The Swedish experiment

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Things are similar here. Australians are not allowed to leave the country, by and large. Travel for business reasons is possible, but I have no idea how strictly the criteria are applied. And, of course, on return, people are faced with a two-week mandatory quarantine at their own expense. (Last time I checked, that was AUD 3000.00 per person.)
 
Michi said:
Things are similar here. Australians are not allowed to leave the country, by and large. Travel for business reasons is possible, but I have no idea how strictly the criteria are applied. And, of course, on return, people are faced with a two-week mandatory quarantine at their own expense. (Last time I checked, that was AUD 3000.00 per person.)
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That's a decent plan, in my book. Here, we had effectively no limits at all until two weeks ago. Many other countries refused us (I have 2 passports, France and US, and both were damn near useless for travel without business or health crisis justification), but we had no limits. Even the isolation upon return was voluntary.
 
For France I believe the travel from within EU is also a bit more difficult, I checked last week and coming into the country you need a negative PCR and a 7 day quarantine, going out returning to where I live another PCR and a 10 day quarantine....nobody is checking quarantines though...weird..
 
There is so much bad information about this all over the world.
My family in Italy time to times call me asking me how is going on in Sweden because they have ear that so many people are dieing
Wrong ,numbers are high yes but can't compare them to others country .
Sweden is in the middle of the storm because we choose a different approach and others don't like it .
I have traveled to Italy last September and people In Italy don't respect any distances or mask or any of the rules there are right now there .
In Sweden people are more respectful

People are starving because of this lock down strategy in Italy ,many many companies are closed,family loosing jobs and no helps from the government , lock downs are generating more problems than what is actually .
 
the problem as I see it is that COVID has serious risks and there is no easy solution, the best solution probably is somewhere between the two extremes.
 
MarcelNL said:
For France I believe the travel from within EU is also a bit more difficult, I checked last week and coming into the country you need a negative PCR and a 7 day quarantine, going out returning to where I live another PCR and a 10 day quarantine....nobody is checking quarantines though...weird..
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Yeah, the only issue would be if you were stopped by the police for something else when you were supposed to be isolating I suppose.
 
preizzo said:
There is so much bad information about this all over the world.
My family in Italy time to times call me asking me how is going on in Sweden because they have ear that so many people are dieing
Wrong ,numbers are high yes but can't compare them to others country .
Sweden is in the middle of the storm because we choose a different approach and others don't like it .
I have traveled to Italy last September and people In Italy don't respect any distances or mask or any of the rules there are right now there .
In Sweden people are more respectful

People are starving because of this lock down strategy in Italy ,many many companies are closed,family loosing jobs and no helps from the government , lock downs are generating more problems than what is actually .
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Eh, a few things there.

1. A lot of the "people are starving" and "many companies are closed" stuff is exaggerated. This isn't uncommon, of course, but there are factors that magnify issues during crisis. The media is a business, and it needs to sell papers/airtime/click ads. Nobody ever bought the paper or watched the show that said "almost everything is perfect, don't worry about it." So the only things people read are about how bad things are.

2. No help from the government, again, is exaggerated: there are many government programs helping people who are out of work or who are temporarily furloughed due to pandemic response.

None of that is to say that there aren't problems: there are! It's impossible to have a society of 60 million people and have none of them fall into cracks, and corruption definitely exists.

On the other hand, you are right that most western European countries are piss poor at respecting social distancing and rules meant to safeguard people. I imagine that part of this is that most of these countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain as examples, reacted a bit slowly but quite decisively early on, going to pretty full lockdowns. Once the virus toll dropped significantly, we all opened back up. Thing is, in most of these places, many people distrust the government from the comfy chair of safety. They don't have the Rona, they don't know anyone who has died of it, so they don't want to give back the "freedoms" that were already lost and recovered. And they know that saying things isn't going to be punished (and shouldn't be...) I've literally heard friends saying that all of the covid response is BS, it's all just a ploy to... I'm not kidding you... screw over young people by not letting them have fun. I try to explain that the LAST thing the government wants is angry youths with nothing to do but be angrier, and oh-by-the-way not paying taxes and not supporting the economy... but no, it's all a plot.
 
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In terms of cases per million population, Sweden currently ranks at #16, with a little over 70,000. That's not that much better than the US, which ranks at #8, with a little over 90,000.

In terms of deaths per million population, Sweden ranks at #25, with just under 1,300. The US ranks at #11, with just under 1,650.

That's not a particularly good track record, I'd say. For example, Germany ranks at #72 and #43 for cases and deaths, and Norway ranks at #105 and #116.

The Swedish approach doesn't exactly look like a rip-roaring success to me.
 
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Michi said:
The Swedish approach doesn't exactly look like a rip-roaring success to me.
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(The use of statistics that merely show it wasn't as extreme a failure as popularly supposed, and that studiously avoid labelling it a success, would appear to be a pretty strong indication that you're right.)
 
I'm absolutely shocked that Anders Tegnell still has a job. Dr. Fauci definitely made some judgement gaffs in the early months of the pandemic but at least he didn't double down on his mistakes.
 
Just a reminder that while the mods are allowing a little leeway with CV19 related discussions, outright polilitical commentary is not permitted.

A couple of recent comments have walked right up to the line. Maybe over it.

I really don't wanna have to do anything about this so please tone it down a bit.
 
Nemo said:
outright polilitical commentary
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On a non-polilitical note (sorry, I couldn't resist :) ), this experiment seems to be working out sterlingly.

In terms of cases per million population, Sweden can now boast of the remarkable achievement of having reached #9 in the world rankings. That is actually one spot ahead of the United States, which managed 100,958 cases per million, compared to Sweden's 101,239 cases per million. Outstanding effort, I think. Especially considering that the other countries ahead of Sweden (besides Czechia) don't have populations that would fill an even half-respectable city.

My heart-felt congratulations go to both Sweden and the United States for their outstanding achievement!

Of course, neither country stands a chance in a race that, judging by the pundits, will be handily won by India :(
 
And it appears the baddest of the bad Indian variant is now spreading in certain urban areas of the UK. If this gets a hold I doubt the full opening on June 21st is going to happen.
 
Corradobrit1 said:
And it appears the baddest of the bad Indian variant is now spreading in certain urban areas of the UK. If this gets a hold I doubt the full opening on June 21st is going to happen.
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Having followed a lot of the science, my feeling right now is that we have already lost, in the sense that we will not get back to a world without a Damocles sword of disease hanging over everyone; at least not for many generations.

With our vaccination efforts, we are putting enormous selection pressure on the virus. And the virus replicates in a matter of hours, compared to a human lifespan that is measured in decades. Meaning that any selection pressure that the virus exerts on humans will not take effect for many generations, whereas the virus can adapt to changing circumstances in a matter of weeks.

The most likely future seems to be one where the virus is endemic everywhere on Earth, with us producing new versions of the vaccine every year (much like we do with flu vaccines), and where we accept for at least the next few decades that it is inevitable that we lose some percentage of the population to the virus each year.

I know this isn't pretty. But I suspect that it is realistic.
 
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Michi said:
I don't believe that's an option, even though it would be helpful. There are still tens of thousands of Australians overseas who are trying to get home. And, as far as I know, Australia can't lock out its own citizens; doing so would be in breach of international law.
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Australia recently set a worrying precedent, having decided to lock out its own citizens if they want to get back from India. With the threat of massive fines and imprisonment.

This did not go down well politically, and the government has been back-pedalling on this with remarkable speed in the past ten days or so.

Regardless, Australia did lock out its own citizens, international law or not. I live and learn…
 
Michi said:
Australia recently set a worrying precedent, having decided to lock out its own citizens if they want to get back from India. With the threat of massive fines and imprisonment.

This did not go down well politically, and the government has been back-pedalling on this with remarkable speed in the past ten days or so.

Regardless, Australia did lock out its own citizens, international law or not. I live and learn…
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Didn't Australia start out last year with like 6 leaders in 2 months or something? Maybe the government is just shell-shocked, or maybe the people in charge were just the ones who were left in the building, and don't know about things like "International Law" and stuff. :D

I kid, I kid - I love Australia, spent 6 months there 21 years ago.
 
big_adventure said:
Didn't Australia start out last year with like 6 leaders in 2 months or something?
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No, not that any Australians would have noticed, anyway.

I can sort of sympathise with the government's position, in the sense that keeping infected people from arriving is a very effective way to protect the country. There is just this knotty problem of these people being Australians and that, if they are prevented form entering their own country, they are effectively made stateless. That's not a good look.
 
Michi said:
No, not that any Australians would have noticed, anyway.

I can sort of sympathise with the government's position, in the sense that keeping infected people from arriving is a very effective way to protect the country. There is just this knotty problem of these people being Australians and that, if they are prevented form entering their own country, they are effectively made stateless. That's not a good look.
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I thought they were dealing with that with draconian quarantining rules in special hotels and segregated zones.
 
its pretty draconian in sweden too imo. bars and restaurants have to close at 8 or 9. only 50 or so people can be in the same place at once.
its recommended you wear a face mask when on a bus or train. etc etc etc.
 
inferno said:
its pretty draconian in sweden too imo. bars and restaurants have to close at 8 or 9. only 50 or so people can be in the same place at once.
its recommended you wear a face mask when on a bus or train. etc etc etc.
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Bar and restaurant have to close at 8,30 that means that at that time no one have to be inside (only stuff working is aloud) government have raccomended to wear a face mask on busses and trains in the busy hours (still is not obligatory) restaurants or bars inside shop moal aren't aloud to have more then one person sitting at the table.
 
preizzo said:
Bar and restaurant have to close at 8,30 that means that at that time no one have to be inside (only stuff working is aloud) government have raccomended to wear a face mask on busses and trains in the busy hours (still is not obligatory) restaurants or bars inside shop moal aren't aloud to have more then one person sitting at the table.
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exactly! its fukn draconian!

i remember back just before christmas. we were out with the job, basically the whole division from the floor. getting drunk and eating and there was so few people in the restaurant. at max 50. but we managed to get drunk and have fun anyway. but it would have been a whole lot more fun with more people there.

i ****ing hate this corona ****. dafuq. we should all chip in and ****ing nuke c***a for this!
 
Michi said:
On a non-polilitical note (sorry, I couldn't resist :) ), this experiment seems to be working out sterlingly.

In terms of cases per million population, Sweden can now boast of the remarkable achievement of having reached #9 in the world rankings. That is actually one spot ahead of the United States, which managed 100,958 cases per million, compared to Sweden's 101,239 cases per million. Outstanding effort, I think. Especially considering that the other countries ahead of Sweden (besides Czechia) don't have populations that would fill an even half-respectable city.

My heart-felt congratulations go to both Sweden and the United States for their outstanding achievement!

Of course, neither country stands a chance in a race that, judging by the pundits, will be handily won by India :(
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I agree, thumbs up for that achievement! The number of cases MAY be confounded by the number of tests done per million, I'm not sure there are numbers corrected for that?


There probably will (or already are) be some runner ups in the form of countries that deny the existence of COVID or do not test/count at all...there is no real reason for any one country except a few real isolated places to steer clear from Covid and IMO the ultimate number (also indicative of level of healthcare) is severely ill/ICU cases and mortality
 
MarcelNL said:
I agree, thumbs up for that achievement! The number of cases MAY be confounded by the number of tests done per million, I'm not sure there are numbers corrected for that?


There probably will (or already are) be some runner ups in the form of countries that deny the existence of COVID or do not test/count at all...there is no real reason for any one country except a few real isolated places to steer clear from Covid and IMO the ultimate number (also indicative of level of healthcare) is severely ill/ICU cases and mortality
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in turkmenistan there is no covid!

basically what turkmenistan did was outlaw the words covid19 and coronavirus. and therefore there is no coronavirus in turkmenistan.
completely genious thinking right there! 👏👏👏
 
That was indeed one of the countries I had in mind! Though there are a few more, like Tanzania. More important than the covid denouncers are those where testing/treatment is largely non existing. It's highly unlikely that the virus cannot affect the people in a few countries, it's more likely a matter of time that anyone gets infected than that that it is a question if you get infected unless we find cures line vaccination that prevent spreading of the virus
 
Michi just spent about an hour reading your posting about Linus Pauling . His wife was smart too as their kids imagine having parents like that.

Pauling may have been wrong about mega dose of vitamin C curing cancer, but his contributions to science leading others to decode DNA are history of a brilliant mind.
 
Keith Sinclair said:
Pauling may have been wrong about mega dose of vitamin C curing cancer, but his contributions to science leading others to decode DNA are history of a brilliant mind.
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Sure thing. Nobel prizes don’t come in cornflakes packets. But this nicely illustrates the fallacy of argument from authority. If someone has a Nobel prize, that does not mean that everything they say is right, especially when they are outside their area of expertise.

I wouldn’t go and ask Higgs (physics Nobel winner) for advice on yoga, and I wouldn’t ask Swami Sivananda (renowned yoga guru) questions about particle physics.

Any statement along the lines of “Nobel prize winner Higgs recommends Vinyasa Flow over Hatha yoga” carries no more weight than the average Joe’s opinion, simply because the Nobel prize is irrelevant in that context.
 
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