COVID-19 Coronavirus Information and Discussion

[Smörgåsbord]

We should have done more, admits architect of Sweden's Covid-19 strategy

Anders Tegnell says there was ‘potential for improvement’ in country’s strategy to fight pandemic

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...anders-tegnell

... in the sense that every strategy has a potential for improvement. Make no mistake, he sticks firmly to the original strategy: every measure taken must be sustainable for a extended time period.

The entire world is wishing so HARD now for the Swedish state epidemiologist to admit he was wrong that even the slightest admission that the strategy wasn't 110% perfect from the beginning is somehow transformed into a rejection of it.

[Teddy Vengeance]

I seem to be missing something when it comes to the Swedish 'experiment' and the criticisms thereof.

In short, I don't see what the connection is between the relatively open Swedish policy and the admittedly high number of deaths.

The former is directly connected to the degree of the spread of the virus. Thus, only the total number of infections should serve as an indictment or endorsement of the policy.

The mortality rate vis-à-vis number of confirmed carriers is a product of treatment carried out AFTER people have been confirmed as infected. The rate is not meaningfully correlated to the spread of the virus itself.

Or so it seems to me, intuitively.

[thedunno]

... in the sense that every strategy has a potential for improvement. Make no mistake, he sticks firmly to the original strategy: every measure taken must be sustainable for a extended time period.

The entire world is wishing so HARD now for the Swedish state epidemiologist to admit he was wrong that even the slightest admission that the strategy wasn't 110% perfect from the beginning is somehow transformed into a rejection of it.

The Swedish Corona strategy is certainly interesting and has a lot going for it but because they were they only country that did so they are now in an exceptional position. All the European countries are now opening their borders again for each other from mid June or early July, with the exception of the UK and Sweden. Even fellow Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark are keeping their borders closed. The adverse economic effects in the long run may even outweigh the initial benefits.

If all, or even more countries, applied the same strategy things might be different. In the Netherlands the initial idea was also to apply the controlled spread strategy to build up group immunity. The problem was that we had a superspread event in late February called carnaval. People came back from skiing holiday in Northern Italy and started celebrating carnaval back home, which basically is 4 days of heavy drinking, shouting and singing in completely packed and badly ventilated bars and clubs. The infections went up explosively early march and we simply had to get into a lockdown to prevent an overload of our medical system. The controlled spread strategy was no longer an option because it was already out of control.

I think the UK have just been exceptionally sloppy in the beginning of the spread. I think you can fully blame Boris & co for that.

On the other hand, the expected second wave of infections in fall might hit Sweden less hard then other European countries. Time will tell what is/was the best strategy

[thedunno]

I found this article in the NYT about the role of super spread events very informative.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/o...spreaders.html

Some observations:
20% of the infected people cause 80% of the new infections
10 % of the infected people cause 20% of the new infections
70% of the infected people do not infect anyone at all
The 80 % of the infections are caused by indoor gatherings in poorly ventilated places.

Conclusion : To control the virus you only have to eliminate the superspread events; large indoor gatherings of people.

[Zeuhlmate]

There is no guarantee or evidence that we can build up group immunity against covid-19. Its an idea based on guesswork, we don't know enough about this virus yet.
There might not be a vaccine, and if there will, you dont know how long it last before you need to be vaccinated again, or if it works on everybody.

You can have covid-19 whithout knowing it, and perhaps even infect others whithout knowing you have it.
Sweden is experimenting. I hope they will succeed, Denmark is their neighbour, but countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam looks like their strategy is the way to go.

Time will show.

[progmatist]

One thing which sets Sweden apart from the US is everybody there has health care. If the US tried to follow Sweden's path, as some have suggested, that alone would make the outcome quite disastrous.

[thedunno]

I hope they will succeed, Denmark is their neighbour, but countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam looks like their strategy is the way to go.

Time will show.

The Trace, test and isolate strategy seems to work best indeed. You can only do that if the number of infections is low enough to manage this strategy because its a lot of work.
Most European countries now seem to move towards this strategy.

[Zappathustra]

There is no guarantee or evidence that we can build up group immunity against covid-19. Its an idea based on guesswork, we don't know enough about this virus yet.
There might not be a vaccine, and if there will, you dont know how long it last before you need to be vaccinated again, or if it works on everybody.

You can have covid-19 whithout knowing it, and perhaps even infect others whithout knowing you have it.
Sweden is experimenting. I hope they will succeed, Denmark is their neighbour, but countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam looks like their strategy is the way to go.

Time will show.

Since we know so little for the virus as you say, everyone is experimenting, not just Sweden. Your argument applies to all policies. There are repercussions that one is unable to put in the equation on actual, live time.

Just a tiny example from my country: the resources of the rather poor health system have been totally directed towards dealing with Covid19 patients. But this means that people with different diseases do not get proper treatment of their issues. There were a couple of losses in my wider family and working surroundings, which cry out for malfunctioning of the health system and negligence. This could be related to the current crisis or not, but it will never get in the discussion of collateral damages.

[Smörgåsbord]

Time will show.

Exactly. Norway is today reporting NO excess death rates compared to a "normal" year with the seasonal flu etc. In Norway, particularly, the covid-19 has been like a flu-season!

Sweden has really high death numbers, yes, but a (hard) lockdown may not have much effect. The virus has been extremely unpredictable. Some countries imposed lockdown (more or less unknowingly) with great precision to ultimate effect, while some other countries too late.

There are really two interesting cases: Sweden and New Zealand. With a pandemic roaring the planet NZ tries to keep the virus outside NZ for ever, now that they have eliminated it in their big national bubble. That means that unless there's a very effective vaccine (no corona vaccine has been working before), they will possibly never be able to open the borders and at the same time ease all restrictions, like no social distancing, permitted mass gatherings like pre-covid. Then there's Sweden. Will we have some benefit from never closing down the hard way? In five years, will our excess deaths still be the world top, or will they be on par with many other countries?

[Shadow]

I guess the Senate shot down the second set of Covid/stimulus checks.

[BarryLI]

FWIW here in New York the daily Covid admissions are south of 150, deaths finally under the 50-person mark.

[ronmac]

The Trace, test and isolate strategy seems to work best indeed. You can only do that if the number of infections is low enough to manage this strategy because its a lot of work.
Most European countries now seem to move towards this strategy.

It works best when used in combination with social distancing. I'm sure I posted it here, but the governor of Massachusetts stated that they enacted a tracing effort and learned that instead of having to trace 10-15 people (I cannot recall the actual number) for each infection, they only had to trace like 1-3. He credited that to social distancing. They need far less people to help with tracing than they expected.

[Dana5140]

Texas rates are growing. And will for at least another week or so.

[ronmac]

I live in Western PA. Our county is now officially in the green zone, which means certain businesses can re-open as long as they follow the rules

I walked into a local pool supply place and there's the guy behind the counter not wearing a mask talking to a customer who is also not wearing a mask. After she runs out to her car for a moment, he sees me wearing mine and says to me, "I'll put on a mask if you want me to." I told him, "I'm pretty sure it's the law."

He didn't have what I was looking for and, unbeknownst to him, he also just lost a customer.

This won't end anytime soon folks.

So, when we go back into shut-down, you can look at people like those two at the pool store; the people I saw at another store with their nostrils sticking out from above their masks; the people pulling their masks down just to speak to the cashiers; the man with his toddler at a local retailer ordering coffee with no masks but holding his baseball cap over his mouth and not caring about his little girl; the local shop keepers who are, apparently, too afraid to tell their customers to wear masks, despite the signs everywhere stating it's the law; the guy working at Lowe's with his mask off saying, "It's okay," when I called him out on it, telling him, "No, it's not okay"; and all the others out there who have been pushing to re-open too soon.

This is why I continue to wear gloves when I go out. This is why I have little hope in my country's ability to be smart about this. This is why we need to stop listening to pundits and politicians who are concerned about money and votes more than your health and mine.

We'll be back in the thick of this in October when we're getting slammed by the next wave.

And boy do I hope I'm wrong about this.

[Dana5140]

How much did Texas, and Texans do, in terms of distancing, masks, closures and the like?

Did they step up to the plate for prevention, or follow the Grand Old Party Line coming out of the White House?

Baribrotzer: In Dallas, we were put under shelter-in-place and face mask orders early on, but not by the governor, rather by a local judge. He did so and then fought the governor for weeks. Some parts of TX had no cases at all- they are way out rural and see few outsiders, so those areas never had any orders at all. Bigger cities had more problems, the worst of which were in Amarillo. We are now under an order that has relaxed a lot of regulations- most places are now open, restaurants can run at 50% capacity and there is no requirement to wear a mask any more. But I do.

[ronmac]

So do I.

Rural people seem to think that COVID's all a big fuss about nothing, because they've had few or no cases in their own town or county.

I'm in suburban Pittsburgh. This is not rural country.

[Plasmatopia]

I was in the auto parts store today. There were signs plastered all over the doors mentioning that masks were required. I was among the approximately 40% wearing one. No idea why they were not insisting on having people heed the signs. One doesn't have to drive far to end up in redneckistan around here though.

[progmatist]

Rural people seem to think that COVID's all a big fuss about nothing, because they've had few or no cases in their own town or county.

I'm in suburban Pittsburgh. This is not rural country.

If anything, rural people are at more of a disadvantage because they don't have a hospital nearby. The nearest one's don't have the capacity to deal with an influx. And to top it all off, rural hospitals are the ones going under for financial reasons. An influx of Covid patients would be the deathknell to those barely hanging on.

[Vic2012]

Everywhere I go everyone is wearing masks. That is good. I've forgotten what life is like without wearing a mask. Seriously. It's funny but true.

[beano]

https://youtu.be/yqcFIFPo5To

[ronmac]

Everywhere I go everyone is wearing masks. That is good. I've forgotten what life is like without wearing a mask. Seriously. It's funny but true.

I pretty much see everyone wearing them for the most part. But there are just too many dummies to get through this without a vaccine.

[Kcrimso]

In Finland almost no one uses mask. And it is not advised by goverment to do so.

[Zeuhlmate]

In Finland almost no one uses mask. And it is not advised by goverment to do so.

Same in Denmark, but we are talking a lot about 2 meters distance (or is it only 1 meter today), and congregations should be smaller than 10 persons, and you can get fined.

[Kcrimso]

Same in Denmark, but we are talking a lot about 2 meters distance (or is it only 1 meter today), and congregations should be smaller than 10 persons, and you can get fined.

Yes and for us Finnish people the social distancing is the norm.

[Zeuhlmate]

Yes and for us Finnish people the social distancing is the norm.

I know - have friends in Finland, been there twice (long ago), like it!

Denmark was a 'shake hands' country, but the last 20 years or so people hugs away persons they never saw before.
To me its a bit phony, I would like to reserve the hugs to those I care for.