WHO lauds Sweden as a ‘model’ going forward

[Scott Downey]

Everyone says that but the N95 also is lifesaving.

I read a woman passed out driving and wrecked cause she was wearing a N95 mask driving in a car for too long, like 45 minutes, that according to the police report. They do restrict your air flow. Seems dumb to be masking and driving though, ought to be illegal.

 

[church mouse guy]

I read a woman passed out driving and wrecked cause she was wearing a N95 mask driving in a car for too long, like 45 minutes, that according to the police report. They do restrict your air flow. Seems dumb to be masking and driving though, ought to be illegal.

Probably a feminist.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Your title is correct. Sweden is a model for going forward. However if you look at Dr Ryan’s comments it is not a model to follow for what has happened so far.

The role of public trust in managing COVID-19: WHO briefing



As countries that successfully controlled the spread of covid19 come out if lockdowns, they will need to implement something like what Sweden is doing.

However, Sweden’s approach is rightly criticized for allowing the first wave there to be much worse than it would have been if they had followed their neighbours. And their economy is still projected to suffer similarly to the rest of Europe.

Monetary policy April 2020: The Riksbank is supporting an economy in crisis


Meanwhile, Sweden has the 7th most deaths per million population in the world if you exclude small island nations and city states just after Belgium, Spain, Italy, UK, France and the Netherlands at 256 per million. This is 4-6 times it’s similar neighboring countries of Denmark, Norway and Finland.

Their figures are probably severely undercounted because they are not testing people in the community and really only testing health care/aged care workers and hospitalized patients.

COVID-19 - The Public Health Agency of Sweden

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

Sweden’s chief epidemiologist and the architect of its light-touch approach to the coronavirus has acknowledged that the country has had too many deaths from Covid-19 and should have done more to curb the spread of the virus.

Anders Tegnell, who has previously criticised other countries’ strict lockdowns as not sustainable in the long run, told Swedish Radio on Wednesday that there was “quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done” in Sweden.
...
Sweden’s 4,468 fatalities from Covid-19 represent a death toll of 449 per million inhabitants, compared with 45 in Norway, 100 in Denmark and 58 in Finland.
...
Norway and Denmark announced last week that they were dropping mutual border controls but would provisionally exclude Sweden from a Nordic “travel bubble” because of its much higher coronavirus infection rate.
...
A study last month found that only 7.3% of Stockholm’s inhabitants had developed Covid-19 antibodies by the end of April.

 

[KenH]

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

Lots of mistakes were made throughout the world. I think history will end up showing that instantaneously shutting down the United States economy was one of the worst mistakes in U.S. history. 50 years from now I think that generation will look back at this one and wonder what in the world were those people thinking to do such a horrendously stupid thing. We instantaneously shut down the U.S. economy, threw 40 million Americans(40 million!!!!) out of work, and then have the scab over racial divisions in this country torn plum off with the stupid move of shutting down the economy exacerbating the issue. When what we should have done was protect the most at risk people in places such as nursing homes and warn those with compromised immune systems that they need to be extra careful about being around other people for a few months and may need to discuss work arrangements with their employer. We would not have shut down the economy, we would not have thrown 40 million Americans(40 million!!!!) out of work, and maybe the racial division scab would have not have been torn completely off and we would not have had all of this rioting, violence, and looting.

 

[Gold Dragon]

I’m thankful to God that we in Australia have leaders who listened to their medical advisors, had medical people lead their covid plans and took fast decisive measures like border closures, agressively testing, tracing and isolation and lockdowns and effectively communicating with different levels of government and the public about the seriousness and infectivity of covid19. We have opened up a majority of our economy again, have less than 500 active cases country wide and are thinking about opening up travel between states and New Zealand soon.

I have not had a single positive case in any of my patients (I’ve probably tested 2-3 hundred people) or in our group practice. Our state has not had a case of community spread in about a week.

Schools are fully open again, restaurants have limits on numbers but are opening and our church is aiming to open up later this month. Early decisive public health based decision making was key and our economy is already rebounding.

Test, trace and isolate is key to getting out of covid19.

 

[Agent47]

With the benefit of hindsight some measures will appear dumb and others stroke of genius. But when these measures were taken it was all a leap of faith.

 

[Gold Dragon]

With the benefit of hindsight some measures will appear dumb and others stroke of genius. But when these measures were taken it was all a leap of faith.

There was a lot unknown that we now know. But we also have hundreds of years of public health knowledge and research that was guiding actions for those countries with leaders listening to their public health officials, following accepted and proven public health advice. And then you have Sweden where their top public health official thought he knew better and took an unproven approach not shown to work before. And the expected result occurred.