So, Sweden may well have been right.....

Justin Smith · 26 Jul 2020

This graph is very significant :

Sweden (no lockdown remember......) death rate to late Jul 25 700W.jpg

Remember, Sweden has had no significant lockdown (BBC News link).

It certainly make me even more sure we (and most of the world) have gone down the wrong path...... I have always thought this lockdown and social distancing (they're two sides of the same coin really) was the wrong course to take, I wanted support and isolation for vulnerable groups and everyone else carry on as normal. That was primarily because I was concerned at the effect on society and the economy but in actual fact, as more and more evidence comes to light, I am unconvinced the lockdown has had any significant effect on the death rate, certainly if additional deaths caused by the very same lockdown (e.g. cancer patients whose diagnosis and treatment has been devastated by the lockdown strategy) are factored in.

The UK equivalent of the above graph (not much better really, and at a HUGE cost.....) :

RailUK Forums

adc82140 · 26 Jul 2020

Sweden has had social distancing though. They didn't lock down. Big events were cancelled. No large gatherings. Pretty much the stage we're at now.

Justin Smith · 26 Jul 2020

adc82140 said:
Sweden has had social distancing though. They didn't lock down. Big events were cancelled. No large gatherings. Pretty much the stage we're at now.

When we really don't have much of a lockdown at all, we're just adopting social distancing which is down to 1m (and in fact much less under many real world conditions) against a highly infectious virus. I don't believe it's achieving anything significant and the fact the death rate continues to fall despite the lockdown slowly unwinding since about 2 or 3 weeks after its imposition, the death rate continues to fall :

In fact, I don't think the lockdown and social distancing actually achieved much at all. The experts have been wrong almost every time on this virus, far too pessimistic. And that's not just hindsight, The diamond Princess was there for all to study right from the start :

Wikipedia "Diamond Princess" Coronavirus outbreak :

"An 80-year-old passenger from Hong Kong, China, had embarked in Yokohama on 20 January. He had been in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on 10 January, then returned to Hong Kong and flew to Tokyo on 17 January to board the ship. He developed a cough on 19 January, but he went on board. He left the cruise when the ship reached Hong Kong on 25 January."

"but the ship did not immediately inform the passengers and they were notified about that on 3 February. Over the next few days, the cruise ship had shows and dance parties as usual and also continued to open public facilities that attract large crowds, including fitness clubs, theatres, casinos, bars and buffet-style restaurants"

"On 4 February, tests revealed infections of 10 out of 31 people tested. The authorities immediately decided to isolate all passengers on board for 14 days"

17 Jan to 4 Feb = 18 days
Highly infectious virus, 3777 people socialising on a ship, 2666 were passengers with an av age of 69. Only 17% caught the virus and "only" 8 to 14 died (figures vary according to source). If the "experts" had been right between 100 and 150 "should" have died. They're only out by a factor of about ten.....

History will tell who is right.......

oldman · 26 Jul 2020

Justin Smith said:
History will tell who is right.......

History very rarely tells us who is right, which keeps historians in work.

Why compare Sweden with Britain alone rather than its Nordic neighbours or other European lockdown countries with better outcomes?

Perhaps, perhaps, in a more disciplined, more equal and more geographically isolated society than ours actually is, an earlier self-enforcement of social distancing might, might have made it possible to avoid lockdown here. History will never tell us.

The Johns Hopkins data shows death rates by country and it is apparent that in Europe it was the south and west which had worse outcomes than the north and east - except Sweden.

yorkie · 26 Jul 2020

oldman said:
Why compare Sweden with Britain alone rather than its Nordic neighbours or other European lockdown countries with better outcomes?

Outcomes? This is over already?

To compare Sweden with countries like Norway is unfair and premature. A fairer comparison would be with France or Spain, at least at this stage.

So far the evidence suggests to me that Sweden have a long term strategy, and it is working.

Their Nordic neighbours may need a second lockdown to maintain their strategies; the comparison would get interesting then.

Bantamzen · 26 Jul 2020

oldman said:
History very rarely tells us who is right, which keeps historians in work.

Why compare Sweden with Britain alone rather than its Nordic neighbours or other European lockdown countries with better outcomes?

Perhaps, perhaps, in a more disciplined, more equal and more geographically isolated society than ours actually is, an earlier self-enforcement of social distancing might, might have made it possible to avoid lockdown here. History will never tell us.

The Johns Hopkins data shows death rates by country and it is apparent that in Europe it was the south and west which had worse outcomes than the north and east - except Sweden.

There's just one problem with that data, well more than one if we are going to be honest. Different countries record cases & deaths in different ways, so it makes these kinds of comparisons statistically misleading.

oldman · 26 Jul 2020

Bantamzen said:
There's just one problem with that data, well more than one if we are going to be honest. Different countries record cases & deaths in different ways, so it makes these kinds of comparisons statistically misleading.

So let's ignore the data, imperfect as it no doubt is, and substitute our own blind assumptions.

Five months into Europe's pandemic and only 6% of the (Swedish) population here is known to have antibodies, according to Swedish Public Health Agency research.

However, Anders Tegnell (the man behind the strategy) believes the true figure is "definitely a lot higher", as immunity "has proven to be surprisingly difficult to measure". BBC

You and Mr Tegnell would get on well. Not maybe, definitely. Data, shmata - he knows.

Justin Smith · 26 Jul 2020

oldman said:
History very rarely tells us who is right, which keeps historians in work.

Why compare Sweden with Britain alone rather than its Nordic neighbours or other European lockdown countries with better outcomes?

Perhaps, perhaps, in a more disciplined, more equal and more geographically isolated society than ours actually is, an earlier self-enforcement of social distancing might, might have made it possible to avoid lockdown here. History will never tell us.

The Johns Hopkins data shows death rates by country and it is apparent that in Europe it was the south and west which had worse outcomes than the north and east - except Sweden.

Deaths by country is a totally meaningless statistic, in fact in my opinion no respectable organisation should list anything in that order, certainly not be default. The only relevant stat is deaths per one million population. The worst for that, of larger countries, are Belgium and the UK with Spain not far behind. I think you'll find that although those statistics are rather depressing at the moment, what it actually means is we have less to fear from this virus because it is burning itself out, Belgium graph :

Belgium (highest death ratre = highest exposure to the virus) death rate to Jul 25.jpg

I don't know for sure what the explanation is but my theory, and this fits with most current information (including the Diamond Princess, adjusting for age the death rate on the DP was more or less the same as the UK and Belgium), is that up to 75% of the population is not susceptible to Covid. And it is for that reason that the death rate in the UK is dropping, it has little to do with any (highly damaging) lockdowns / social distancing. The graph for Belgium is even starker in its support for my theory, i.e. higher death rate = higher exposure to the virus = lower death rate.

sjpowermac · 26 Jul 2020

yorkie said:
To compare Sweden with countries like Norway is unfair and premature. A fairer comparison would be with France or Spain, at least at this stage.

Why do you think this?

Bantamzen · 26 Jul 2020

oldman said:
So let's ignore the data, imperfect as it no doubt is, and substitute our own blind assumptions.

You and Mr Tegnell would get on well. Not maybe, definitely. Data, shmata - he knows.

No you do not ignore the data, you examine it, and where necessary you repair it. So for example if you have been counting covid-related deaths as anyone who dies with the virus, or has previously tested positive for it, then you need to revisit the data and adjust it accordingly. Additionally you don't just look at the headline numbers, you examine the data, look at the trends, who is most affected, and learn to mitigate for the greatest risks. In the case of covid, the risks are clear and present, elderly people, people in care homes, people in clinical settings are by far and away the most at risk. But do we properly mitigate, no. Instead governments around the world have chosen to go down the panic & blame route, locking down entire nations whilst managing not to tackle the problem at the heart of the pandemic. A problem that was very obvious right at the very beginning.

sjpowermac · 26 Jul 2020

Justin Smith said:
The graph for Belgium is even starker in its support for my theory, i.e. higher death rate = higher exposure to the virus = lower death rate.

Alternatively a higher death rate leads to a higher proportion of the country locking themselves away, or at least being more cautious?

From the BBC article you quote here is what Prof Karolina Ekholm, a former Deputy Governor of Sweden's central bank has to say:

‘Restaurants, shops and gyms have been allowed to remain open, but they have still struggled to attract customers, she says.’

Did Sweden's coronavirus strategy succeed or fail?

Despite global criticism, Sweden has seen a drop in serious Covid cases without ever having a lockdown.

www.bbc.co.uk

So, without having a formal lockdown, it seems that some of the Swedish population decided for themselves to stay home.

scarby · 26 Jul 2020

sjpowermac said:
From the BBC article you quote here is what Prof Karolina Ekholm, a former Deputy Governor of Sweden's central bank has to say:

‘Restaurants, shops and gyms have been allowed to remain open, but they have still struggled to attract customers, she says.’

Did Sweden's coronavirus strategy succeed or fail?

Despite global criticism, Sweden has seen a drop in serious Covid cases without ever having a lockdown.

www.bbc.co.uk

Certainly in April that was very much the case. However, as someone who goes out regularly in Stockholm, I saw the numbers steadily increase from some time in May onwards. Certainly from the beginning of June there was a noticeable increase in people, and by mid-June I would observe it as something approaching normality - from there on I would no longer say they were "struggling" to attract anyone!

scarby · 26 Jul 2020

Sweden state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said that in March, the decision was made to go from stopping the coronavirus from coming to Sweden to reducing the effects of the virus, which Tegnell describes as a classic model for pandemic control.

"But then it was as if the world went crazy and everything we had discussed seemed completely forgotten. Country after country closed its borders and shut down their communities completely."

The coronavirus is unpredictable and it is difficult to know which methods have the best effect, says Tegnell. But one thing that many seem to forget is that action against the pandemic can have negative effects.

"We know, for example, that it is negative not to meet others, it creates loneliness. The isolation of couples increases the risk of abuse of women. Not working and being unemployed greatly increases the risk of many diseases in the long run. Closing schools is the most obvious example. Children who do not go to school lose a social context, miss school meals and risk not getting valid final grades. Factors that greatly affect their chances of living a life of good health."

Source (Swedish): https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/tegnell-som-om-varlden-blev-galen

Yew · 26 Jul 2020

sjpowermac said:
Why do you think this?

Currently early lockdown countries (Norway, New Zealand) are a tinderbasket waiting to go up in flames one imported case that goes unnoticed could render all of the sacrifices of their lockdown to be useless.

I'd suggest that there is an analogy that's somewhat similar to changing your tires twice, vs three times in an F1 race. They might be looking like a winner at the moment, but they've got to get to herd immunity somehow, and if they can keep getting lucky until a vaccine is around seems to have long odds.

Richard Scott · 26 Jul 2020

scarby said:
Sweden state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said that in March, the decision was made to go from stopping the coronavirus from coming to Sweden to reducing the effects of the virus, which Tegnell describes as a classic model for pandemic control.

"But then it was as if the world went crazy and everything we had discussed seemed completely forgotten. Country after country closed its borders and shut down their communities completely."

The coronavirus is unpredictable and it is difficult to know which methods have the best effect, says Tegnell. But one thing that many seem to forget is that action against the pandemic can have negative effects.

"We know, for example, that it is negative not to meet others, it creates loneliness. The isolation of couples increases the risk of abuse of women. Not working and being unemployed greatly increases the risk of many diseases in the long run. Closing schools is the most obvious example. Children who do not go to school lose a social context, miss school meals and risk not getting valid final grades. Factors that greatly affect their chances of living a life of good health."

Source (Swedish): https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/tegnell-som-om-varlden-blev-galen

Seems the issues listed have all occurred here, lockdown was a great idea then?

yorkie · 26 Jul 2020

sjpowermac said:
Why do you think this?

If you are asking why the comparison to Norway is unfair, in terms of places like Stockholm there is nowhere comparable in Norway; Angus Tegnell explains it in this video (summary: the population density and demographics are vastly different). If you compare rural areas of Sweden with rural areas of Norway then actually you will find levels of the virus are actually broadly similar.

As for my comments on France and Spain, they are now seeing more daily cases than the UK! This is because they did a harsh lockdown of the sort that is designed to suppress and potentially eliminate a virus (except this one cannot be eliminated); in other words France and Spain did a short term measure and it is impossible to say at this stage that this is in any way more effective than Sweden's longer term approach. All the evidence so far suggests the opposite is true, but let's wait a few months and see.

sjpowermac said:
So, without having a formal lockdown, it seems that some of the Swedish population decided for themselves to stay home.

People were/are strongly encouraged to work from home and, based on the evidence I saw in the UK in the week before the actual lockdown, many businesses in the UK were doing a similar thing, with trains becoming increasingly lightly loaded as the week went on. Many businesses who had not yet told people to work from home already had plans to do so from the Monday anyway.

If we'd followed Sweden's path, and acted at the right time, with sustainable measures, we would have been better off in the long run, I am sure.

stj · 26 Jul 2020

Even now we see packed beaches in the media but shops,pubs,hotels etc that have re-opened are not busy.

oldman · 26 Jul 2020

scarby said:
"We know, for example, that it is negative not to meet others, it creates loneliness. The isolation of couples increases the risk of abuse of women. Not working and being unemployed greatly increases the risk of many diseases in the long run. Closing schools is the most obvious example. Children who do not go to school lose a social context, miss school meals and risk not getting valid final grades. Factors that greatly affect their chances of living a life of good health."

Everybody knows the side-effects of lockdown - Whitty said all of this at the time. No one is saying lockdown is good.

However, in the situation we were in at the time - including inadequate testing capacity, inadequate PPE, inadequate political leadership, inadequate hospital provision - lockdown was necessary.

yorkie said:
If you are asking why the comparison to Norway is unfair, in terms of places like Stockholm there is nowhere comparable in Norway;

How about Denmark (also a Nordic neighbour) then? But then, if we can't compare Sweden and Norway, how can we compare Sweden and Britain? As I said above, Sweden is a more affluent, more equal and more conformist society. Maybe they could get away with their strategy, we tried and had to change.

yorkie · 26 Jul 2020

This idea that people weren't confirming in the week before the full lockdown is completely false based on my observations, and the observations of just about everyone else I've spoken to about the subject.

We covered it before in a previous thread.

As for the comparisons, let's see in a few months!

scarby · 26 Jul 2020

It’s also worth noting that Sweden seems to have basically allowed itself to go though an entire outbreak. So contrary to other countries, deaths, hospitalisations and cases have continued to decrease as social activity increases, rather than the opposite.

jtuk · 26 Jul 2020

Sweden's figures only look bad because they botched the handling of care homes just like we did, which is unfortunate given that we now know they're more or less the only places we need to worry about

AdamWW · 26 Jul 2020

Justin Smith said:
When we really don't have much of a lockdown at all, we're just adopting social distancing which is down to 1m (and in fact much less under many real world conditions) against a highly infectious virus. I don't believe it's achieving anything significant and the fact the death rate continues to fall despite the lockdown slowly unwinding since about 2 or 3 weeks after its imposition, the death rate continues to fall :

View attachment 81272

Just curious - why are people concentrating on death rates (with all the attendant problems, such as whether the death was actually due to coronavirus or not and the fact that it gives you delayed information on what infection rates are going - and not also looking at the ONS infection survey which suggests that infection rates are no longer falling in the UK?

Of course infection surveys aren't the whole story, but neither are death numbers.

Justin Smith said:
I don't know for sure what the explanation is but my theory, and this fits with most current information (including the Diamond Princess, adjusting for age the death rate on the DP was more or less the same as the UK and Belgium), is that up to 75% of the population is not susceptible to Covid. And it is for that reason that the death rate in the UK is dropping, it has little to do with any (highly damaging) lockdowns / social distancing. T

I think it's a bit early to say...let's see if infection numbers start to rise again.

What's happening in some other countries isn't looking promising.

As for Sweden, the impression I often get here is that Sweden just kept on pretty much as normal and I don't think that's true.

So far as I know (willing to be corrected) Sweden also had restrictions on (domestic) non essential travel, and people were told to avoid public transport.

And I'm not sure the difference between rules being legal requirements and just instructions from the government is that important - either way what matters is how many people follow them.

AdamWW · 26 Jul 2020

yorkie said:
If we'd followed Sweden's path, and acted at the right time, with sustainable measures, we would have been better off in the long run, I am sure.

Because by the time the UK and Sweden were prepared to take any kind of measure, both countries had the same existing infection levels in the population?

I don't think we know that's true, and if it's not then it means that a strategy that works in one doesn't necessarily work in the other, if you want to avoid more cases than your hospitals can cope with.

Justin Smith · 26 Jul 2020

scarby said:
It’s also worth noting that Sweden seems to have basically allowed itself to go though an entire outbreak. So contrary to other countries, deaths, hospitalisations and cases have continued to decrease as social activity increases, rather than the opposite.

That's what's happened here. Why are so many people not seeing what is in front of their eyes.....

The lockdown started unwinding a few weeks after it started. I worked right through this, traffic on the roads started going up within a few weeks and more people started coming out and so on. But the death rate didn't go up (allowing for the 18 day delay from contracting the virus to dying from it) it actually started going down (see the graph in the opener). I'm not saying one happened because of the other, I'm saying that the lockdown and extreme social distancing was having only a marginal effect, if any at all.
Similarly, when the government officially started unwinding the lockdown all these "experts" were saying it's too much of a risk, we'll get a second spike, etc etc. But that's not what happened, the death rate actually continued to drop.
Same thing with some schools reopening. Again all the over cautious experts* "too much of a risk, we'll get a second spike" etc etc, but guess what ? Yes you're right, the death rate continued to drop.

What is very sad, almost criminal, is that if I'm right, and our high death rate reflects high exposure to this virus and its burning itself out, then all these social distancing measures we're continuing to inflict on ourselves are achieving very little, if anything. We should be using our hard won position of relative immunity to get back to normal as soon as possible and, as an additional very welcome side effect, consign all those awful face masks to the bin.

* Over cautious in terms of Covid, but not at all in terms of the massive damage this virus is causing society and the economy. They act like that's not a factor worth considering at all.

Darandio · 26 Jul 2020

Regardless of whether the majority of people died in care homes or not, there is no way a country has been 'right' with 5,500+ deaths. It's a bit like Trump declaring the 'Great Victory' as their deaths passed 125,000.

DB · 26 Jul 2020

Darandio said:
Regardless of whether the majority of people died in care homes or not, there is no way a country has been 'right' with 5,500+ deaths. It's a bit like Trump declaring the 'Great Victory' as their deaths passed 125,000.

There seems to be a view that humanity is so clever now that it can avoid natural happenings such as pandemics. There's no reason to asume that this is the case.

It will also need to be looked at in future as part of a five year average - this is not a particularly bad pandemic as they go.

scarby · 26 Jul 2020

AdamWW said:
As for Sweden, the impression I often get here is that Sweden just kept on pretty much as normal and I don't think that's true.

So far as I know (willing to be corrected) Sweden also had restrictions on (domestic) non essential travel, and people were told to avoid public transport.

And I'm not sure the difference between rules being legal requirements and just instructions from the government is that important - either way what matters is how many people follow them.

You are correct. Domestic travel was advised against “unless you must” but one was free to define “must”.

Don’t forget all mass events cancelled (still are and they haven’t even let spectators back into sport yet) and no people jetting away on holiday, plus all office workers at home where possible - so all mass congregations of people ruled out. Universities distance learning too.

However shops, bars and restaurants being open gave an impression of normality out on the street.

People were encouraged to exercise and sports train outdoors in small groups. Gyms mostly remained open.

Youth sport continued, professional sports people continued training and horse racing continued with no spectators.

Schools remained open.

So in short a lot of restrictions but at the same time allowing people to get on with their lives as much as possible.

talldave · 26 Jul 2020

DavidB said:
There seems to be a view that humanity is so clever now that it can avoid natural happenings such as pandemics. There's no reason to asume that this is the case.

It will also need to be looked at in future as part of a five year average - this is not a particularly bad pandemic as they go.

But the reaction is disproportionate. People who obsess about death numbers seem to forget that around 1700 people die every day, week in week out.

Bletchleyite · 26 Jul 2020

Justin Smith said:
That's what's happened here. Why are so many people not seeing what is in front of their eyes.....

It's not now decreasing, it's stabilised and is running roughly constant in the UK.

DB · 26 Jul 2020

talldave said:
But the reaction is disproportionate. People who obsess about death numbers seem to forget that around 1700 people die every day, week in week out.

I certainly don't disagree with that at all - the numbers given out are given no context, in terms of generally or in terms of other infectious diseases such as flu.

So, Sweden may well have been right.....

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