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Sweden admits failure, implements lockdowns

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  • Sweden admits failure, implements lockdowns

    Long a Holdout From Covid-19 Restrictions, Sweden Ends Its Pandemic Experiment: Government imposes mandatory measures after failing to contain new surge in infections

    Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment is over.

    After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures.

    Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world.

    Sweden.JPG-
    The clampdown, which started last month, put an end to a hands-off approach that had made the Scandinavian nation a prime example in the often heated global debate between opponents and champions of pandemic lockdowns.

    ...Weeks later, with total Covid-19-related deaths reaching almost 700 per million inhabitants, infections growing exponentially and hospital wards filling up, the government made a U-turn...

    Dr. Nowak said medical personnel had never shared the optimism of the country’s public-health agency about so-called herd immunity—population-wide resistance to a pathogen acquired through gradual exposure—and had repeatedly warned that the virus couldn’t be controlled with voluntary measures alone.

    In recent months, [Sweden's now-throughly-discredited chief epidemiologist] Dr. Tegnell predicted that Swedes would gradually build immunity to the virus through controlled exposure, that vaccines would take longer than expected to develop, and that death rates across the West would converge.

    Instead, the West’s first coronavirus vaccine was authorized in Britain last week, Sweden’s death rate remains an outlier among its neighbors, and Dr. Tegnell acknowledged in late November that the new surge in infections showed there was “no sign” of herd immunity in the country...

    Meanwhile, Sweden’s laissez-faire pandemic strategy has failed to deliver the economic benefits its proponents had predicted. In the first half of the year, Sweden’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5% and unemployment is projected to rise to nearly 10%... Businesses such as restaurants, hotels and retail outfits are facing a wave of closures; unlike in the rest of Europe, where governments coupled restrictions with generous stimulus, Swedish authorities have offered comparatively less support to businesses since they didn’t impose closures.

    Unemployment.JPG


    It's depressing that it's taken them this long and this many deaths to realize what pretty much everyone else in the world could see at the start of the pandemic by doing some really basic maths for 5 minutes on the back on an envelope.
    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
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  • #2
    But it is interesting that Sweden avoided a lockdown during the first wave and yet their fatality numbers mirrored the rest of Europe during that time.

    Comment


    • #3
      It's interesting how fatalities in the East are so fewer than fatalities in the West. We had some friends who went on a cycling holiday in Vietnam back in february. They were temperature checked a couple of times a day, every time they went into a hotel or restuarant, and masks in public were compulsory. Staggered to get back to Heathrow and just walk through. Vietnam now has around 3 dozen fatalities, despite a population of around 90 million and a 1,000 mile border with China! I suspect it's something to do with a more communitarian society and religion, with emphasis on family and socially-helpful values, rather than competitive individualism.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by John Hunt View Post
        It's interesting how fatalities in the East are so fewer than fatalities in the West. We had some friends who went on a cycling holiday in Vietnam back in february. They were temperature checked a couple of times a day, every time they went into a hotel or restuarant, and masks in public were compulsory. Staggered to get back to Heathrow and just walk through. Vietnam now has around 3 dozen fatalities, despite a population of around 90 million and a 1,000 mile border with China! I suspect it's something to do with a more communitarian society and religion, with emphasis on family and socially-helpful values, rather than competitive individualism.
        Welcome to Tweb Hope you stay awhile.

        There are several other factors that could also have come in play.

        First, many of the countries that border China were severely screwed by Chinese misinformation about diseases in the past (such as SARS nearly two decades ago) and didn't accept at face value the early claims coming out of China. This led to countries like Taiwan and South Korea to react swiftly and preemptively taking a "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me approach" which as we've seen served them well.

        Second, totalitarian regimes that can order their people to take various actions and strictly punish those who don't, will always have an advantage in this regard.

        Third, there is always a question of under-reporting in Third World countries, especially in those which lack an extensive medical systems. That includes Vietnam. For instance, the Chairman of the People's Committee (kind of like a mayor), Nguyen Thanh Phong, of the country's capitol, Ho Chi Ming City, a city with 8.9 million people (and over 2.6 times that amount if you include the entire metropolitan area) has said that the metropolis has only 900 intensive care beds. That's 1 for every 21,330 people.

        I'm always still in trouble again

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        • #5
          The deaths per million in Sweden are sort of mid-level compared to other European countries. It is Fall so that sickness normally rises, especially in Northern areas.

          There are many factors that lend toward more deaths. There are the number or percentage of people 70 and older. There is diet. There is medical history -- anything done medically to people in the past. Unemployment and confinement also lead to more deaths.

          We just quickly are inclined to point to something we've been told and treat that as the main problem. No masks Oh no! No quarantines Oh no! We want to find the simplest and easiest thing to blame. We see here at tweb that many people blame the Americans for not wearing masks and doing quarantines -- this is not the reality but rather just the easiest idea that such accusers can find to blame Americans.

          This "easiest idea" also is associated with the desire to get vaccinations. We have clinical trials which do not at all check if the spread of the virus is hindered by vaccines, yet people still want to get vaccinated for that unscientifically determined objective. Why does this happen in societies that should be better educated?
          Last edited by mikewhitney; 12-09-2020, 03:20 PM.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            Long a Holdout From Covid-19 Restrictions, Sweden Ends Its Pandemic Experiment: Government imposes mandatory measures after failing to contain new surge in infections

            Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment is over.

            After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures.

            Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world.

            Sweden.JPG-
            The clampdown, which started last month, put an end to a hands-off approach that had made the Scandinavian nation a prime example in the often heated global debate between opponents and champions of pandemic lockdowns.

            ...Weeks later, with total Covid-19-related deaths reaching almost 700 per million inhabitants, infections growing exponentially and hospital wards filling up, the government made a U-turn...

            Dr. Nowak said medical personnel had never shared the optimism of the country’s public-health agency about so-called herd immunity—population-wide resistance to a pathogen acquired through gradual exposure—and had repeatedly warned that the virus couldn’t be controlled with voluntary measures alone.

            In recent months, [Sweden's now-throughly-discredited chief epidemiologist] Dr. Tegnell predicted that Swedes would gradually build immunity to the virus through controlled exposure, that vaccines would take longer than expected to develop, and that death rates across the West would converge.

            Instead, the West’s first coronavirus vaccine was authorized in Britain last week, Sweden’s death rate remains an outlier among its neighbors, and Dr. Tegnell acknowledged in late November that the new surge in infections showed there was “no sign” of herd immunity in the country...

            Meanwhile, Sweden’s laissez-faire pandemic strategy has failed to deliver the economic benefits its proponents had predicted. In the first half of the year, Sweden’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5% and unemployment is projected to rise to nearly 10%... Businesses such as restaurants, hotels and retail outfits are facing a wave of closures; unlike in the rest of Europe, where governments coupled restrictions with generous stimulus, Swedish authorities have offered comparatively less support to businesses since they didn’t impose closures.

            Unemployment.JPG


            It's depressing that it's taken them this long and this many deaths to realize what pretty much everyone else in the world could see at the start of the pandemic by doing some really basic maths for 5 minutes on the back on an envelope.
            What makes you think it was lack of lockdown as opposed to just their lax view about it overall, like masks, hand washing, social distance, etc? They were apparently going for herd immunity, so you'd assume they took no preventive actions at all. All this does is prove herd immunity doesn't work. A lot of the same locations that enforced the strictest lockdowns are also doing it all over again.

            Comment


            • #7
              If it proves "herd immunity doesn't work," we are all well and truly boned.
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              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                The deaths per million in Sweden are sort of mid-level compared to other European countries. It is Fall so that sickness normally rises, especially in Northern areas.

                There are many factors that lend toward more deaths. There are the number or percentage of people 70 and older. There is diet. There is medical history -- anything done medically to people in the past. Unemployment and confinement also lead to more deaths.

                We just quickly are inclined to point to something we've been told and treat that as the main problem. No masks Oh no! No quarantines Oh no! We want to find the simplest and easiest thing to blame. We see here at tweb that many people blame the Americans for not wearing masks and doing quarantines -- this is not the reality but rather just the easiest idea that such accusers can find to blame Americans.

                This "easiest idea" also is associated with the desire to get vaccinations. We have clinical trials which do not at all check if the spread of the virus is hindered by vaccines, yet people still want to get vaccinated for that unscientifically determined objective. Why does this happen in societies that should be better educated?
                He provided comparison to Sweden's northern neighbors, Demark, Norway and Finland.

                IMHBAO, a better point is that as an examination of previous pandemics reveals that outbreaks tend to flow back and forth. While one area experiences a lull, another starts experiencing a spike. You cannot expect an entire continent to have a same rate. We see differences here in neighboring states, even those which are following essentially the same guidelines.

                To keep taking snap shots and declaring that this proves something is not the best idea especially since in a couple weeks the picture might be totally different.

                I'm always still in trouble again

                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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