teuchter
je suis teuchter
Meanwhile, mask mandates, etc, aren't making the blind bit of difference to the spread of omicron.
Not sure you can say this for definite? What's your control group?
Meanwhile, mask mandates, etc, aren't making the blind bit of difference to the spread of omicron.
There's no correlation between mask mandates and spread of omicron. France is a decent example - widespread mask mandate and just about the biggest surge of any country.Not sure you can say this for definite? What's your control group?
Is anywhere going to avoid a big omicron wave? I suspect not, so it's just a case of where you are in your curve. Sweden did very well in the delta wave. I think we can say that now. It was bottom of the European list throughout autumn for cases and deaths. Will it avoid a big omicron wave? I see no reason why it would. See no reason why anywhere will.Sweden don't look to be doing so great here, not that I think direct comparisons with the UK or other mainland European states are particularly valid - as discussed earlier in this thread.
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As for this bit, why are they not valid? It's arbitrary only to compare Sweden to certain of its neighbours and nobody else. In fact, Tegnell argued early in the pandemic that, in terms of throughput of people from around the world, Sweden is more like The Netherlands than it is Norway.Sweden don't look to be doing so great here, not that I think direct comparisons with the UK or other mainland European states are particularly valid .
It was already discussed at some length some time ago so you'll have to go back through this thread.As for this bit, why are they not valid? It's arbitrary only to compare Sweden to certain of its neighbours and nobody else. In fact, Tegnell argued early in the pandemic that, in terms of throughput of people from around the world, Sweden is more like The Netherlands than it is Norway.
Got to be really careful about cherry-picking stats here. For instance, there were plenty of people arguing that a comparison between Sweden and Germany showed how Sweden had got it badly wrong back when Germany's stats were better than Sweden's.
Ok so you don't know.It was already discussed at some length some time ago so you'll have to go back through this thread.
OK, so you're unable to readOk so you don't know.
Excess death rates aren’t a bad measure of how countries are weathering the pandemic, but neither can they be used to judge the success or otherwise of any country’s Covid strategy, IMHO.The stats don't back that up, though. Excess death numbers show that covid-19 as a public health emergency ended in Sweden around March last year. In fact, while Denmark has done better overall than Sweden since the start of the pandemic - 44 vs 117 excess deaths per 100k - Sweden has done better than Denmark in the last ten months.
Right at the start of the pandemic, Anders Tegnell said to wait on passing judgement over Sweden's approach until March 2021. He got some things wrong, including underestimating the power of mutation to cause future waves, and he got that date wrong, probably by about a year. March 2022 is likely to be roughly the time when we can meaningfully carry out covid audits. He also specifically referenced Denmark, asking how they would be protected over the winter of 2020-21. Again, he got that wrong as Denmark wasn't that badly affected, and was less badly affected than Sweden over that winter. However, if he'd referenced a whole bunch of countries in Eastern Europe that dodged the first wave and then were smacked so badly by the second wave that their overall deaths surged past those of countries badly hit by the first wave, he'd have been spot on.
Meanwhile, mask mandates, etc, aren't making the blind bit of difference to the spread of omicron. It's hit Denmark first and no doubt Sweden will get its share very soon.
Everyone has got something wrong when dealing with this pandemic. The Swedes have been better than most in admitting that, admitting very early on that they failed to protect care home residents. But from what I see in the stats, Sweden's approach only looks better the further on in the pandemic we get. I certainly don't think it's tenable to hold up Sweden as an example of folly, even when comparing it to the rest of Scandinavia only (which is a bit of an arbitrary choice) - for instance, Finland's excess deaths are now standing at 73 and have been steadily catching up with Sweden over the last year. But in any case, the whole of Scandinavia, including Sweden, is well below the European average. Countries once held up as the examples to follow, such as Germany, have now overtaken Sweden, and many, many countries have done far worse.
Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries
Nowhere looks likely to avoid a big wave, but they still take steps to reduce the ultimate size and impact of the wave.Is anywhere going to avoid a big omicron wave? I suspect not, so it's just a case of where you are in your curve. Sweden did very well in the delta wave. I think we can say that now. It was bottom of the European list throughout autumn for cases and deaths. Will it avoid a big omicron wave? I see no reason why it would. See no reason why anywhere will.
You can't isolate out the mask mandate from all the other variables though. So I don't see how anyone can say there is or isn't a correlation.There's no correlation between mask mandates and spread of omicron. France is a decent example - widespread mask mandate and just about the biggest surge of any country.
I believe they gained a new prime minister at the end of last year. Not sure if this is relevant to the change in approach.Nowhere looks likely to avoid a big wave, but they still take steps to reduce the ultimate size and impact of the wave.
These days Sweden seems less keen on Swedens original approach than you do! Why do you think they have felt the need to impose a range of measures on several occasions in the last month or so? Their current measures go further than the UKs in a number of areas, including limits to the size of private gatherings.
“If we have the continued low pressure from the virus which we have just now, then maybe proof of vaccination (for larger public gatherings) would be enough,” Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s no-lockdown approach to the pandemic, told a press briefing in the Swedish capital Stockholm.
“But experiences from many other European countries — the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria — suggest that if the spread of virus increases, then it is not enough.”
Prof Tegnell said masks are an effective way to stop transmission, particularly in crowded spaces, and that health officials should work to change attitudes to promote their use.
“We can’t get away from the fact that we have been sceptical towards face masks, and people have understandably picked up on that, and have it in the back of their mind. And then it’s hard to change that attitude,” he told newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
The government’s measures were sharply criticised in an 800 page report (the second of this sort) published in October 2021 by the Swedish Corona Commission3—the government commissioned inquiry into the pandemic response—which it noted were both late and insufficient, and called preparedness “non-existing.”
This was followed in November 2021 by a report from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,4 proposing the establishment of an independent expert unit for future pandemics, stating that authorities were “inadequately prepared” in terms of knowledge as well as equipment such as face masks, and that high mortality during the first two waves of the pandemic was because of “mild and tardy” measures to prevent the initial spread of infection.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf labelled Sweden’s handling of the pandemic a “failure” in his end of 2020 TV speech. Then prime minister Stefan Lofven agreed. “The fact that so many have died can’t be considered as anything other than a failure,” he said.
Anders Vahlne, a professor of virology at the Karolinska Institute and one of the scientists critical of the Swedish response, told The BMJ that it was shameful that the whole pandemic had been in the hands of a few civil servants who acted and reacted slowly, lacking flexibility and still not clearly acknowledging that the virus was airborne.
sounds like a trump quoteIt’s not the covid spreaders going to work who are the problem, it’s that they tested themselves to know they had it
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Yes, it’s delusional madness. And folkhälsomyndigheten is the public health agency of Sweden, the people who are meant to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. For them to say it’s fine for infected people to go mix with others but not ok for them to be tested is so fucked up, it makes it clear the only strategy in play now is herd immunity. I wonder how many people will die.sounds like a trump quote
A new study paints a damning picture of Sweden's COVID response:
"The Swedish response to this pandemic,” the researchers report, “was unique and characterized by a morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable laissez-faire approach.”
The details of Swedish policies as described by Brusselaers and her co-authors are horrifying. The Swedish government, they report, deliberately tried to use children to spread COVID-19 and denied care to seniors and those suffering from other conditions.
“Many elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies, effectively ending their lives,” the researchers wrote. “Potentially life-saving treatment was withheld without medical examination, and without informing the patient or his/her family or asking permission.”
In densely populated Stockholm, triage rules stated that patients with co-morbidities were not to be admitted to intensive care units, on grounds that they were “unlikely to recover,” the researchers wrote, citing Swedish health strategy documents and statistics from research studies indicating that ICU admissions were biased against older patients.
Column: Did Sweden beat the pandemic by refusing to lock down? No, its record is disastrous
A new study shows just how badly Sweden fared in the pandemic.www.latimes.com
Evaluation of science advice during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Sweden was well equipped to prevent the pandemic of COVID-19 from becoming serious. Over 280 years of collaboration between political bodies, authorities, and the scientific community had yielded many successes in preventive medicine. Sweden’s population is literate and has a high level of trust...www.nature.com
Heres a few thoughts on it not being all that surprising when we think about it:Speaking to a few Swedes recently, I was slightly surprised to hear how much activity did actually stop. A fair few Swedes effectively placed themselves into a voluntary lockdown, closing clubs, ending socialising, etc.