from post 457 in this thread on June 26
Another quote from the article
Post 456 has more quotes from the article as well.
Is there some evidence or reason to think that medical technological advancement would be moving in the opposite direction? I would think that there have been more medical advancements. The falling mortality rates could be evidence of this. But there are other factors in Sweden in particular as well. Since the Prime Minister of Sweden called for an investigation of the handling of the coronavirus and stated that things would change,(post 463 on July 2) there have been more articles written about the increased stringency of the regulations. (post 550 on Aug 11).
More current news in Sweden.
Sweden’s public health body recorded 554 new covid-19 cases Thursday — the highest since early July — and 417 on Friday, according to its online tracking tool , capping off what epidemiologist Anders Tegnell had warned would be a “record week” for new cases.
“It is slowly but surely going in the wrong direction in Sweden, even if the situation is not as serious as in other parts of Europe,” Tegnell said at a news briefing Thursday, according to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet .cumulative number of cases per 100,000 stands at 38.8 , according to the European Center for Disease Control data released Friday — far lower than countries such as Spain, where the figure stood at 319.7 amid a surge in cases, but higher than countries like Germany, Italy and most of its Scandinavian neighbors, all of whom had imposed lockdowns.
Exactly why cases are rising in Sweden is not clear. The end of summer, which had allowed easy outdoor group activities, may be a factor, though government officials have also pointed to data that appears to show more Swedes are returning to the office and using public transport, despite government warnings.Swedish newspaper this week that Nordic nations could have handled the pandemic better if they had coordinated their responses.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?objectid=12368345&utm_campaign=nzh_tw&utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1601192057
There were multiple days in August when Sweden was recording case numbers in the double digits, but numbers jumped a few weeks into September, with authorities struggling to understand why.
Daily case numbers have remained worryingly high ever since, with more than 1700 new cases recorded in the past week.
“The pandemic is still ongoing, and I am pretty exasperated by people who act as if this is over,” he said on Tuesday.
“Everyone needs to help in reducing transmission.”
Wearing a mask is also optional for residents.
But now authorities are considering bringing in restrictions to deal with this unexpected surge in cases.
“Stockholm has seen a clear increase recently, across all age groups,” Sweden’s state epidemiologist Dr Anders Tegnell, who has headed the country’s response, told reporters.
“We are discussing with Stockholm whether we need some additional possibility to take measures to reduce transmission.”
Tegnell said experts were now finalising what restrictions may need to be put in place.
However, a study published in August found Sweden had actually “failed” in its bid to achieve herd immunity.
DSeid
September 28, 2020, 11:40am
603
Indeed if the data is there I am also not able to find it. FWIW, not numbers but the sense of it-
the doctors and hospitals I’ve spoken with recently feel confident that improvements in their standards of care are having a meaningful effect, even if they are reluctant to put an exact number on it.
“There is a lot that has changed. We’ve made amazing progress,” Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, the chief of the infectious disease division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, told me in a phone interview last week. “Many of us do have the sense that we’ve gotten better at what we’re doing, and we are seeing less mortality, even among older hospitalized patients with Covid-19.”
DSeid
September 30, 2020, 3:24am
604
Today’s NYT -https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-strategy.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
DSeid:
Denmark still not enacting very stringent measures, restaurants and bars open (closing after 10PM), still allowing gatherings up to 50 people. Pretty Sweden-like … may they learn for Sweden’s huge mistake and do a much better job with nursing homes and the otherwise keeping the highest risk better protected. Further measures being considered. One gets the impression that there is hesitancy return to how they locked down before, that they now think such is not sustainable.
(Bolding added.)
And from today’s article:
“Today, all of the European countries are more or less following the Swedish model, combined with the testing, tracing and quarantine procedures the Germans have introduced, but none will admit it,” said Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health , in Geneva. “Instead, they made a caricature out of the Swedish strategy. Almost everyone has called it inhumane and a failure.”
FWIW I still think that judgement will have to wait until winter is past. I will be shocked if Sweden does not have more of another wave over winter, even if it is one blunted compared to many other nations, and their failure to protect nursing home residents in their first wave was horrific. But yeah, most of Europe is now using an modified Swedish model.
Sweden’s strategy may not work for other places due to its unique demographic of having a high proportion of people who live alone.
It follows, then, that disparities in household sizes between countries could partially explain their differing outcomes.
Take Sweden, where more than half of households consist of just one person. Roughly one-third of Sweden’s elderly population lives alone, compared to one-fifth of elderly residents in Greece or Spain. Sweden also has a lower proportion of multigenerational households than most other European countries, and one of the smallest average household sizes in Europe: about 2.2 people per home.
Sweden drew attention and condemnation for its decision to keep primary schools, restaurants, bars, and gyms open throughout the pandemic. But its small households may give the virus fewer opportunities to spread there — which can slow transmission.
Indeed, experts say these demographic factors likely contributed to the stark decline in Sweden’s coronavirus deaths since June .research indicates that household crowding — a measure of the number of people per room inside a home — could be a stronger driver of coronavirus transmission than the number of people inside a home.
Indeed, a Wall Street Journal analysis found in June that US counties with high rates of household crowding accounted for a disproportionate share of coronavirus cases.June analysis found that California neighborhoods with the worst coronavirus outbreaks had three times the rate of crowding in households compared to neighborhoods that were largely spared. In New York City, too, ZIP codes in which rental units had more than one occupant per room recorded higher rates of emergency-room visits for “influenza-like illnesses” in March, according to one analysis . (That description is how many COVID-19 cases were recorded at that time.)hit hardest in the Swedish outbreak has been Somali immigrants, many of whom live in crowded, multigenerational households. The other particularly vulnerable group has been nursing-home residents, who also spend their days in close contact under one roof.
amanset
September 30, 2020, 7:18am
606
Interesting to see the foreign press reporting that it is “controlled”, because the local press here was full of how the week by week cases have doubled in Stockholm, the worst affected area (when comparing last week with the previous week).
I don’t have an English link but you can Google Translate on this:
amanset:
Interesting to see the foreign press reporting that it is “controlled”, because the local press here was full of how the week by week cases have doubled in Stockholm, the worst affected area (when comparing last week with the previous week).
It depends on which US press. The Washington Post on Sept. 25 (in post 602 of this thread) agrees with your local press. The NYTimes, on Sept 29 (post 604) has the opposite story.
For the moment, the trend in Sweden in still on the rise for infections
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-cases-idUSKBN26M63D?utm_source=reddit.com
Sweden registered 752 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest daily rise since June, Health Agency statistics showed, the latest in a steady rise in infections in recent weeks after months of limited spread during the summer holiday season.
I disagree, it is more complicated than that. But you might find this article from the Atlantic
DSeid
October 2, 2020, 3:00pm
610
Sweden’s current new case 7 day average 42/m. Netherlands is 172. Denmark (possibly coming back down) 85.
Coming back down without locking things down more than Sweden had.
I continue to reserve making firm conclusions.
amanset
October 4, 2020, 10:57pm
611
Denmark has half the cases per million and a fifth of the deaths per million that Sweden had.
Denmark has been dropping for five weeks or so. Sweden’s dropped slightly this week after about five or six weeks of constant increasing.
DSeid
October 5, 2020, 3:52am
612
Huh?
Denmark’s peak in 7 day daily average new cases was, per 91-divoc, 7 days ago, at 92.7 (okay one blip a fraction higher a few days earlier). They hadn’t even begun their recent surge five weeks ago. Sweden OTOH is not yet dropping from their recent fairly shallow surge, and latest 7 day average was 42.7.
No question that Denmark’s recent surge has NOT resulted in a huge number of deaths. Yet their current policies are nowhere near as stringent as they were in the first surge, and are very similar to what Sweden implemented, except, one presumes, doing a better job keeping it away from the more vulnerable age groups. Here’s their stat page (google will translate) … peak group with infections by far is the 20 to 29 group, and fairly few in the over 60 cohorts. Those older cohorts still get sicker much more often - the 60 to 69s 10X as often as the 20 to 29s, the 70 to 79s 23x as often, the 80 plus over 25x as often … but there’s fewer of them getting infected.
Curious though … any idea why rates there are dropping without very stringent actions taken in response to the surge? Schools open and such … It’s not poof a miracle.
amanset
October 5, 2020, 7:26am
613
Sometimes you just have to admit when you are wrong.
I used here:
And selected the “7 day rolling average”. The data may be 7 day rolling average, but the pop up bar chart when you mouse over a country is still daily, whereas I read it as weekly. I posted when I should have been in bed (it was going on 1am).
Still, it isn’t a “possibly falling”. It is a “clearly falling”.
The wastewater shows that the virus levels are increasing sharply in Stockholm
translation from Reddit
Stockholm’s wastewater shows that the coronavirus is increasing rapidly in the region. The virus infection has doubled in September and is approaching the high levels this spring, according to researchers at KTH.
- We can state in the study that we see a very clear increase in the number of cases of covid-19 in society, which is not due to more people being tested, says Zeynep Cetecioglu Gurol, senior lecturer and KTH researcher.
The researchers’ analysis of the wastewater at three treatment plants in the Stockholm region shows that the coronavirus is now increasing rapidly in the population. For a few weeks in July and August, the levels of Sars-Cov-2 were not even measurable, but in September they have doubled and are starting to approach record numbers from this spring.
Sweden will keep their restrictions for another year with some easing for larger crowds.Johan Carlson: “The measures will remain for at least a year”
I flera europeiska länder protesterar människor mot restriktionerna. Även i Sverige märks en trötthet och Johan Carlson, generaldirektör på Folkhälsomyndigheten, tycker svenskarna blivit lite för slappa.
– Vi får räkna med att åtgärder mot...
translation in Reddit
In several European countries, people are protesting against the restrictions. There is also a tiredness in Sweden and Johan Carlson, director general of the Swedish Public Health Agency, thinks the Swedes have become a little too lax.
- We can expect that measures against the spread of corona will remain for a long time, we are talking about at least a year ahead.
Keep your distance, work from home and have hand hygiene. This has been the mantra from the Swedish Public Health Agency in recent months. Recently, family quarantine was introduced for adults and high school students living with someone who is infected. At the same time, some easing of the restrictions has been presented, including the ban on visiting nursing homes has been lifted since the first of October and events with a seated audience of up to 500 people are expected to be allowed. The formal decision will be made on 15 October.
Sweden has added another restriction due to the increased spread of infection. Members of an entire household are suggested to self-isolate if any member becomes infected with Covid-19. Tegnell says that the rise of infection is now driven by the 20-29 year old age group. He also says that Sweden has not reached herd immunity, and that it’s a “foggy concept.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-tries-to-isolate-covid-19-cases-without-a-lockdown-as-infections-surge-11602004646?mod=world_major_1_pos4
Sweden, almost alone in Europe in rejecting a broad lockdown this spring, has introduced new guidelines to curb a surge in coronavirus infections but is sticking to its largely voluntary approach.
In addition, anyone experiencing cold-like symptoms such as a sore throat is encouraged to stay at home and get tested for Covid-19. So far, testing was only recommended for those experiencing clear symptoms of the disease, such as loss of smell or high fever.
An analysis of Stockholm’s wastewater suggested this week that the rate of coronavirus infections in the capital had doubled in September compared with the previous month and was on track to reach the level of this spring.
“For Covid, it’s been difficult to measure the immunity…it’s been a mystery to me. We probably have some kind of level of immunity in Sweden,” he said. “For Covid-19, (herd immunity) is still a foggy concept, how important it is and how it really works over time.”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash
Some critics of Sweden’s coronavirus policies faced backlash even when the critiques were conforming with the science from the rest of the world. The article gives a lengthy rundown of Sweden’s policies over the course of the pandemic.
Here, Tegnell was and still is against the use of face masks. Critics of that policy faced backlash in Sweden. One example in the article is of a worker in an eye clinic who received reprimand from her manager for wearing a face mask because her patients were elderly. One pulmonologist said that her contract was not renewed because she wore a face mask.
On 5 April, Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist for the Swedish public health authority, sent an email to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) expressing concern about proposed new advice that face masks worn in public could slow the spread of the pandemic coronavirus. “We would like to warn against the publication of this advice,” Tegnell wrote. How much people without symptoms contribute to spread was a “question that remains unanswered,” he wrote, and the advice “would also imply that the spread is airborne, which would seriously harm further communication and trust among the population and health care workers.”
On 8 April, ECDC published its recommendations anyway , in line with an emerging scientific consensus. Although questions remained, “use of face masks in the community could be considered,” it said, “especially when visiting busy, closed spaces.” Tegnell still disagrees. “We have looked very carefully. The evidence is weak,” he told Science . “Countries that have masks are not doing the best right now. It is very dangerous to try to believe that masks are a silver bullet.”
Until last month, Sweden’s policy was that only people with symptoms spread the virus, so members of the household were still required to work and go to school. This changed recently with the policy in the article above.
Until last month, Sweden’s official policy stated people without obvious symptoms are very unlikely to spread the virus. So instead of being quarantined or asked to stay home, family members, colleagues, and classmates of confirmed cases had to attend school and show up for work, unless they had symptoms themselves.
The article states that because of these policies, harm seems to have occurred.
Harm seems to have occurred. The Falu lasarett announced last week that it had been fighting a COVID-19 outbreak in its cardiac ward for 3 weeks, with 10 patients and 12 staff infected so far. As of 27 September, staff will “use protective visors when working closely with patients,” the hospital said. The Swedish Health and Social Care Inspectorate told Science it is investigating 17 hospital and clinic-based outbreaks. In September, Ryhov community hospital in Jönköping announced 20 patients and 40 staff members had been infected in an outbreak in the hospital’s orthopedic ward in May. Five patients died and one is still hospitalized. (The hospital said it had followed FoHM’s policies.) At least three patients have reportedly died of COVID-19 after being infected at the university hospital in Lund.
Some of the critics of Sweden’s coronavirus policies are leaving Sweden. Some feel that the price of the policies was too high, killing many people.
But Ewing worries the fight has left permanent scars. He says at least three more members of the Vetenskapsforum are considering leaving Sweden, as Brusselaers did. And even if it turns out that the country has built up enough immunity to evade a new wave of disease, he says, the price has been too high. “I worry that countries around the world are going to say, ‘We can try what Sweden did.’ But we have killed too many people already.”
A quote I found interesting from that article. Since Sweden was one of the only countries that kept schools open, people often cite Sweden as evidence that it’s safe to open schools based on Sweden’s example. According to this article, there were at least a couple of areas in Sweden’s coronavirus response where data was not as transparent as it seemed.
The report also compares Sweden to Finland for March through the end of May and wrongly concludes that the ”closing of schools had no measurable effect on the number of cases of COVID-19 among children.” As testing among children in Sweden was almost non-existent at that time compared to Finland, these data were misrepresented; a better way to look at it would be to consider the fact that Sweden had seven times as many children per capita treated in the ICU during that time period.
Sweden is now considering lockdowns
Regional lockdowns could be implemented from Monday. “The herd immunity is not as high as assumed,” says chief epidemiologist Tegnell
“It’s kind of a lockdown situation, but a local lockdown,” said Nojd.
Over 5,200 of Sweden's nearly 6,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported to be among those aged 70 and above, according to its public health agency.
The chief state epidemiologist at the public health agency of Sweden, where a nationwide coronavirus lockdown was never implemented , wants to ease safety restrictions for those aged 70 and older to allow them to “live a bit more of a normal life.”
Dr. Anders Tegnell, who is behind the country’s controversial anti-lockdown strategy, said in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program: “Basically we mean that we will send a message to elderly people, you don’t need to completely isolate any more.”
Tegnell’s latest comments come as the total death toll among those aged 70 and above forms nearly 90 percent of the country’s death toll of 5,922.
“We send the same message to them that we send to the population in general: avoid big gatherings, keep your distance,” he told Today
I’m not understanding the logic. The elderly have the highest death rate, so they’re the “main problem” and the solution is to loosen their restrictions? I might understand it a bit more if the rest of the population were going to tighten their restrictions, and that seems to be happening, so maybe those two actions go together. If they do, that’s not laid out in the article.
SayTwo
October 21, 2020, 3:20am
620
What I would guess, if the article doesn’t claim otherwise, is that he refers to the overall health, physical and mental, of the elderly. He has mentioned before what a toll the isolation takes on them, and how risky that is. I would imagine he’s trying to find a way to get a little of their lives back.
…for what little of their lives they’ll have left once the restrictions are lifted.