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

[sjpowermac]

So on Twitter they’re advising us to “get back out there”, yet if I go to the Gov.Uk website I’m then advised to:

COVID-19: guidance and support

Find information on COVID-19, including guidance and support.

www.gov.uk

So still a confusing, and confused message!

Stay home as much as possible, except when you don’t stay home, go and enjoy yourself, but do it in a mask, or possibly don’t wear a mask, don’t travel by train, but do it safely if you do... I actually think you have a point

Since this is the Swedish epidemiology appreciation thread, I wonder how good their government has been at three element slogans? I think it’s something the UK can claim to be truly world class in

 

[DB]

So how do we ensure that ‘encourage the media’ doesn’t turn into state control of the media? You are blurring lots of lines and it’s a tremendously slippery slope that you are advocating. Where does it end?

Are you really naive enough to think that the government doesn't influence the media regularly? There are powers to stop them printing things in the national interest if required, and I'm not even suggesting use of those here - merely that they be encouraged to cut down on the doom and gloom as it's not helping. I can think of no previous situation where the lead story pretty much every day for months has been a negative, doom-laden prophesy about the same thing.

 

[AdamWW]

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.

I don't think it's as obvious as all that, but if it has, it's good news because we probably aren't a huge amount behind them.

He has recognised mistakes were made regarding care homes; the same mistakes many countries made; we are again covering old ground. If you think there was anything else, feel free to provide a link and quote.

I was thinking of this: "If we were to encoutner the same disease again, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."
From https://www.thelocal.se/20200603/te...ld-have-done-differently-to-fight-coronavirus

Apologies if I'm covering old ground but I haven't read everything in this forum.

I don't see what Sweden has done as being a completely different approach to other countries, I think it's a matter of degree.

IThe main economic differences I can see between their approach and our own was that schools, pubs and restaurants remained open in Sweden (and I assume rail travel was open to all too).

Given our rates of infection at the time, I wonder if keeping all of those things open in the U.K. would have resulted in the virus getting out of control? I wonder what would have been the economic fall out from that? Given you say that some people are still scared to go out, what would have been the result for the economy of keeping everything open?

Schools is an area where I’m happy to admit that I’ve changed my mind. I do now feel that a lot more could and should have been done to keep them open in the U.K., even if things were done on a rota basis for year groups.

Do you know how they kept the schools open in Sweden? Perhaps @scarby has some info on this? I’m genuinely interested to know.

I too think that a comparison with Sweden (or any other country) is difficult unless you know that both countries started restrictions with the same number of infections per capita as each other.

As to rail travel, I believe people were told to avoid public transport and it's been said above that people were told not to travel anywhere unless they had to.

Even with underlying health conditions the risk of dying under 40 is pretty negligible.

We have had less than 600 dead so far under 45.
And a large fraction of those are above 40!

So we are causing huge known health effects on the population to maybe avoid hypothetical long term health impacts?

No I'm not saying that - I believe that the lockdown was there to reduce R<1 and that this was the right thing to do.

But regardless, I don't think it would be right for the government to say that if you're under 40 getting Covid-19 is fine and won't do you any harm, because we really, really don't know that's true.

For some reason a lot of people seem fixated on deaths and seem to think that if someone survives but their life is never the same again, that's fine.

 

[DB]

regardless, I don't think it would be right for the government to say that if you're under 40 getting Covid-19 is fine and won't do you any harm, because we really, really don't know that's true.

For some reason a lot of people seem fixated on deaths and seem to think that if someone survives but their life is never the same again, that's fine.

There are enough statisics now to show that anyone under 40 without any relevant health condition is at very low risk.

As for this 'their life is never the same again' - can you actually give any examples of this? The evidence seems to suggest that the vast majority of people who have had it recover without any lasting issues.

 

[43066]

Stay home as much as possible, except when you don’t stay home, go and enjoy yourself, but do it in a mask, or possibly don’t wear a mask, don’t travel by train, but do it safely if you do... I actually think you have a point

Whatever we might think of the approach which has been taken, I think we can agree that the messaging is a mess. Actually it’s an utter shambles.

In terms of the question in the OP. I’d have preferred a Sweden style approach, with a few tweaks. Certainly the evidence so far, four months in, appears to show that they aren’t worse off than us in terms of deaths, but are a lot better off economically.

At this point, with 20/20 hindsight, I’d rather have had:

- no lockdown, but social distancing measures, encouragement to work from
home etc. sufficient keep R rate at a level that prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed (the fact the Nightingale hospitals sat idle suggests we could have accepted a higher R rate than was the case). Above all cancer treatments etc should have continued throughout to a greater extent than has been the case.

- isolation of the vulnerable, particularly in care homes (if we had done that we would have prevented 1/3 of the deaths suffered, albeit this would have been balanced my more deaths in the general population);

- allowing the fit and healthy to continue to live their lives much closer to normal than has been the case;

- more honesty from the government that we are going to have to accept a lot of deaths *whatever happens*, and that we need to balance minimising COVID deaths against deaths from other causes.

What we have ended up with is the worst of all worlds: a damaging lockdown; and a high death rate.

 

[sjpowermac]

Are you really naive enough to think that the government doesn't influence the media regularly? There are powers to stop them printing things in the national interest if required, and I'm not even suggesting use of those here - merely that they be encouraged to cut down on the doom and gloom as it's not helping. I can think of no previous situation where the lead story pretty much every day for months has been a negative, doom-laden prophesy about the same thing.

Perhaps the news has been quite doom-laden because there’s, err, been quite a lot of bad news in recent months?

How would you suggest the press should have reported the unmitigated disaster that we have had? One of the highest death rates in the world and a trashed economy to go with it.

Perhaps you could suggest some good news headlines?

 

[yorkie]

No I'm not saying that - I believe that the lockdown was there to reduce R<1 and that this was the right thing to do.

But Sweden achieved the same thing and their numbers continue to decline.

Spain and France both had strict lockdowns; is there R value less than one right now?

But regardless, I don't think it would be right for the government to say that if you're under 40 getting Covid-19 is fine and won't do you any harm, because we really, really don't know that's true.

Well that may be a step too far, but scaring people unnecessarily isn't a sensible solution either!

For some reason a lot of people seem fixated on deaths and seem to think that if someone survives but their life is never the same again, that's fine.

But how far do we take that? We can't eliminate it... We can't make everyone stay at home until a vaccine is widely available.

 

[sjpowermac]

Thank I don't see what Sweden has done as being a completely different approach to other countries, I think it's a matter of degree.

I agree, even the supporters of the Swedish approach have admitted that life didn’t just carry on unrestricted.

I too think that a comparison with Sweden (or any other country) is difficult unless you know that both countries started restrictions with the same number of infections per capita as each other.

Knowing the rates of infection at the start are key. I’m not medically qualified, but I do know that exponential curves are very unforgiving.

Many seem to be arguing that because the NHS wasn’t overwhelmed the lockdown wasn’t needed or we had room to do something different. I find it hard to believe there would have been fewer deaths in the UK had we ‘done a Sweden’.

I’m not convinced by the argument that the economy would have continued as normal with a high death rate and a global pandemic.

As to rail travel, I believe people were told to avoid public transport and it's been said above that people were told not to travel anywhere unless they had to.

Thank you for the information regarding rail travel in Sweden, I’d missed that the message was so restrictive.

But how far do we take that? We can't eliminate it... We can't make everyone stay at home until a vaccine is widely available.

We certainly can’t make everyone stay at home until a vaccine is widely available. The U.K. isn’t currently doing that.

Whatever we might think of the approach which has been taken, I think we can agree that the messaging is a mess. Actually it’s an utter shambles.

In terms of the question in the OP. I’d have preferred a Sweden style approach, with a few tweaks. Certainly the evidence so far, four months in, appears to show that they aren’t worse off than us in terms of deaths, but are a lot better off economically.

At this point, with 20/20 hindsight, I’d rather have had:

- no lockdown, but social distancing measures, encouragement to work from
home etc. sufficient keep R rate at a level that prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed (the fact the Nightingale hospitals sat idle suggests we could have accepted a higher R rate than was the case). Above all cancer treatments etc should have continued throughout to a greater extent than has been the case.

- isolation of the vulnerable, particularly in care homes (if we had done that we would have prevented 1/3 of the deaths suffered, albeit this would have been balanced my more deaths in the general population);

- allowing the fit and healthy to continue to live their lives much closer to normal than has been the case;

- more honesty from the government that we are going to have to accept a lot of deaths *whatever happens*, and that we need to balance minimising COVID deaths against deaths from other causes.

What we have ended up with is the worst of all worlds: a damaging lockdown; and a high death rate.

I actually agree with most of that, but I’m not certain that by mid-March that approach would necessarily have been successful.

As I’ve mentioned to other posters, it was spectacular in my own city how the trains, pubs and restaurants emptied even before the lockdown, many people had made their own choices. It might well have looked different where you are.

There would certainly have been some people who would have been happy to ‘carry on as normal’, in many respects I would have been one of them.

The central question though is given the rates of infection the U.K. had, how many people would not have at least taken some precautions? I don’t have the answer to that and I suspect it’s impossible to know.

You can certainly tell people to turn up for work/school, but you can’t force them to go to the pub/restaurants/shopping. With or without a lockdown, I suspect the virus would have been a problem for the economy.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But Sweden achieved the same thing and their numbers continue to decline.

Spain and France both had strict lockdowns; is there R value less than one right now?

Lockdowns only get R down during the lockdown, they are a reset button if you've messed up, as to a fair extent we did.

 

[sjpowermac]

Lockdowns only get R down during the lockdown, they are a reset button if you've messed up, as to a fair extent we did.

For many on the thread ‘the hammer and dance’ seems to have past them by...

I certainly hope the ‘Swedish Epidemiology Appreciation Society’ are correct, because if they are then I assume the U.K. will have similar levels of immunity due to our belated lockdown.

 

[DB]

For many on the thread ‘the hammer and dance’ seems to have past them by...

I don't think it's passed anyone by. The point is that if they are going to use that tactic, then they need to have a clear exit strategy - and so far there hasn't been any evidence of one, beyond 'hopefully there will be a vaccine'.

 

[DB]

Perhaps the news has been quite doom-laden because there’s, err, been quite a lot of bad news in recent months?

How would you suggest the press should have reported the unmitigated disaster that we have had? One of the highest death rates in the world and a trashed economy to go with it.

Perhaps you could suggest some good news headlines?

A lot of it is just rehashing the same things days after day. Yes, they should report on it, but if there is nothing new then they don't need to rehash something yet again. Plus they always put the worst spin on everything - e.g. the 'second-wave' doom-mongering. The reality about this is that nobody knows how it will pan out, but the majority of the news outlets were presenting it as if it was pretty much a given that there would be another major increase in cases in the autumn.

 

[yorkie]

I agree, even the supporters of the Swedish approach have admitted that life didn’t just carry on unrestricted.

People do falsely claim that but I don't think many people (if anyone) on here have been claiming that life continued without changes.

Many seem to be arguing that because the NHS wasn’t overwhelmed the lockdown wasn’t needed or we had room to do something different. I find it hard to believe there would have been fewer deaths in the UK had we ‘done a Sweden’.

It depends on when any such interventions would have taken place but in principle, I agree. But the key difference is that Sweden's economy is much less harmed than ours, education didn't suffer in the same way, mental health issues would not have been so severe and so on.

We ended up with the "worst of both worlds" (at least in the short term; the long term remains unclear)

I’m not convinced by the argument that the economy would have continued as normal with a high death rate and a global pandemic.

That wasn't the argument.

Thank you for the information regarding rail travel in Sweden, I’d missed that the message was so restrictive.

Their travel message doesn't restrict travel; it talks about travelling safely.

We certainly can’t make everyone stay at home until a vaccine is widely available. The U.K. isn’t currently doing that.

Some people do think that we should! While it's true the UK is not quite following that path, we cannot follow our current path indefinitely; I would have said the current restrictions cannot continue until a vaccine is widely available but it looks like a near miracle is going to occur and a vaccine developed in this country looks set to be available soon, so we might get away with it. Whether our leisure and entertainment industries can survive the next few months really depends on various factors including how soon this vaccine becomes available.

But none of this changes that Sweden had an effective long term strategy that was viable even if a vaccine wasn't going to save the day.

You can certainly tell people to turn up for work/school, but you can’t force them to go to the pub/restaurants/shopping. With or without a lockdown, I suspect the virus would have been a problem for the economy.

It would, but I feel that a better solution, rather than to say don't use them, then close them for weeks, would have been to move to our new sustainable model much earlier. This is, of course, all with the benefit of hindsight and seeing how well the Swedish model has worked.

I certainly hope the ‘Swedish Epidemiology Appreciation Society’ are correct, because if they are then I assume the U.K. will have similar levels of immunity due to our belated lockdown.

Yes; places like London and Stockholm should have high levels of immunity but in contrast rural areas will not. But then the virus will not spread so rapidly in rural areas in the event of any resurgence, so most of the key areas should already be protected. There probably will be flare-ups in vulnerable places that escaped the last/current "wave".

Parts of London and Stockholm have perfect conditions for the virus to spread, and yet the virus is receding in those areas, so if that is not due to levels of immunity, I'd be curious to hear what anyone else thinks could be causing that!

 

[43066]

As I’ve mentioned to other posters, it was spectacular in my own city how the trains, pubs and restaurants emptied even before the lockdown, many people had made their own choices. It might well have looked different where you are.

In London it certainly quietened down during the “voluntary” week - although pubs were by no means deserted.

The central question though is given the rates of infection the U.K. had, how many people would not have at least taken some precautions? I don’t have the answer to that and I suspect it’s impossible to know.

You can certainly tell people to turn up for work/school, but you can’t force them to go to the pub/restaurants/shopping. With or without a lockdown, I suspect the virus would have been a problem for the economy.

I don’t suppose anyone imagines it was a straight choice between locking down or carrying on regardless with no consequences. But there might well have been a better middle ground. What I find disappointing is that the government seemed to adopt one approach, but then (too late) lost its nerve and flip flopped from the initial approach to something more stringent

For many on the thread ‘the hammer and dance’ seems to have past them by...

I think that relies on the hammer (ie lockdown) coming down at much earlier stage than ours did. If you decide to take the lockdown approach it seems clear that an earlier, looser, lockdown is more effective then a later tougher one. The political failure and, frankly, cowardice of Boris and Co was in changing their minds.

Rather than “hammer and dance” our government seems to take the “shut the stable door after the horse has bolted, and then dance (very badly)” approach, to absolutely destroy a metaphor!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think it's passed anyone by. The point is that if they are going to use that tactic, then they need to have a clear exit strategy - and so far there hasn't been any evidence of one, beyond 'hopefully there will be a vaccine'.

I'm not sure Sweden has an exit strategy any more than we do. Their present measures are a bit less strict than ours, but their caseload is a bit higher than ours as a result. Neither us nor them have a viable way out of our current measures that doesn't involve either a very effective treatment[1] or a vaccine. In effect, what they've done is gone straight to what we have now without the lockdown. It seems to have worked for them (probably because of higher compliance with what measures did exist) but they are by no means "home and dry" - no country is.

[1] Such a treatment would need to be cheap, easily mass produced and reduce the death rate to or below approximately that of winter flu with the vaccine for that in place.

 

[DB]

I'm not sure Sweden has an exit strategy any more than we do. Their present measures are a bit less strict than ours, but their caseload is a bit higher than ours as a result. Neither us nor them have a viable way out of our current measures. In effect, what they've done is gone straight to what we have now without the lockdown. It seems to have worked for them (probably because of higher compliance with what measures did exist) but they are by no means "home and dry" - no country is.

Their exit strategy is to build immunity among the population.

Of course that may be what happens here too, but if it does it'll be by accident rather than design!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Their exit strategy is to build immunity among the population.

Of course that may be what happens here too, but if it does it'll be by accident rather than design!

At the present rate of cases in both countries that will take many, many years - and it's said that that immunity may not even last long enough for that to work. For herd immunity to kill it off you really need to take the risk, remove all measures other than shielding for high risk groups, and let the virus burn through quickly.

 

[yorkie]

I'm not sure Sweden has an exit strategy any more than we do. Their present measures are a bit less strict than ours, but their caseload is a bit higher than ours as a result. Neither us nor them have a viable way out of our current measures that doesn't involve either a very effective treatment[1] or a vaccine. ....

I strongly disagree with this; they have successfully avoided overwhelming their healthcare system while keeping places like schools open and avoiding too much harm to the economy; they have avoided overly scaring people; immunity levels are increasing.

It's unclear what may happen in the autumn but if there is a strong resurgence (which seems likely), it's hard to deny that Sweden will be better protected than many other countries. In time, it should become clearer how much immunity they have and how close they are to having the outbreak under control. The signs so far are very promising; much more so than places like Spain and France.

At the present rate of cases in both countries that will take many, many years - and it's said that that immunity may not even last long enough for that to work. For herd immunity to kill it off you really need to take the risk, remove all measures other than shielding for high risk groups, and let the virus burn through quickly.

Not that argument again! Do you have any evidence of this?

Recent studies have demonstrated that there is long-lasting T cell immunity to this coronavirus, just as there was with SARS. Do you claim otherwise?!

If what you say is true, why did the virus recede in London and Stockholm when it continued to run rampant in places like Barrow in Furness, Leicester, Blackburn, Gateshead during our lockdown? What is your explanation for this?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I strongly disagree with this; they have successfully avoided overwhelming their healthcare system while keeping places like schools open and avoiding too much harm to the economy; they have avoided overly scaring people; immunity levels are increasing.

All of those things are true but it still isn't an exit strategy, i.e. a means of getting to a point where all measures may be removed.

It's unclear what may happen in the autumn but if there is a strong resurgence (which seems likely), it's hard to deny that Sweden will be better protected than many other countries. In time, it should become clearer how much immunity they have and how close they are to having the outbreak under control. The signs so far are very promising; much more so than places like Spain and France.

This will be interesting to see.

Not that argument again! Do you have any evidence of this?

Recent studies have demonstrated that there is long-lasting T cell immunity to this coronavirus, just as there was with SARS. Do you claim otherwise?!

The problem is that there isn't really an awful lot of evidence either way - hopefully this will become more clear and will be able to inform policy as it does.

 

[yorkie]

The problem is that there isn't really an awful lot of evidence either way - hopefully this will become more clear and will be able to inform policy as it does.

There is loads of evidence and it has been posted on this forum several times in recent weeks. I've even sent you some links. If you do not believe the evidence, how do you explain the figures we are seeing?

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is loads of evidence and it has been posted on this forum several times in recent weeks. I've even sent you some links. If you do not believe the evidence, how do you explain the figures we are seeing?

As in why Sweden is seeing a slow fall in cases despite having looser measures than us? I'm not totally sure, to be honest.

 

[Yew]

It's worth considering that the R rate is manipulated both by restrictions, and herd immunity. (random number time here) If Restrictions can bring R down to 1.5, then we only need 33% herd immunity to bring R to one. Restrictions and Immunity aren't exclusive, and they have a gradual effect.

 

[Justin Smith]

"Second spike". There may be the odd bump and dip in the graph(s) but, in countries with a death rate similar to us (or higher), I predict it will not go back up to anywhere near the previous peak which is how I'd define a second spike. Examples would be Belgium or New York, who had a bump in the graph but the trend was maintained :

 

[Bletchleyite]

"Second spike". There may be the odd bump and dip in the graph(s) but, in countries with a death rate similar to us (or higher), I predict it will not go back up to anywhere near the previous peak which is how I'd define a second spike. Examples would be Belgium or New York, who had a bump in the graph but the trend was maintained :

I'd agree that it won't, but would say the reason for that is ongoing distancing measures.

 

[Justin Smith]

Latest economic forecast, GDP down by over 10% (over the year) and unemployment up to around 9%. These figures represent huge suffering for millions of people and early deaths for thousands, poverty kills, just as a rich economy does the opposite. We are way past the point where this lockdown and the social distancing has been worthwhile. Right from the start the boot has been on the wrong foot and it still is. We should have done a Sweden plus, protect and isolate the vulnerable and everyone else get on with it This is supposed to be a democracy, the government should have been honest with people, none of "this virus is indiscriminate" propaganda and actually told them who was at risk and how big the risk was for each group. Then it should have been people's own choice as to if they wanted to shut themselves away or get on with their lives. I've said this from the very start, and nothing has happened to make me change my mind, if anything I'm even more certain.
I'm also very concerned about censorship, albeit unofficial. The media have been (and still are) frequently quoting people who have suffered from this virus and rarely if ever actually quoting the statistics of how unlikely it is for most people to actually die from it. The fact there are millions of parents who are genuinely frightened their kids might die from Covid is all you need to know, it's a triumph of ignorance ably assisted by the government's propaganda, particularly at the height of this. Their kids are probably more likely to die falling down the stairs, and they are definitely far more likely to die in car accident, yet those same parents still take their kids in cars, and frequently drive too fast increasing their chances of death still further......
The world has gone stark staring MAD.

 

[Justin Smith]

I'd agree that it won't, but would say the reason for that is ongoing distancing measures.

So this highly infectious virus is stopped from transmitting by people keeping 1m apart, most of the time when they can remember and there's room on the pavement or wherever....... And you really believe that ?
If social distancing is working to suppress the virus that can only be because the virus isn't anywhere near as infectious / easy to catch as we were told. Ironically that is perfectly possible because much of what the government has told us is rubbish, remember "this virus is indiscriminate" ?

UK Government : "This virus is indiscriminate"

NOTE : the death rates in the graph are actually wrong, they're lower than quoted, particularly now that doctors are getting better at treating the virus side effects. Even more importantly the graph does not take into account that not everyone is susceptible to Covid, examples of couples where one gets the virus and the other doesn't are common, plus the fact that only 17% of the passengers on the Diamond Princess actually caught the virus.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So this highly infectious virus is stopped from transmitting by people keeping 1m apart. And you really believe that ?

2m, or 1m with other precautions. And yes, I do believe that. I don't believe it's a giant conspiracy, I've not seen a single piece of viable evidence supporting that. What Government would want to damage the economy, least of all a Tory one?

 

[Yew]

I don't believe it's a giant conspiracy,

Neither do I, but I could well believe that it's due to idiocy.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

2m, or 1m with other precautions. And yes, I do believe that.

So how do you explain the lack of big outbreaks after the mass gatherings at beaches, Black Lives Matter demos and suchlike, many of which were almost 2 months ago?? People there were certainly not social distancing and in the widely-published beach photos, the mask-wearers were in a tiny minority!
With respect, your assertion is beginning to sound like the sales pitch for buying ‘elephant repellant’. When the potential customer says ‘but we don’t get elephants around here’, the salesman says that is testament to how effective the product is !
My shopping experiences yesterday lead me to believe the concept of social distancing is, in all real-life situations, now dead. Mask-wearers now casually queue at small distances like before the pandemic. They’ve not understood the message. They believe that a face-covering protects them, whereas any (questionable) benefits from wearing them are supposedly that masks protect others.

 

[Domh245]

What Government would want to damage the economy, least of all a Tory one?

One that wants to preserve it's voter base