Is Sweden Irresponsible?

[piggynose]

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200328-how-to-self-isolate-what-we-can-learn-from-sweden

[jno]

we won't know till we see how it pans out. The point about Swedes living alone is interesting.

[naomi24]

Oddly enough I read something that claimed the reason Germany is suffering less than elsewhere is because its population follows instructions without question. There could be something in that.

[Apc2604]

Naomi. I can see that that could be true!

[ToraToraTora]

I think so but Sweden and now Brazil do at least provide a control example for the world to see what happens when we do nothing.

[jno]

the Swedes aren't doing nothing, they just haven't gone into lockdown.

[Mamyalynne]

Thought we'd had a Sweden thread?

[sanmac]

We've also had night song threads.

[jno]

song threads get different songs. Virus threads get the same answers only more ... virulent.

[Mamyalynne]

That's new ,very good.

[tomus42]

Different ideas are being tried in different countries. The lockdown strategies don't seem to be going too well in Italy and Spain, but there could be lots of other factors involved. We'll probably only know what was the best thing to do in hindsight.

[naomi24]

I think you're right, Tomus.

[jim360]

Medically speaking we probably know what to do already. Isolation and testing. In practice not so easy, either because you don't have enough tests, or because you need cooperation or enforcement, or because economic considerations prevent or delay the total lockdown that is required.

At the moment, seems like Sweden and the UK are proportionally comparable in terms of total known cases/deaths per total population, so I'm not sure we can claim to have handled it better (yet).

[royfromaus]

I keep hearing test, test, test. What's magical about this testing?


I get tested today, I'm clear and then what?

[jim360]

The point isn't to find the people who are negative, but the ones who are positive. When you know who has the disease, you also know who's likely to have it (ie, people they've been near). That allows a strategy of targeted quarantine that is known to be, if properly and effectively implemented, one of the most successful strategies at disease control. Even if you miss some people it still has a decent impact.

At the very least, common sense tells you that response to a disease spread is impossible if you don't have any data. Right now in the UK we have a little under 20,000 known cases (set to rise to about 22-23,000 tomorrow), but it has been estimated that, maybe a week ago, there were already something like 100,000 people infected*. Even if we suppose no new cases since whenever that estimate is from, that's still maybe 80,000 infected patients unaccounted for. The more you don't know about the disease the more of a threat it is.



*Maybe a little less, when Prof. Whitty was making this or a similar estimate. I'm fairly sure that was before the schools were closed, or at least within a day or two.

[NickorWan]

//The lockdown strategies don't seem to be going too well in Italy and Spain//

Here in Spain it is too early to assess the effect of lockdown. The only reliable figures are death rates and they tend to lag infection rates by at least two weeks. We have only just completed two weeks of lockdown, so hopefully we should soon start to see an effect if the strategy is working.

[waterboatman]

I hope it works.
I'm om lockdown as I have COPD, which puts me in the high frisk category. Annoying, but that's the way of it.

[waterboatman]

'High frisk'? I wish! :o}

[Togo]

Ohh You are very wrong......Sweden is doing "something". Sweden is prioritising the care of the illegal immigrants over that of it's elderly indigenous populace. Coming to a health authority near you.

"" Sweden’s elderly, along with Swedes with pre-existing health conditions, can be given lower priority than healthy young illegal migrants, according to the new guidelines.

Dr Thomas Lindén, of the National Board of Health and Welfare, said that health professionals should prioritise based on medical needs and not on the basis of citizenship, according to Nyheter Idag.

“The principles of prioritisation say that we should prioritise on the basis of medical needs and that all people have equal value. It means for someone who works in the healthcare industry that it is the people you have ahead of you, then you should not think about legal status, citizenship or so, but it is the medical need that should govern,” he said.""

[Old_Geezer]

They're doing what they think best. Whether they've misjudged or others have overreacted remains to be seen.

[ichkeria]

It’s important to note that the post from Togo at 09.26 is from the far right Breitbart website and the second paragraph is misleading Breitbart comment which doesn’t gel with the actual quote from the Swedish health official, which is perfectly reasonable.
I think this sort of blatant misinformation should at least be giving its source.