Sweden's lockdown strategy is failing.

Well then.

Sweden is where the world ends and the rise of the antichrist begins...

lockdown zealot alert

To the Prime Minister. You in danger gurl!

Now would be a good time for the Swedes to amend their constitution and notify the UN of their new name: 'Covidiotstan.'

More should be like Greta, the OG one.

It’s the economy stupid

It’s the economy stupid

I have a feeling corona will just run through a segment of population and then stop. I don't think its a train and it might just have a maximum infection rate. then it'll go away.

Thank you Sweden for offering your citizens up as guinea pigs. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten after you are long gone.

Remember all the “Sweden is doing it differently” threads in which certain posters were praising Sweden’s way of handling, or should I say ignoring, COVID-19?

Well, eat shit! Or Surströmming in this case.

Meh this just tells me the disease isn't spreading that fast.

Coronaloo!

Well, if they don't develop herd immunity soon and a large percentage of the population succumbs, then the rest of the world will know ahead of time just how screwed they are.

We won’t know until year from now which strategy was the more successful one.

If you don't make it, can I have your stuff, Sweden?

I hope ABBA are keeping themselves say. They are part of the demographic that Anders wants to kill off.

Doesn't appear to be a high death toll really.

Those that died were mostly old with other conditions - they probably would have died with the next flu season.

They just bought forward the deaths.

[quote] We won’t know until year from now which strategy was the more successful one.

Link?

R17 No, because you can get a flu shot which saves lots of lives.

The 'Rona is a very smart virus, highly virulent in parks, streets, churches and schools, the gym and on beaches…
 Amazingly, it has no effect on the thousands of employees who work at Kmart, BigW, Target, Bunnings…. and especially in liquor stores…and the virus seems to particulary target mostly mum and dad businesses and barbershops.

Yikes... if this article is correct then this means Sweden's strategy is failing.

R19 In a historically unprecedented event such as the COVID-19 outbreak, overall excess mortality cannot be predicted. Actual death certificate data is required, which takes a year to accumulate.

We already know that the average age of death for COVID-19 cases 80, half of all deaths have been in nursing homes, and 94% had underlying conditions.

The news media are trying to terrify people because that strategy makes them more money. In reality this pathogen does not take out the young and healthy.

isn't it possible the virus does not infect everyone easily? If the virus does not take hold in a body, there is no infection and no antibodies. Maybe only 50% or less of the population can even get this.

like people who have the genetic marker and cannot get HIV. This is not the few people who got but did not progress quickly. Some people just can't get it. Maybe there are genetic markers that prevent any infection of coronavirus.

The way that Gates, the WHO, and other pandemic extremists plan to keep the public strung along in anticipation of a magical “unicorn” vaccine is to continue fear-mongering about the threat of infection. One of the latest claims is that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) will never go away, which is sure to scare enough people into demanding whatever “warp speed” drug, injectable or otherwise, is presented as the cure.

Sweden's GDP is expected to decline proportionally to the rest of the world. Denmark is the model we should've followed they have been much more successful.

R26? What’s this Gates and WHO conspiracy that you’ve created in your head? I e already have many diseases that will never go away from the common cold to the seasonal flu. There’s a vaccine for the flu.

If COVID-19 will never be eradicated, then well obviously need a vaccine to manage the disease. Why is that so hard to understand and why does there have to be some kind of conspiracy around that?

How would Bill Gates profit from a COVID-19 vaccine and why would he have to profit from anything since he’s a gazillionaire?

*That’s supposed to say “we already have many diseases”...

R24, well, that’s not very scary. Please go back to the drawing board and come up with a scenario in which the sky is falling and we’re all gonna DIIIIIE if we leave our bunkers.

Thank you.

[quote] The way that Gates, the WHO, and other pandemic extremists plan to keep the public strung along in anticipation of a magical “unicorn” vaccine i

Vaccines aren’t magical unicorns, sweetie. They’re prophylactics used against infectious diseases.

We have vaccines that prevent us from getting

Polio

diphtheria

influenza

smallpox

Typhus

Typhoid fever

Pertussis

Hepatitis A, hepatitis B

Pneumococcal pneumonia

HPV

meningitis

Rubella

Shingles

Tetanus

Measles

Varicella

Not one magical unicorn among them!

But Sweden was WINNING according to the last thread!

Sweden is not doing this because of the economy, they are just being pragmatic. They want to face the problem now instead of postponing the inevitable.

R26 is not a loon. Bill Gates Sr. Promoted his Eugenics philosophy clandestinely through his philanthropy. Junior also believes that the current size of the world population is not sustainable. Prince Charles has stated publicly that if he could be reincarnated he would come back as a virus. What if there was a way to bring down the world's population permanantly? Would you take a stab at it for the greater good?

I genuinely hope that a fast-tracked, safe vaccine becomes widely available within the next year.

In the current situation, I believe the Swedes have gotten more of their policy right than wrong, while the US and the UK -- to name two examples -- have gotten more wrong than right.

We won't have definitive data on who did what right for at least two more years, when several waves of the virus have washed over the world, which -- barring quick development of a safe vaccine -- is inevitable.

So stop with the panic-pandering Sweden bashing.

R27 All nation's GDPs were set to decline because the world's economy is in decline. Some countries are set to decline more than others because they are more exposed to the ups and downs of the world economy. Sweden's GDP would have been even worse if it had enacted a lockdown.

Calm down, Mary. It's way too early to say that it's failing. We're not going to know what worked best until the virus is eradicated or completely controlled everywhere, and that's probably at least a year away.

I would still go for some Swedish cock.

It's Time to END the HYPE and HYSTERIA and START telling the TRUTH about this Corona/Covid Virus Pandemic so the world can go back to work NOW

Sweden's lockdown strategy is failing?

Uh...let's see, if Sweden's lockdown strategy is failing how would you describe the lockdown strategy of France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, the UK? All with higher death rates? And Ireland and the Netherlands are not far behind. Yet Sweden didn't do it with measures that create so much havoc to society.

But the point is that Swedes self-policed, not that they didn’t have a de facto shutdown. It’s not like their economy just churned on - their GDP was reduced by 7 percent. It was a calculated bargain that traded away lives for some level of protection for the economy.

Sweden’s death rate per 1M population is #8 of all reported countries. South Korea is #110. So R40, Sweden’s dealing with the virus has been a failure.

Facts.

The mayor of Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, needs to move to Sweden, since she’s such a big fan of this idea.

R42 Those 8 countries that have done worse than Sweden are among the major economic players of Europe. South Korea? Wrist bands and ankle bracelets and quarantine dormitories and unrestricted warrantless government access to personal information, obligatory taking devices.....yes, with those methods South Korea did a wonderful job.

[quote]But the point is that Swedes self-policed, not that they didn’t have a de facto shutdown. It’s not like their economy just churned on - their GDP was reduced by 7 percent.

Of course Sweden's economy is going to be hit, economies are interconnected but talk to the restaurant owner, the barber, the small shop owner...you know, the little guy and see if he would have been happier to have his business closed.

R39 thats a very nasty publication.

While I'm sorry people are needlessly getting sick and dying, it's good for the rest of us that a country was willing to take one for the team, so to speak.

As abhorrent as human experimentation is, if a country somewhere didn't try it, there were always going to be people saying it would work.

Sweden did this to themselves voluntarily. While I'm sure the entire country didn't agree, they chose this path, and now we all know what the result is.

They shouldn't have tried this. But, spilled milk. They tried. It failed. They now have to live (or die) with the consequences of their horrible mistake.

If their strategy "failed" . Then how would you describe the lockdown strategy of France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, the UK? All with higher death rates? And Ireland and the Netherlands are not far behind?

Some statistics:

Sweden deaths: 3,925

Deaths over the age of 70: 3, 462

R39 Roughly 50% of Twitter accounts sharing your view.... are bots.

Here is a news flash: Rich European countries will be quite less impacted by Corona because they did not allow huge chunks of their workforce to be fired. Sure there are joblosses, but it's not like USA. And Europe has a social safety net for people who have lost work.

That is the entire benefit of living in a VERY rich country, compared to the rest of the world. USA is officially a banana republic.

I don't understand people thinking we can develop herd immunity? COVID is in the family of the cold rhinovirus. Have we developed an immunity to the cold in the past, I dunno 1000 years?

Sweden - not particularly doing well in terms of the death thing. Not particularly doing well with their economy either. "more deaths" didn't save much of the economy... at least according to present data. We'll see in the future.

Vietnam is the country to be studied. Right next to China with hundreds of flights from Wuhan etc..... a country of 90 million people. Not a single death.

[quote] While there is no universally shared definition of a bot and not all bots are considered bad, a bot is generally viewed as a software program that controls Twitter accounts and automate tasks like tweeting or retweeting. In theory, it is possible for one person to control thousands of accounts.

This is right there in the CNN article. That's rich to have that as the headline of your article and then completely invalidate your own study a couple paragraphs into it. They are just as guilty of trying to control the narrative by destroying any nuanced argument. Everything has to be either/or because that's what makes them the most money.

The majority of the country, whether they post on social media or not, do want to reopen but they want to do so in the most responsible way possible. What these publications will do is find the most idiotic people in a country of over 300 million to advance their own theory that any easing of restrictions is bad. Bad journalism all around.

We can't know what works and what's failed until we know the total area under the curve. Until there is either i) a vaccine, or ii) the virus is controlled globally, we can't know the total area under the curve. Why are people so desperate to proclaim NOW who's 'winning' and who is 'failing' -- well before we can make a scientific determination?

One word: politics.

R55 I agree, this pissing contest only helps political parties.

Much more than half of the “GO BACK TO WORK” posters here are Russian Trump bots. It’s not clear to me why they aren’t being red tagged more often and flat out banned. It’s not like Muriel has anything else to do right now.

How Sweden wasted a ‘rare opportunity’ to study coronavirus in schools

By Gretchen VogelMay. 22, 2020 , 1:55 PM

There’s nearly universal agreement that widespread, long-lasting school closures harm children. Not only do children fall behind in learning, but isolation harms their mental health and leaves some vulnerable to abuse and neglect. But during this pandemic, does that harm outweigh the risk—to children, school staff, families, and the community at large—of keeping schools open and giving the coronavirus more chances to spread?

The one country that could have definitively answered that question has apparently failed to collect any data. Bucking a global trend, Sweden has kept daycare centers and schools through ninth grade open since COVID-19 emerged, without any major adjustments to class size, lunch policies, or recess rules. That made the country a perfect natural experiment about schools’ role in viral spread that many others could have learned from as they reopen schools or ponder when to do so. Yet Swedish officials have not tracked infections among school children—even when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease.

“It’s really frustrating that we haven’t been able to answer some relatively basic questions on transmission and the role of different interventions,” says Carina King, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute (KI), Sweden’s flagship medical research center. King says she and several colleagues have developed a protocol to study school outbreaks, “but the lack of funding, time, and previous experience of conducting this sort of research in Sweden has hampered our progress.”

“We are trying to mobilize, but realistically with the school year ending in a few weeks, it seems unlikely we will be able to get what we want up and running,” says King, who adds that her queries to public health authorities about other efforts have come up empty. “There is some data collection happening in children, but it’s not focused around schools or, as far as I know, will not answer questions around transmission.”

Because children rarely suffer severe symptoms of COVID-19, pediatricians in several countries have called for schools to reopen. But a key question remains: Because people with mild symptoms can be extremely infectious and frequently spark large clusters of infections, could schools also be a source of COVID-19 outbreaks, possibly driven by children who feel fine but can pass the virus to each other, their teachers, and their families?

In Sweden, they have had a rare opportunity to understand [school] transmission chains better. But you can’t find what you don’t look for.

[Science article cont.]

Health officials and researchers around the world are scrambling to answer that question. Key to that effort is tracing whether infected children spread the virus to people they’ve been in contact with. “I’m concerned that there may be a rush to judgment that asymptomatic school children aren’t spreading COVID-19 to adults,” says Anita Cicero, an expert in pandemic response policy at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “In Sweden, they have had a rare opportunity to understand [school] transmission chains better. But you can’t find what you don’t look for. The U.S. and other countries with closed schools would certainly benefit from that research.”

Emma Frans, a clinical epidemiologist at KI who also writes a regular newspaper column on science and health, says Sweden’s overall goal during the pandemic has not been to eliminate transmission completely, but to prevent the health system from becoming overburdened and to protect the elderly. (It has succeeded at the former but not the latter: Sweden has suffered very high mortality among nursing home residents.) Regarding schools, Frans says, “Most people in Sweden are quite happy with [them] being open.” She acknowledges the lack of data is a missed opportunity. With Sweden’s centralized health system and extensive records, “it would have been possible” to track cases fairly easily had there been more testing.

But KI pediatrician and clinical epidemiologist Jonas Ludvigsson, who has published two review articles about COVID-19 in children, thinks tracing infected people’s contacts is of little use at this point in the epidemic. “The virus is so widespread in society that responsible people do not think it is a good idea to trace individuals. We only test symptomatic individuals. I agree with that,” he wrote in response to Science asking whether researchers were tracking school outbreaks.

Ludvigsson added that Swedish privacy laws allow health care personnel and school officials to notify parents and school staff about an infection only “if a person’s life is at risk.” Because severe complications from the new coronavirus are so rare in children, that does not apply to cases of COVID-19, he says. “Consider if your own child … had COVID-19,” he wrote. “None of the kids will want to play with a child who has COVID-19, even if most kids will have no symptoms or only ‘some fever and a cough.’”

In a review paper published 19 May in Acta Paediatrica, Ludvigsson concluded that children are “unlikely to be the main drivers” of COVID-19 spread. He cited case studies from France and Australia but wrote that, “So far there have been no reports of COVID-19 outbreaks in Swedish schools,” citing “personal communication” from Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, on 12 May. “This supports the argument that asymptomatic children attending schools are unlikely to spread the disease,” Ludvigsson wrote.

[Science article cont.]

However, a scan of Swedish newspapers makes clear that school outbreaks have occurred. In the town of Skellefteå, a teacher died and 18 of 76 staff tested positive at a school with about 500 students in preschool through ninth grade. The school closed for 2 weeks because so many staff were sick, but students were not tested for the virus. In Uppsala, staff protested when school officials, citing patient privacy rules, declined to notify families or staff that a teacher had tested positive. No contact tracing was done at the school. At least two staff members at other schools have died, but those schools remained open and no one attempted to trace the spread of the disease there. When asked about these cases, Ludvigsson said he was unaware of them. He did not respond to a query about whether he would amend the review article to include them.

An indirect clue about schools’ role in spread might come from antibody studies. On 19 May, the Swedish Public Health Agency announced preliminary results from antibody surveys of 1100 people from nine regions. They reported that antibody prevalence in children and teenagers was 4.7%, compared with 6.7% in adults age 20 to 64 and 2.7% in 65- to 70-year-olds. The relatively high rate in children suggests there may have been significant spread in schools. The agency did not provide more specific data to distinguish between younger children and those in high schools and universities, which have switched to remote teaching.

The missed opportunity in Sweden is a wake-up call, King says: “We need ready-to-implement protocols for basic epidemiology during these situations.” Studies now underway in other European countries may soon provide more clues. And Cicero and colleagues issued a call last week to “fill in the blanks” in the understanding of U.S. schools’ role in the pandemic. “We need a national mandate to prioritize and quickly fund research to answer these scientific questions,” they wrote. “As schools reopen, [computer] models are not sufficient to determine the actual risk to school-aged children and the teachers and caregivers in their lives.”

Scotland has half of Sweden's population and basically the same amount of deaths.

[quote]Vietnam is the country to be studied. Right next to China with hundreds of flights from Wuhan etc..... a country of 90 million people. Not a single death.

Are you fucking serious?

You believe Vietnam? A country of one party Communist rule with a horrible human rights record, censorship, the silencing of dissidents....

Vietnam, South Korea? Some of you Fascism apologists are really out of your minds.

The longer this goes on, the more devastating it's going to be for the economy and small business. Most of them are not getting the federal aid they need.

[quote] [R26] is not a loon

In that case, R26 is mentally retarded.

Vaccines aren’t magical unicorns. They’re medical treatments

[quote] So stop with the panic-pandering Sweden bashing.

Calm yourself, mormor. Nobody’s bashing Sweden. We’re just pointing out that they’re wrong, too. They thought they’d have 50% population immunity to the virus by now. It’s 7%.

R61 Scottish people are not the healthiest, lots of heavy drinkers and obesity here.

R62 You’re dead wrong regarding Vietnam. I was there until mid February before returning to Germany. Vietnam’s most important measure was to close the borders immediately after the lunar new year celebrations and installing a mandatory 2 week quarantine for all foreigners fast. With these measures keeping the virus out is not that hard to manage, while western countries reacted way too late by comparison. The information coverage in Vietnam was absolutely trustworthy and transparent. They had a total of 16 cases in the first month. You could find all information about the infected people (name, age, occupation, employer etc.) in the newspaper. When they were released from hospital, TV stations waited for them for interviews. When there was a new case, the whole neighborhood knew about t it almost immediately as there is no concept of privacy there. Germany on the other hand was 5 steps behind when I returned. The German public compared it to the flu and said panic is worse than the virus.... only to take more drastic measures than Vietnam ever had to a few weeks later. So Vietnam >>>>> Germany in this. It helped a lot that the Asians still remembered SARS from 2004.

[quote]You’re dead wrong regarding Vietnam. I was there until mid February

It's not about you. Tourist.

[quote]The information coverage in Vietnam was absolutely trustworthy and transparent.

I'm sure...

Why Vietnam is NOT a model for the west (this is Foreign Policy magazine a liberal publication)

[quote]The information coverage in Vietnam was absolutely trustworthy and transparent.

Yeah, right...

We really have no moral high ground on truth. Georgia, Florida, and Arizona got caught intentionally distorting their data. Captain Bleach distorts reality, makes unrealistic promises, and pushes unproven drugs under the delusion that his lies will prop up the stock market and keep him out of prison. Who takes us seriously?

[quote]We really have no moral high ground on truth.

You are such a fucking idiot. There is no equivalency.

But keep trying.

Though I hit a nerve for you, r37, I made no argument for equivalence. When the leader of our country - who was chosen by voters - is aggressively lying about every detail, Americans have little credibility.

I’m glad to “keep trying” if you present an argument rather than just throw out names. Are you suggesting Trump - or America - has been truthful about the coronavirus?

I'm not R37. But anyone who seriously tries to find equivalence between freedom of expression between the US and Vietnam is pretty dumb.

[quote]The information coverage in Vietnam was absolutely trustworthy and transparent.

[quote]But anyone who seriously tries to find equivalence between freedom of expression in the US compared to Vietnam is pretty dumb.

The issue was not equivalence, but credibility. Please share the basis for US credibility on the coronavirus.

R62, fascism is on the far right. Communism is far left. A country cannot be both fascist and communist. I don’t make the rules, the rules predate me.

[quote]The issue was not equivalence, but credibility. Please share the basis for US credibility on the coronavirus.

Whatabout, Whatabout, Whatabout...deflect, deflect, deflect...

The subject was this laughably ignorant phrase:

[quote]The information coverage in Vietnam was absolutely trustworthy and transparent.

Yep, just like the US.

"Vietnam’s appalling human rights record worsened in 2018 as the government imprisoned dissidents for longer prison terms, sanctioned thugs to attack rights defenders, and passed draconian laws that further threaten freedom of expression.

"The Communist Party of Vietnam monopolizes power through the government, controls all major political and social organizations, and punishes people who dare to criticize or challenge its rule."

"Basic civil and political rights including freedom of expression, association, and peaceful public assembly are severely restricted. Independent media is not allowed as the government controls TV, radio, newspapers, and other publications. Vietnam prohibits the formation of independent labor unions, political associations, and human rights organizations. Police frequently use excessive force to disperse peaceful public protests that criticize the government."

"Activists questioning government policies or projects, or seeking to defend local resources or land, face daily harassment, intrusive surveillance, house arrest, travel bans, arbitrary detention, and interrogation. Thugs, apparently collaborating with police, have increasingly launched physical attacks against activists with impunity."

"Police subject dissidents to lengthy and bullying interrogations, and detain them incommunicado for months without access to family members or legal counsel. Communist Party-controlled courts receive instructions on how to rule in criminal cases, and have issued increasingly harsh prison sentences for activists convicted on bogus national security charges."

[quote]Deaths over the age of 70: 3, 462

You killed grandma !!!

Not only are the Swedes cooking up their numbers, they feel proud to have killed their elderly.

R78 Sweden? Why aren't you worried about the grands-mères of France?

"In nursing homes across France 9,471 deaths had been recorded by May 5th"

Sweden? They can't even top Andrew Cuomo's record.

"[Of the nation's] coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, a fifth of them - about 5,300 - are in New York, according to a count by The Associated Press, and the toll has been increasing by an average of 20 to 25 deaths a day for the past few weeks."

5,300. Sweden really has to try harder.

France has about 8 times the population of Sweden.

Um no, go ahead and bash them.

It's a novel virus. Of course, the US did get some things wrong. So did the CDC. The difference is the US and its leaders are still accountable to the truth.

[Quote]Unlike its Nordic neighbors, Sweden decided early on in the pandemic to forgo lockdown in the hope of achieving broad immunity to the coronavirus. While social distancing was promoted, the government allowed bars, restaurants, salons, gyms and schools to stay open.

[Quote]Initially, Sweden saw death rates from COVID-19 that were similar to other European nations that had closed down their economies. But now the Scandinavian nation’s daily death toll per 1 million people is 8.71 compared to the United States’ 4.59, according to online publication Our World in Data. Sweden's mortality rate is the highest in Europe.

R62 South Korea fascist? No, you are confusing it with the beloved country of your Fearless Leader, Trump, North Korea. We've actually spent a gazzillion dollars and still have stationed thousands of American troops to protect the South Korean democracy from North Korea.

Do does MAGA have talking points you guys use? Maybe you should vet them, Google a little bit or something, before you posterize the errors?

R85 Wrist bands and ankle bracelets and quarantine dormitories and unrestricted warrantless government access to personal information, obligatory tracking devices.....and thats not all.....yes, Fascist.

R67 Thank you for comments. They were very interesting. In regards to Germany do you think the number of deaths are accurate?

They are so much lower than their neighbours. Whilst I have read that Germany had more intensive care beds per head of population in Europe than most other countries that death count is looks really low.

Are sociopaths running the country, as in America?

R88 Yes.

Now Sweden has the worst death rate in Europe.

Honestly, that the 'experts' in Sweden could not foresee what would happen...........WTF?

Sweden will have the last laugh.

Strategy + tragedy = Stragedy

Swedes were the same idiots that thought it was a good idea to let all those Muslims into their country about 7 years ago when there was that wave of migrants coming over. They just let everyone run wild and do whatever they want.

My inexpert impression is that very few countries have sent in their militaries to stop the deaths in nursing homes. It would have taken a massive effort, and no country did it, that I am aware of. It's been 2 months we've known nursing homes (and factories, churches) are ground zero but nobody seems to consider these populations worth the effort.

[quote]Now Sweden has the worst death rate in Europe.

Death rate means little.

The death rate depends on testing. The more tests, the lower the death rate. Sweden has just not tested as much as other countries.

You have to look at deaths per capita. Sweden's is 396.

The countries you should be concerned about are Belgium 801, Spain 613, Italy 541, UK 541, France 434

And remember, Sweden's numbers are with out a harsh lockdown causing grief among the populace.

Deaths in Sweden of those under the age of 70 are very low, around 460 people.

Sweden's failure has been with nursing homes more than anything else. But that's been a problem everywhere, look at NY.

Whenever Sweden's death toll passed 1580 was the day its death rate became greater than the United States.

[quote] COVID is in the family of the cold rhinovirus. Have we developed an immunity to the cold in the past, I dunno 1000 years?

I don’t understand the logic of this thinking. The common cold is an inconvenience for a week or so with virtually no economic ramifications. It doesn’t kill people by the thousands. There’s little incentive for a vaccine. This Coronavirus is creating new and dramatic economic issues, health issues for those who have it and survive, and untold numbers of dead. Just because one “survives” the virus, it’s not always a quick or painless recovery. Some survivors were on ventilators for weeks and now have to go to rehab and it may be months before they fully recover. Other survivors spent months in the hospital.

No one will be going to sporting events for the foreseeable future until there’s a vaccine and that’s a huge business in America. People will be very reluctant to go shopping or to restaurants, etc.

There is tremendous incentive for working on a vaccine and billions are being poured into the effort.

R80, the population of New York state is twice that of Sweden.

[quote]People will be very reluctant to go shopping

Funny, my local supermarket and Walmart have been busier than ever over the last two months.

[quote]The death rate depends on testing. The more tests, the lower the death rate. Sweden has just not tested as much as other countries.

It's not entirely true r96 that the death rate depends on testing (it's more the infection rate) but, sure, the lack of tests may mean that some coronavirus deaths are not being registered as such. Which is actually bad for Sweden because - as you say - it's possible that there are many more coronavirus deaths in Sweden but they are not being recorded as such.

Sweden should be compared to more typical cases of countries of its own size and region - its neighbours and similar-sized European countries and even many other countries around the world. Belgium, Italy, Spain, etc. are outliers that were particularly hardly hit for various reasons. Saying Sweden is at least doing better than some of the worst-hit places is hardly something positive for Sweden.

[quote]the population of New York state is twice that of Sweden.

At least Sweden didn't order nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals. NY deliberately put nursing home residents in danger.

And take a look at NY's excess death rate, it's a scandal. So who knows what the true numbers are.

If you've lived in Sweden or have known or worked with Swedes, you know why they embarked on a contrarian strategy just because and then stubbornly doubled down when reality suggested changing course. I would have expected nothing less.

R87, Germany's death rate is not especially lower than those of its neighbours - Germany's direct neighbours include Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein.

What Germany did from the start that was right was follow the South Korea model almost from the start. They found their patient zero, isolated him and his family and traced and tested all the people he had been in contact with and have pretty much followed that model all the way through. The other thing they did was have regional school closures and local lockdowns in regions where there was an outbreak before implementing a full national lockdown.

The thing is even on a European scale, the experience of Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Sweden and the UK is unusual and there are specific reasons why the virus got out of control in each of those countries.

Sure r102, Sweden isn't as bad as New York, therefore Sweden's strategy is working well!

[quote] Funny, my local supermarket and Walmart have been busier than ever over the last two months.

Because they’re the only ones open and the only ones that sell food. You know, shit you need to live.

I’m talking about malls, clothing stores, and shopping just for the sake of shopping. Most people will not be crowding into malls this Christmas season unless there’s a vaccine.

But, of course, you knew that.

[quote]And remember, Sweden's numbers are with out a harsh lockdown causing grief among the populace.

And yet the country's economy is still in a shambles.

[quote]I’m talking about malls, clothing stores, and shopping just for the sake of shopping. Most people will not be crowding into malls this Christmas season unless there’s a vaccine.

You're so wrong about that. People are not waiting for a vaccine to get on with there lives.

[quote]Because they’re the only ones open and the only ones that sell food.

Food is only a very small part of what Walmart sells.

People have been in every department; clothes, garden supplies, hardware... packed.

^Their

No R108, REPUBLICANS have been doing this. Democrats are most decidedly against reopening.

For a country that typically take the proper logistical and scientific approach to a variety of issues, Sweden screwed up on COVID-19.

I find it funny that American deplorables are praising Sweden's chief epidemiologist because the only reason the Swedish government didn't order a full lockdown is because the Swedish constitution prohibits the government from over-ruling the Public Health Agency, so the government is basically forced to do what Anders Tegnell says. Imagine Fauci deciding what the US government does, with Trump or Congress not having the power to decide.

[quote]The thing is even on a European scale, the experience of Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Sweden and the UK is unusual and there are specific reasons why the virus got out of control in each of those countries.

Italy can be forgiven because they got impacted first, and everybody else was learning from watching them.

Walmart and Target should not have been able to get away with that! Someone was paid off. The general merchandise sections should have been roped off.

Kinky.

Here's Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA discussing how he's doing. He appears to live alone. Does he have any kids?

Can't believe some posters on this board would be willing to sacrifice this poor man just so you can go out and act like an idiot.

^Collateral damage to utilitarian Swedes.