Re: The Coronavirus Thread - Part 3

[VivaStPauli]

Sweden is doing extremely well btw.

Only about 1k cases per 1M people... among the best in Europe
Only 89 deaths for every 1M people... again, among the best.

Healthy and responsible people. Not taking drastic measures seems to be working.

Have public health officials overstated the risk?

Well, Sweden is a thinly populated country. Hardly comparable how packed places are a bit south. But people have apparently also been really measured, and TBH, from the moment people saw what happened in Italy in the news, most of them probably got careful anyway, so not sure if you need mandatory social distancing, most people will do that anyway now, probably.
But IMHO it's apples and oranges, life in Malmö just looks different to life in Naples.

[sportsczy]

Stockholm is a very cosmopolitan city...  just like any major city in Europe. Been there many a time. Very social with similar crowds to anyplace else. When the weather is nice, everyone's outside mingling, eating, shopping, etc.

Stockholm is one of my favorite cities in the world.

[CBarca]

Again, it really doesn't matter where you are with respect to viewing lockdowns.

It's far, far too soon on any timescale to be saying Sweden is doing well or badly. We have to let time play out a bit here.

They aren't among the best in Europe with 89 deaths/1M btw...

[Thimmy]

I agree that it’s too early to confidently say that Sweden are doing well or badly, but the early signs were quite bleak. Like someone else pointed out, the Scandinavian populations are not very population dense. Sweden initially had fewer deaths and infected than us, and since we went into lockdown and they opted for a more liberal approach to this situation, the statistics have been flipped.

Their death rate was far lower than ours a couple of weeks ago, and now it’s 3 times as high. That may still be lower than that of many other countries, but it’s not a good sign at all, and I assume it’s the reason why their health authorities and their leading health experts that keep blabbering in the media, aren’t as cocky anymore. The guy who was referred to in the media as their foremost expert and analysist, who earlier claimed that Norway were/are a test subject, is sounding far less cocky these days. It is still to early to declare anything, but i don’t get the impression that their unrestrictive approach did them any favors.

[zigra]

I think Sweden has the 7th highest death count per capita (worldwide) so saying they are one of the best is a bit weird.

Stockholm is a very cosmopolitan city...  just like any major city in Europe. Been there many a time. Very social with similar crowds to anyplace else. When the weather is nice, everyone's outside mingling, eating, shopping, etc.

Stockholm is one of my favorite cities in the world.

True. But of course the death count in the Stockholm county is also far higher than the national average (222 for 1m people).

[Art Morte]

If you look only at deaths per population, Sweden isn't doing too good, actually. Especially when you consider their location and lowish population density. The comparable countries around them (Finland, Norway, Denmark) are all doing much better in deaths per population.

However, Sweden's approach is supposed to have an earlier and higher peak than the lockdown approach, which is supposed to go on for longer since the spread is slowed down more. So yeah, it's too soon to say is their approach working out well or not.

Personally I feel more comfortable with the lockdown approach. I don't like the idea that you sort of just let a powerful illness like covid-19 spread.

[Thimmy]

If you look only at deaths per population, Sweden isn't doing too good, actually. Especially when you consider their location and lowish population density. The comparable countries around them (Finland, Norway, Denmark) are all doing much better in deaths per population.

However, Sweden's approach is supposed to have an earlier and higher peak than the lockdown approach, which is supposed to go on for longer since the spread is slowed down more. So yeah, it's too soon to say is their approach working out well or not.

Personally I feel more comfortable with the lockdown approach. I don't like the idea that you sort of just let a powerful illness like covid-19 spread.

I completely agree.

[sportsczy]

If you look only at deaths per population, Sweden isn't doing too good, actually. Especially when you consider their location and lowish population density. The comparable countries around them (Finland, Norway, Denmark) are all doing much better in deaths per population.

However, Sweden's approach is supposed to have an earlier and higher peak than the lockdown approach, which is supposed to go on for longer since the spread is slowed down more. So yeah, it's too soon to say is their approach working out well or not.

Personally I feel more comfortable with the lockdown approach. I don't like the idea that you sort of just let a powerful illness like covid-19 spread.

Actually, it is. As I mentioned earlier:

Only about 1k cases per 1M people... among the best in Europe
Only 89 deaths for every 1M people... again, among the best.

[sportsczy]

This site puts the stats in some good context (cases and deaths per 1M of the population) is here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Art Morte]

I don't know why you would tout Sweden being among the best in deaths per population when most countries in Europe have notably fewer deaths per population than Sweden.

Number of cases continues to be a very inaccurate statistic while testing lags behind almost everywhere. That site also shows tests by population and Sweden are doing quite bad at 5,400 tests per 1M people - which is a worse amount of testing than most European countries.

And I'm willing to keep an open mind about Sweden's approach, since they might get over this faster, but their numbers right now are not good.

[CBarca]

Yeah I'm not understanding what Sports is saying here. His argument isn't matching the numbers he's citing.

[sportsczy]

Per 1M of population , which adjusts for country size.  Also, I'm limiting myself to countries that actually count and report...  most of Eastern Europe doesn't keep track (or won't tell anyone).  Then you have tiny countries that are irrelevant.  Also, it seems the countries that have a major airline and act as a travel hub are the hardest hit... The nord countries have Norwegian Airlines and SAS, who are both popular low fare international airlines (I've used both).  SAS is the flagship airline of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

Sweden is at 1039 cases and 89 deaths per 1M.  Now let's look at the rest:

Denmark  1066 and 47
Norway  1204 and 24
Netherlands  1384 and 160
France  2031 and 221
UK  1241 and 156
Belgium  2448 and 311
Switzerland  2938 and 128
Germany  1526 and 36
Spain  3568 and 368
Portugal  1627 and 49
Austria  1548 and 39
Ireland  1955 and 68
Italy  2586 and 329

The only that has kept its society open out of all these... is Sweden.  You don't think the fact that they don't stand out at all and rank among the better countries in terms of stats is interesting?

[CBarca]

I guess to answer your question, no I don't think that.

But I've also said from the beginning that I think judgement on how well Sweden is or isn't doing is really stupid at this stage, and that's really my final answer on any of this.

I think something that we shouldn't try and forget here either is that as much as Sweden is an outlier...they've banned gatherings of more than 50 people, made higher education online, banned visits to nursing homes, and in general have still made appeals to people to socially distance and avoid unnecessary trips. People are encouraged to work from home. Does anyone know if bars/restaurants are operating at the same hours or reduced?

I think what's interesting in Sweden is if they avoid any sort of large outbreak/very high death per 1M, there might be a lot of promise for the "soft lockdown" type of policy moving forward for other countries to consider.

I would imagine that's where the US is headed and that's what we should start aiming for once we get our testing capacity up to where it needs to be + get masks for most everyone.

[CBarca]

I've actually found this on reddit after I made that previous post that kind of backs up my point about Sweden.

I think the Swedish course of action has been a bit misreported. The general feeling here is that we're under lockdown. A couple of key differences from comparable countries:

Schoools and kindergardens remain open.

Bars and cafes remain open.

Most of the regulations are "recommendations" rather than laws.

We're currently seeing a huge spike in unemployment - because while shops and bars are open very few people are visiting them, because we're recommended not to. The last point is simply one of political culture in Sweden, and the idea that social pressure is more efficient than judicial pressure in this case. So while it's true that there are people going to bars in Stockholm (the only region that's actually hit hard), they are much fewer than normal.

When it comes to schools, keeping them open is based on the idea that there's little evidence that children drive the pandemic, and that closing schools has other effects - for example complicating life for essential workers who need their kids at school to be able to go to work, and that there's further risk that if they can't be at school, they'll be taken care of by older relatives who are at risk.

My impression is that the countries who have ordered shutdowns of schools and kindergardens have not done so on the advice of scientists, but as a political move to calm the public and be seen to do everything possible. Most countries are now discussing opening schools. Norway, Denmark and Finland who all closed schools are now opening them to some degree.

No country in Europe is seriously attempting to get rid of the spread completely by these kinds of orders - everyone is trying to lower the transmission rate, i.e. flattening the curve. My impression is that the Swedish model does that about as well as other countries. It doesn't seem like our almost-empty (but not completely empty) buses, cafes and restaurants are driving this pandemic. Perhaps because transmission isn't really likely to occur in places like that unless they're crowded, which they aren't.

Most severe cases and fatalities in Sweden belong to one of two groups: poor immigrants who are living in small apartments with many generations under one roof, or people living in retirement homes where there's been a lot of spread despite the fact that it's one of the few places where there's been a law to ban outside visitors. None of these two main cases are primarily related to bars or cafes being open, but to other issues. Bad living conditions for the first group, and for the second group we simply don't know right now - it can't be explained with a difference in approach though. My guess however is that the revised guidelines for sick pay etc that were introduced to keep ill people at home without economic consequences missed some of the zero hour contract workers in elderly care. I don't know how that worked in other countries.

When it comes to Swedish numbers keep in mind the following: in the beginning of the epidemic, everyone with symtoms was tested and there was extensive contact tracing. When there were indications of societal spread the strategy shifted to pushing resources to risk groups (health care workers, patients, the elderly etc). So right now testing is reserved for risk groups which means we're likely to have a high number of positive cases in relation to tests. It also means we're likely to severely underreport incidence - the latest estimates are that somewhere between 2,5% and 10% of the population in Stockholm carry the virus which would put fatality rates at the lower levels we know of (about 0,3%-0,5%).

I had started feeling uneasy about the reporting of what Sweden is doing (how much "on the ground" reporting have we seen? A lot of it has been pretty lazy/politicized editorials) and if what this individual is saying is true, then it's difficult to say that Sweden is actually as big of an outlier compared to other countries as we would like to say they are.

Given that people, even if it's in heavily reduced numbers, are still going to restaurants and such...perhaps Sweden does offer (as I said before) a look at what a soft lockdown looks like as the US eases back into a social life that looks similar to pre-COVID

[Babun]

I don't think Sweden is an exception, they're just 2-3 weeks behind but anyways, even if the numbers are true they are not applicable to central European countries:
1. Population density is way different. 1m/km^2 doesn't tell the whole story when most of the population is concentrated in big cities like in France.
2. Other countries are in the middle of it. They need to get out first before even considering any other measure.

Edit: an interesting study offering an explanation for why the intubation death rate is so high. Their results show Wuhan virus among other things attacks red blood cells directly making them unable to transport oxygen. Intubation doesn't help in that case because there aren't enough cells to transport the oxygen in the first place.
Source: https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173

[Jay29]

China have reported it's highest number of daily cases in several weeks, with 108. 98 of these cases were said to be imported.

This is the next phase and I hope the world is taking note. There has to be strict control of people returning to their countries otherwise they're going to kick off a whole new explosion of cases.

[Nishankly]

China have reported it's highest number of daily cases in several weeks, with 108. 98 of these cases were said to be imported.

This is the next phase and I hope the world is taking note. There has to be strict control of people returning to their countries otherwise they're going to kick off a whole new explosion of cases.

Surely the airports and airplanes have a huge role to play here, most imported cases are asymptomatic with no contact history until they travel and get symptoms after they travel. I have feeling the airports and airplanes aren't sanitized properly idk

[rincon]

I still don't understand how Sports is saying Sweden's numbers are among the best

Death per 1M population in the Nordic countries:

Sweden: 89
Denmark: 47
Norway: 24
Finland: 10

The Swedish PM himself said the measures they took weren't good enough iirc.

[futbol_bill]

This is just classic Sports! He sets his agenda, who or what, he is going to hype and then it’s non stop posts hyping or supporting his agenda, and often trying to project that he knows more than the rest of us.

In this case, he has been listening to Trump too much. He thinks the experts have over estimated the virus, and he wants the isolation to be lifted. His using Swedish approach is just another string of posts to support his agenda.

[CBarca]

China have reported it's highest number of daily cases in several weeks, with 108. 98 of these cases were said to be imported.

This is the next phase and I hope the world is taking note. There has to be strict control of people returning to their countries otherwise they're going to kick off a whole new explosion of cases.

Surely the airports and airplanes have a huge role to play here, most imported cases are asymptomatic with no contact history until they travel and get symptoms after they travel. I have feeling the airports and airplanes aren't sanitized properly idk

People coming in from other countries need a forced quarantine until the results from a test come in. There should be testing at all airports of everyone.

The next phase should be suppression and contact tracing. China and other countries have shown that imported cases are a major area of concern as far as new cases go.

[Nishankly]

China have reported it's highest number of daily cases in several weeks, with 108. 98 of these cases were said to be imported.

This is the next phase and I hope the world is taking note. There has to be strict control of people returning to their countries otherwise they're going to kick off a whole new explosion of cases.

Surely the airports and airplanes have a huge role to play here, most imported cases are asymptomatic with no contact history until they travel and get symptoms after they travel. I have feeling the airports and airplanes aren't sanitized properly idk

People coming in from other countries need a forced quarantine until the results from a test come in. There should be testing at all airports of everyone.

The next phase should be suppression and contact tracing. China and other countries have shown that imported cases are a major area of concern as far as new cases go.

Well we know majority of the countries are still not forcing government based quarantine and still we don't have the answer to imported cases being tested positive 3-4 days after travel. It doesn't answer my question which I asked here in early February, are airports and airplanes the main carrier of the disease right now?

[CBarca]

That's not really an answerable question right now because no country has coronavirus under control except China.

In China's case it seems so, but it also depends on how much you trust China to be giving accurate information.

[Nishankly]

That's not really an answerable question right now because no country has coronavirus under control except China.

In China's case it seems so, but it also depends on how much you trust China to be giving accurate information.

Even when we look at the most of the countries imported cases in February, the history always starts at the airport/flight. I am confused AF

[Babun]

Wieler's report today ( German CDC chief):
1. Influenza season is over, we can fully concentrate on corona for now.
2. The numbers are lower because during the easter holiday less tests were conducted. The final decision about a partial exit from the lockdown will be made at a later point (unclear). He just sees a positive development at the moment.
3. Older kids should go to school again.
4. Immunity passes cannot be given because up until now it's not clear whether the immunity against the Wuhan virus persists or whether all of infected develop immunity in the first place.
5. Selfmade masks should be regarded as added protection (addon) when someone HAS to enter an enclosed area for grocery shopping etc. for example. Social distancing is still the measure number one against the virus.
...

[Freeza]

I still don't understand how Sports is saying Sweden's numbers are among the best

Death per 1M population in the Nordic countries:

Sweden: 89
Denmark: 47
Norway: 24
Finland: 10

The Swedish PM himself said the measures they took weren't good enough iirc.

No surprise in those numbers. Finland continues to be the gold standard of Nordic countries in most these matters

[Art Morte]

I still don't understand how Sports is saying Sweden's numbers are among the best

Death per 1M population in the Nordic countries:

Sweden: 89
Denmark: 47
Norway: 24
Finland: 10

The Swedish PM himself said the measures they took weren't good enough iirc.

No surprise in those numbers. Finland continues to be the gold standard of Nordic countries in most these matters

I hope so but I'm not sure. We are a bit behind most countries in the Covid timeline and although our measures have certainly slowed down the spreading, I'm not sure it puts as any closer to easing off social distancing than other countries. We don't currently have the testing capacity to really control the spread and act quickly on it, like South Korea have done. I think quick large-scale testing is what you need to start opening up. I'm actually a little worried that because the virus is spreading so slowly in Finland, people will become complacent and start relaxing their social distancing too soon.

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