seem to be interested. Now, the twisted morons think they're getting revenge in talking negatively about Canada. On a side note, we still got too many Covidiots here in Québec. The good news, less hospitalizations and less ICU patients here in Québec but the government piss handling of securing vaccines from the drug makers has been problematic. I think they're still stuck with the delays (other countries in the same boat) for another 1 - 2 months. wrbtrader
here is a spineless douchebag posting about me even though he has me on block. Baron kicked actually useful contributors off the site for doing this... you born loser. 2. I have not typed anything about Canada in over a month... you moron. I have not been supporting what San Diego or CA has done... Our moron gov has imposed all sorts of rules without supporting data... that is why there is a recall effort going on right now. 3. So not only are you a spineless loser... you all misrepresent what I have been posting... your are a spineless loser. 4. Finally, the curves look similar in many parts of the world.. that is how viruses behave... they pick off the easy ones at first and then they have more difficulty spreading as people protect themselves and immunities are built up. nine morons wrote: "Jem" has lost his mind and seems awfully upset that some of us blocked him. Beyond "Buy1Sell2" and "Turkeyd", he has to be the third worst poster concerning Covid on this site. It's hard to be wrong about almost everything you post but he's succeeded for almost a year running now. He's still going on about Canada while his beloved San Diego County was running 5 times the rate of Ontario last time I looked. Sweden obviously is a complete failure concerning Covid yet some of these jokers still think they were a success. The goal posts keep bending as they try to pretend they were right about something despite a world a data that says otherwise. Concerning San Diego County, the only reason I looked at the numbers is I know someone who lives there. Who among us thought Covid numbers might drop 2-6 weeks after new restrictions were put in place ? A lot of us. That's the funny part, when posters who whine about restrictions all the time like toddlers then bring up the data AFTER new restrictions as supposedly supporting their ideas. No, dumb asses, it does quite the opposite.
Hey WRB... you spineless loser... you attack again... while having me on block. What kind of loser are you? 1. Non morons understand that making useful comparisons requires more than a map of Scandinavia. nobody but the left wants thinks you can only compare Sweden to its neighbors. Comparisons regarding age. Regarding recent excess deaths before the virus. Population density. Percent of immigrants who do not get enough vitamin D because they live in Sweden have dark skin and cover themselves... and are therefore more likely to die.... Percent of old people who died before nursing home protections were put in place... Percent of travelers who perhaps brought in Covid Comparisions to the countries who all suffered deaths early... like Italy, France, UK, Belgium and others early are all proper things to consider. Or states like NY NY and CT. intelligent inquiry requires thoughtful people. -- WRB wrote... Yeah, he forgets easily that this thread is about Scandinavia and Sweden. In fact, I don't understand why many in this thread do not like sticking to the thread title about Sweden in comparison to its neighboring Scandinavian countries. I like to compare the Covid-19 performances of the Scandinavian countries with each other. It's very telling instead of comparing Sweden to like New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea...other countries clearly outperforming Sweden in the Covid-19 metrics. Buy1Sell2 and Turveyd finally smart up about their twisted beliefs in Sweden but apparently Jem and a few others still have not gotten the same message from the Sweden government / Sweden Health Officials. Natural Herd Immunity failed. Very strange to see someone with no vested concern with Sweden...get so twisted about it as if it has impact on him or his state in California. I myself use to complain about Canada...country I live in...nobody seem to be interested. Now, the twisted morons think they're getting revenge in talking negatively about Canada. On a side note, we still got too many Covidiots here in Québec. The good news, less hospitalizations and less ICU patients here in Québec but the government piss handling of securing vaccines from the drug makers has been problematic. I think they're still stuck with the delays (other countries in the same boat) for another 1 - 2 months.
The Hidden Flaw in Sweden’s Anti-Lockdown Strategy STOCKHOLM - Sweden quickly became an object of the world’s attention for its decision to forgo a government-mandated lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Instead the country chose to lean on its high-trust culture and tradition of citizens independently following authorities’ recommendations. But there was one major overlooked problem with that approach—one that’s increasingly reflected in the country’s medical data: Sweden’s distinctive national culture and traditions, and the government’s efforts to amplify and support them, aren’t equally accessible to its increasingly diverse residents. The most segregated segments of the population are not as tuned in to the mainstream culture or to authorities’ messaging around the pandemic. Sweden’s Public Health Agency recently conducted a survey, the results of which were published on April 14. It showed that a disproportionate number of immigrants, in particular from Somalia, Iraq, and Syria, were among the COVID-19 cases registered at Swedish hospitals. For instance, while Somali Swedes make up just over half a percent of the national population, so far they make up nearly 5 percent of hospitals’ confirmed cases. The agency’s figures came hot on the heels of a survey by Stockholm health authorities, which showed that some of the capital’s immigrant-dense suburbs were among the hardest hit by the virus. The Rinkeby-Kista district in the north was the worst affected, with 238 confirmed cases as of April 6. That is the equivalent of 47 cases per 10,000 residents, which is more than three times higher than the regional average of 13 cases per 10,000 residents. “In the future, we’ll need proper research to figure out how this situation came about,” said Per Brinkemo, who worked as a journalist for 20 years before becoming involved with integration issues, working with a Somali community organization in the Rosengard suburb of Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city. He believes there is a general unwillingness among Swedish authorities to consider how cultural differences impact people’s behaviors. After writing the book Between Clan and State: Somalis in Sweden in 2014, Brinkemo toured the country, holding seminars for bureaucrats and local politicians about its basic thesis, namely that Somalis’ and others’ integration has often been marked by a clash between “the extremely collectivist structures of the native culture and the hyperindividualism of Sweden.” But there is a strong aversion in Sweden for the government or authorities to differentiate between people of different ethnic backgrounds, Brinkemo said. “It’s a well-intentioned attitude but can prove dangerous.” Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency, which is responsible for public safety and emergency management, has acknowledged that there were delays in translating information about the virus to other languages. Over the past few weeks, the agency has rolled out a campaign to get information out to immigrant communities. “Better late than never,” Brinkemo said, while also insisting that information needs to be not just directly translated but also conveyed in different ways to different groups. Brinkemo described the challenges involved in trying to inform immigrants in Malmo about the Swedish welfare state. When he arranged public seminars at a community center, hardly anyone attended, despite written advertisements—until he and his colleagues personally called people to invite them, after which the seminars were full. “I was baffled, but my Somali colleagues weren’t surprised. They explained that they come from a society with a strong oral tradition, that they have little experience of interacting with public agencies in their home country, and tend to trust information that comes directly from a known source,” he said. “By contrast, here in Sweden, we are accustomed to written communication. We generally trust that official information is correct, and we’re used to interpreting authorities’ instructions and know how to act on it.” Brinkemo believes that when the government and expert authorities convey information and guidance around the COVID-19 pandemic, it will likely not filter through to a large share of the immigrant population. Partly because many do not follow Swedish media and partly because the language used is abstract and presumes a particular outcome with regards to how people will act on it. Indeed, the subtleties of bureaucratese are not always self-evident to native-born Swedes, either. When the state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell was asked at a press conference to clarify what a recommendation from the Public Health Agency, which is central to formulating Sweden’s strategy, entailed, he replied: “What we are talking about here is the Swedish culture, how Swedes interpret recommendations from the authorities. I think most people see it [a recommendation] as a very clear advice on how to do this in the best possible manner. … By contrast, if you use the Swedish word for ‘shall,’ that means there is a legal obligation to do something, and that’s why we instead use the word ‘recommended’ quite a lot.” Tegnell agrees that one needs to address different groups in different ways. “Any country with some form of public health strategy in place knows that and when it comes to immigrant communities, we have established good communication with them, for instance in relation to the national vaccine program,” Tegnell said, adding that it is too early to draw any conclusions as to why some foreign-born Swedes run a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. “There are many parameters at play,” he said. But he balks at the idea that the Public Health Agency’s reliance on a set of norms that have taken centuries to cement is in any way a factor in explaining why Swedish citizens born in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere are now overrepresented in the statistics of COVID-19 cases. “I think that’s a conclusion you definitively cannot draw yet,” Tegnell said. Many in Sweden’s immigrant-dense areas agree that there is a complex set of factors involved, with cultural differences being just one aspect. In the northern Stockholm suburb of Tensta, Somali-born Ahmed Abdirahman was among the first to note that the coronavirus was spreading in his community. “Many foreign-born Swedes live in segregated suburbs where up to 80 percent of residents have immigrant backgrounds,” Abdirahman said. “For instance, in Stockholm more than half of Somalis live in just a single district, so it’s not surprising that once the virus started spreading in that area, Somalis quickly became overrepresented in the statistics.” Abdirahman added: “There are also relatively high levels of ill health and household crowding in these suburbs, and multigenerational households are quite common due to low-income levels. In addition, the potential for exposure to the virus is high since many hold so-called low-skilled jobs, for instance as taxi drivers.” Last week, Abdirahman, who is well-known in political circles for organizing a high-profile annual political festival that takes place in a Stockholm suburb, met with Sweden’s deputy prime minister, Isabella Lovin. She said she regretted the fact that sufficient measures were not taken in time and mentioned some new initiatives, such as the city stepping in to offer accommodation for elderly people to help them self-isolate. But for the writer and activist Nuri Kino, who has been focused on the pandemic’s impact on immigrants and in particular on his own community of Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden, it is still hard to get certain messages across to the authorities and the media because of a prevalent fear of stigmatizing immigrant communities. “I’ve tried to raise the alarm over the fact that many of those who live in these hard-hit areas work in nursery homes and as home carers and they do not have enough protective equipment,” said Kino, who himself ran a home care service firm for two years. “I understand this is a sensitive matter because it can lead to a blame game, but there’s a risk factor here that we should at least consider.” In early April, Swedish media reported that a third of all elderly care homes in Stockholm had recorded cases of COVID-19. On April 16, the Public Health Agency said a third of all COVID-19 deaths in Sweden—at the time, there were 1,333 confirmed fatalities—had occurred at care homes. While a large proportion of the workforce at those homes is made up of immigrants—28 percent are foreign-born, and in Stockholm the figure is 55 percent, according to the National Board of Health and Welfare—drawing a link here would be “purely speculative,” according to Tegnell. He said there is an ongoing inquiry examining why the virus has entered Sweden’s elderly care system and until it is concluded “we’d best not point fingers.” He does not rule out the need to impose different measures in different parts of Stockholm in the future to meet the specific challenges in various areas. However, the prevailing principle of public health in Sweden seems likely to remain “freedom under responsibility,” according to which as long as a majority takes individual responsibility for following recommendations, there is no need to rob everyone of basic liberties. For Brinkemo, the author, it cannot be presumed that everyone in Sweden—whether native or foreign-born—intuitively grasps that principle, but it is something that can be learned, he said. A sign that it is happening within immigrant communities is that many have, indeed, taken it on themselves to spread the messages of social distancing and the recommendations issued by the authorities, from Somali Swedish doctors posting informative videos on Facebook to local celebrities using their social media channels to talk about the pandemic. “That is really the way forward—trusted sources breaking down the bureaucratese and communicating with people orally rather than through official pamphlets and posters,” Brinkemo said. “All we can hope for now is that it will be part and parcel of the national strategy when the next pandemic comes around.” ------- As I stated early in the Pandemic...the ethnic communities will be one of the key factors to why Natural Herd Immunity will not work in Sweden. These are the exact same reasons why it will not work in United States, Canada nor any other country that has a large socio-economic disadvantage population. Simply, education and vaccination will be key to Vaccination Herd Immunity. wrbtrader
Keeping schools open without masks or quarantines doubled Swedish teachers' COVID-19 risk By Gretchen Vogel Feb. 15, 2021 , 12:30 PM A careful analysis of health data from Sweden suggests that keeping schools open with only minimal precautions in the spring roughly doubled teachers’ risk of being diagnosed with the pandemic coronavirus. Their partners faced a 29% higher risk of becoming infected than partners of teachers who shifted to teaching online. Parents of children in school were 17% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those whose children were in remote learning. Whether the harms of school closures outweigh the risks of virus transmission in classrooms and hallways has been the subject of intense debate around the world. Outbreaks have demonstrated that the virus can spread via schools to the wider community at least occasionally, and some data suggest that teachers have higher than average risk of infection. However, it has been difficult to separate school-based transmission from other confounding factors, especially because schools have tended to open or close in concert with other restrictions lifting or tightening. Coming out the same week as new guidelines for opening schools from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the new study will help policymakers better understand and weigh the risks and benefits. “It’s just great to see such a carefully done study,” says Anita Cicero, an expert in pandemic response policy at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We’ve been starved for studies” that quantify the impact of open or closed schools on wider community transmission. In March 2020, schools around the world closed as governments tried to keep SARS-CoV-2 in check. But children in Sweden through ninth grade continued to attend class, while 10th through 12th graders shifted to remote learning. Economists Jonas Vlachos, Helena Svaleryd, and Edvin Hertegård at the University of Uppsala took advantage of this natural experiment and Sweden’s detailed health care data. They compared infection rates of parents whose youngest child was in ninth grade with those whose youngest was in 10th grade. They also compared infection rates in teachers who continued to teach in person at lower secondary schools (grades seven to nine) with those of teachers at upper secondary schools (grades 10 to 12), who taught remotely. Finally, they compared infection rates in the spouses of teachers in the two types of schools. They describe their results in a paper posted on 12 February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors took steps to make sure their groups were as comparable as possible. For example, they excluded families with health care workers from the study because they had more exposure to the virus and were tested more frequently. Sweden’s coronavirus testing was very limited in the spring, swabbing only people with moderate to severe symptoms. While this missed many cases, Vlachos says, it was actually an advantage for their analysis. As testing increased in the summer and autumn, testing rates started to correlate more with income, which would have skewed the findings. (So few children and teens were tested that the researchers couldn’t draw conclusions about their infection rates.) Swedish schools . Health authorities encouraged pupils and teachers to wash or disinfect their hands regularly, keep their distance when possible, and stay home when ill. But neither teachers nor students wore masks, and close contacts of confirmed cases were not quarantined. The impact on teachers was significant, the authors say, and the results underscore the need to prioritize educators in COVID-19 vaccination schedules. While teachers at upper secondary schools had an average infection risk among 124 occupations in Sweden, the researchers found, lower secondary teachers ranked seventh. (Primary school teachers had a somewhat lower, but still above average, risk.) Among the country’s 39,000 teachers in lower secondary schools, 79 were hospitalized with COVID-19 between March and June, and one died. Shifting these schools to online learning would have prevented perhaps 33 of those severe cases, the authors estimate. Adding masks would likely have reduced the risks to both teachers and families, says Danny Benjamin, a pediatrician at Duke University who has studied the spread of the pandemic coronavirus in North Carolina schools. But the Swedish study shows, he says, that “even if schools do not require masking, risk to families of in-person schooling is low,” he says. Vlachos agrees that more interventions would reduce risk further. “Our estimates are likely an upper bound,” he says. The authors calculated that keeping lower secondary schools open likely led to 500 additional detected cases in the spring among the 450,000 parents with kids in lower secondary school and 38 additional cases among teachers’ partners. (Because testing was so limited, the real number of additional infections was likely much higher, the authors note.) “The results for parents provide perhaps the best evidence of how school closure impacts virus transmission in society,” says Douglas Almond, an economist at Columbia University. By comparing families with ninth graders and 10th graders, the team was able to compare families with teenagers whose social behavior and viral risk were similar, he says. “This is where their natural experiment really shines.” The ability to link teachers to their spouses through the health registries “is also quite elegant,” says Jonas Björk, an epidemiologist at Lund University. “It is to be expected that opening schools can increase COVID-19 infections, but knowing that does not really inform policy,” Almond says. “One needs to know how much infections increase due to school reopening. This is the best paper I know of that quantifies this effect.” More comparisons of schools with different policies regarding masks, distancing, and quarantines would be helpful, Cicero says. Using the Swedish health registry, the researchers could even take the analysis a step further and look at risk to grandparents of students, says Björk, which would help estimate the impact on a more vulnerable age group. The emergence of more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2 means that masks and other interventions to prevent school transmission are even more important, Benjamin says. Cicero agrees. “That is the next step” for research, too, she says: Funding studies on the impact of the variants, and which interventions can keep risks at schools as low as possible. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...quarantines-doubled-swedish-teachers-covid-19 ---------- wrbtrader
Stockholm pushes back Covid-19 vaccine deadline https://www.thelocal.se/20210215/stockholm-pushes-back-covid-19-vaccine-deadline Stockholm does not expect to meet Sweden's target of offering the Covid-19 vaccine to all adults by the end of June. The Swedish government last week doubled down on the country's goal to offer the Covid-19 vaccine to all over-18s by the end of June, despite pharmaceutical companies delivering some vaccines later than expected. But Stockholm has already postponed its target by a few weeks and now aims to vaccinate Stockholmers by mid-July, writes the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper. "Because of delayed deliveries, we expect to finish by mid-July, not by Midsummer. But these are preliminary estimates. Half a million of the doses we're counting on getting come from Curevac and Johnson, and those have not yet been approved by the European authority EMA," Désirée Pethrus, a Christian Democrat politician and the Stockholm councillor responsible for healthcare development in the Swedish capital region, told DN. By the end of the week ending February 7th, 2.65 percent of Stockholm's adult population had received their first vaccine dose, the slowest rate in all of Sweden's 21 regions. The nationwide figure stood at 3.89 percent in the same week. Stockholm expects to start Phase 2 of the vaccination programme – which includes over-65s – in mid-March, Pethrus told DN, followed by Phase 3 in April and Phase 4 in May. This is Sweden's current vaccination plan: Phase 1: People who live in elderly care homes or receive at-home care, as well as healthcare and care workers who have close contact with vulnerable people and other adults who share a household with people receiving at-home care. This is the phase that got under way in December 2020. Phase 2: This phase will include all adults aged over 65, starting with the oldest. The AstraZeneca vaccine is currently only recommended in Sweden for people younger than 65, so it is mainly planned for the next phases. People with certain medical conditions have been added to this category, including those on dialysis or recent transplant recipients, and other adults who share a household with them. People aged 18 and above who receive LSS disability support, and people working in the medical and care sectors who have close contact with patients are also included in this phase. Phase 3: This phase includes 18-64-year-olds who belong to a risk group, for example people with chronic cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and it now also includes all adults aged 60-64, even those who do not belong to a risk group. As well as the groups at high risk of serious illness from Covid-19, this phase will also include people who belong to groups which may have trouble following the national recommendations to reduce the risk of infection. This includes for example people with dementia or Down Syndrome and homeless people. Phase 4: This phase includes the remaining adult population, aged 18-59, who do not belong to a risk group.
Didn't know that...at least we both know the reality of what's occurring in Sweden. By the way, I'm now in contact via email with a Swedish family living in Stockholm. They feel like its a lockdown with the recent restrictions but notice most of those they see ignoring health guidelines... It's not immigrants Yet, they admit they don't have many friends that are immigrants while aware that immigrants have the greatest risk. Funny thing, they wish they were more like New Zealand in its Covid-19 response. wrbtrader
It's only about the number of dead kids the right-wing anti-lockdown advocates whine. "No dead kids, no problem" they push over and over. again. Well what about all the children still in the hospital experiencing debilitating long-COVID symptoms for months. Why don't we also not count all the children with long-term debilitating effects of polio while we are at it. Over 200 kids diagnosed with long-term COVID symptoms in Sweden Having noticed that long-term Covid-19 symptoms are a widespread problem, the Swedish government has decided that there is a need for further research. https://www.edexlive.com/news/2021/...long-term-covid-symptoms-in-sweden-18238.html Over 200 children have been diagnosed with long-term Covid-19 symptoms here, statistics by Swedish Television (SVT) showed on Monday. The Astrid Lindgren's Children's Hospital here has lately seen a surge in children seeking medical care for prolonged Covid symptoms, SVT reported. Fatigue, a sore throat, headaches and nausea are among the most common symptoms. Concentration problems and memory gaps have also been reported. The average age is 11-13 and in some cases, the symptoms are debilitating, said Malin Ryd Linder, chief physician at the clinic specialised in long-term disease in children. "Some go to school, while some are completely bedridden," she told SVT News. Noting the children's long-term Covid-19 symptoms might be more mild than adults', the physician said that "nevertheless, we must get the resources for these children." While the latest statistics showed 214 children have been diagnosed in the capital, the severeness of the problem is unknown as there are no figures for the rest of the country. According to a recent British study, long-term Covid-19 symptoms may be more prevalent than previously thought. In December, the Office for National Statistics said one in five who had been tested positive for the virus exhibited symptoms for five weeks or longer. One in ten had symptoms for 12 weeks or longer, Xinhua reported. Having noticed that long-term Covid-19 symptoms are a widespread problem, the Swedish government has decided that there is a need for further research. "It is not currently known what these remaining symptoms are due to or how they should be treated," the government said last week, when presenting plans to fund research into the issue with 50 million SEK (6 million dollars).
Remember all the adulation about Sweden's approach to Covid and how much concern there has been about Canada's Covid experience on this site ? Let's look at the numbers we are well into the newest outbreak cycle things are settling down everywhere : Cases / Deaths per million : Canada 21.8K, 562 Sweden 60K, 1226 US 85K, 1498 So what was the point about all this fawning over Sweden ? Sweden never deserved all the attention. If there was "exploding" Covid in Canada, and our approach was supposedly going to lead to catastrophic second, third waves, come on now, the numbers clearly say many of you were full of shit. The "Natural Herd Immunity" pushers were the worst. Show me one place on the planet of any size or complexity where this worked. Did it work in Sweden ? I'd rather be on that 562 number then 1226. That's a lot of extra dead people ( 11 times 664 is 7304 extra deaths ). I thought the people of Sweden were healthier then Canadians ? Why is Covid having so much of an easier time killing people in Sweden then Canada ? The US numbers I won't bother with that's old news there were just far too many deniers running around doing their thing ( 330 * 936 is 308,880 extra deaths ). But thank god we had some Americans on here to be concerned about Canada and extol the virtues of Sweden for months on end.