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The Swedish coronavirus disaster

Covid
#1

A couple of highly critical articles on the Swedish response. I didn’t realise how many critically ill patients (apparently including some special needs patients) were simply denied hospital treatment, and left to just die alone without care. I also didn’t realise what a hard line they took on not wearing masks. People actually being fired for wearing a mask, against the rules of the hospital. A policy, by the way, that seems to have led to more than a dozen outbreaks of coronavirus in various hospitals, and senior staff either quitting or being fired.

Anyway. Lots of interesting insight into what actually happened in Sweden. Plus the fact that they look like they are starting to change their tune in the end, and are now starting to implement some of the policies that other countries have been doing all along.

Much to think about.

#2

Weird how the covid thing continues to tear ‘the experts’ into battling factions thrusting their wildly conflicting interpretations at each other, with - afaics - still no sign of a global consensus amongst them. Reflecting this, writers such as the two who authored the ‘Time’ piece can choose any stance that their sponsors want pushed, and push it.

Just as well they keep using phrases like ‘almost certain’ and ‘nearly certain’. Yeah - those qualifiers come well in!

For someone like me, who doesn’t purport to know ‘for certain’ WTF is going on, I don’t see the Swedish picture as clarified at all yet. Nor does this account persuade me that I can. Plenty of other happy campers are still vindicating the Swedish approach; and whoTF knows for sure what the real toll is in the US?

And again, I keep getting hung up on the - still wholly unsatisfied - question: who’s data do you trust? Anybody’s? Why? Since there’s obviously a huge axe-grinders’ scam going on at the same time as this nasty disease works through its trajectory, why would anyone at all be given a clear pass for their ‘facts’? Who do you trust? And why?

W&S! :slight_smile:

#3

Evening RG

Of course the old W&S is exactly the right thing for us to do. Not so much if you are personally responsible for trying to steer a course through all this for your country though. Sacking doctors for wearing face masks seems a tad draconian… If there’s even a chance that you are protecting your most vulnerable patients, why on earth would you not wear a mask? Especially as they have now (once several people died) decided to wear “visors” to protect their patients.

Whatever happened to “first, do no harm”?

Personally, it seemed entirely reasonable to me that the old Swedish custom of retiring to the country cabin for summer thereby enforcing 3 months of national social distancing, would cause the cases to drop to very low levels. The big question is, given the 6-12% antibody prevalence, is Sweden now poised for another round of covid hospitalisations and deaths?

If there is another big surge in hospitalisations in Sweden, heading into the winter, then as far as I can see, Swedish unions and citizens should be demanding blood from Tegnell and the rest of his team. Sweden’s economy was hit harder then other Nordic countries, and the death toll was many multiples higher. All in search of the famed herd immunity.

Gambling the lives of your vulnerable to achieve herd immunity, when no one knew if immunity was even possible, always felt like a gamble I wasn’t personally interested in. For the sake of the remaining vulnerable people in Sweden and their families, I really hope it paid off.

#4

Not too sure about those articles. As Rhis says, TIME magazine is well known for pushing a certain agenda. The AAAS piece is rather peculiar. It avoids mentioning the benefits of no lockdown – fewer mental health problems, more normal functioning health service (for eg cancer patients), fewer jobs lost than otherwise, and of course the likelihood of a much smaller `second wave’. Also not so sure about people being fired for not wearing a mask, relying on an email from one person. The author mentions that many scientists wrote to the Swedish government in March asking for tougher measures. She could have mentioned how similar things happen elsewhere with the opposite request (eg the hundreds of Belgian doctors asking for an end to lockdowns and masks). She also rather glibly glosses over the fact that the death rate came down to zero despite there being no lockdown or masks. Any explanation?

That the AAAS has an agenda is pretty clear https://www.aaas.org/mission with prominent funders the Rockefellers https://whatweknow.aaas.org/our-funders/

#5

Hi Willem

Nice to see you here :slight_smile:

It’s hard to find a publication that doesn’t have an agenda these days. I’m sure that’s true of Time and the rest. Personally I found the article interesting regardless, and both authors are actually Swedish, and seemingly actively involved in trying to dig out the truth with the equivalent of freedom of information requests etc.

Very true. But from what was in the article I’d question some of the following points:

  • fewer mental health problems - do we have data on Sweden compared with, say Norway? My understanding is that by and large the Swedes locked themselves down to a large degree. I wonder if there was a difference in mental health between the Nordic countries over the last few months. If there is any data out there I would be quite interested to see it.

  • more normal functioning health service (for eg cancer patients). - The article makes the opposite claim. Hospitals were turning a lot of people away apparently. From the article:

_ Regional health agencies were using a Clinical Frailty Scale, an assessment tool designed to predict the need for care in a nursing home or hospital, and the life expectancy of older people by estimating their fragility, to determine whether someone should receive hospital care and was applied to decisions regarding all sorts of treatment, not only for COVID-19. These guidelines led to many people with health care needs unrelated to COVID-19 not getting the care they need, with some even dying as a result—collateral damage of Sweden’s COVID-19 strategy.

  • fewer jobs lost than otherwise - apparently Sweden was one of the worst hit countries in the Nordics, economically.

  • the likelihood of a much smaller `second wave’ - yes, that is the hope. If this piece turns out to be false then they just killed a lot of vulnerable people for nothing… I really hope it turns out for them, but as Rhis would say, we have to wait and see just how small a second wave turns out to be for them. Or if they even have one at all.

I agree we can’t know the full truth of it. But there were several reports in the article of people being castigated for wearing masks. Apparently one of the trade unions tried to lobby for masks (for airport workers) and was turned down. I have no reason to disbelieve the experience of the woman in the article who got fired. I suppose the Swedish authorities could easily debunk that if it were not true. The idea of not wearing masks in hospitals in principle, despite the fact that there is evidence that they can reduce risks, seems somewhat irresponsible to me. The same thing happened in the US incidentally. Nurses fired if they wore masks in the hospital. Seemed just as irresponsible…

Well, as I mentioned before, the population themselves did social distance to almost the same amount as other countries that did have a lockdown. Plus they all disappeared up to their cabins over the summer months. Plus it seems that coronaviruses may very well be seasonal, and naturally just tail off in the summer.

Also, It seems that the virus makes much use of super-spreaders to spread, and is therefore very clustered. Perhaps it burned itself out in the clusters that were badly hit, and didn’t travel throughout the rest of the country, yet. That would fit with the varying degrees of antibody prevalence throughout the country. It seems likely to me that this could cause a drop-off in the deaths, which would then be accelerated by the summer vacation.

Would all that be enough to cause hospitalisations and deaths to drop to zero? No idea. Probably it had some effect, though.

Alternatively it’s also possible that enough immunity built up during the first wave so the virus simply ran out of susceptible people. If this is true, the perhaps their strategy worked. We won’t know that for sure for a while yet, though.

To your final point, yes everyone has an agenda. But Science is still one of the premier science journals around. Worth considering, anyway.

Cheers, W. Again, it’s good to see you here.

Cheers
PP

#6

Sorry, I’m slow onto this, as the disinformation stream about Sweden is intensifying in sync with the escalating positive test rates around Europe. Yesterday there was an article by another ally, Prof de Noli, against the Swedish success and joining Tim Anderson, leaving only OffGuardian as a prime source of counter information. I agree with Willem on all the points above, particularly the claim about masks - but point out here that some research done by Raina Macintyre and others found that surgeons has no higher rates of wound infection if they didn’t wear masks. They did so for TWO years to demonstrate this. But noone dictated that they mustn’t do so - it’s a spurious and probably fabricated claim by maskers. They were probably told that wearing masks would only get in the way, and was no use as the virus would pass straight through them.
Also I’m very dubious of claims that Sweden’s economy has suffered as much as other countries; I think it’s nonsense. In Victoria we are about $200 billion in debt and practically at destitution level while taking all the precautions against the virus, except that somehow despite everything “they let it into” over 100 aged care homes, where 90% of the fatalities occurred.

cheers David.

#7

Hi David

Just wondering if you can provide some links to support these assertions please?

and

@PontiusPrimate above provided links to the GPD data from the Scandinavian countries that showed that Sweden’s GDP declined more than the other countries. We know that there are issues with using GDP as a measure of economic strength and that different countries calculate GDP differently etc but it seems unlikely that Sweden would inaccurately report to make its economy look like it was doing worse than it actually is - can’t see any benefit in doing that.

Can you please provide some data/links to explain why you don’t believe that Sweden’s economy has suffered as much as (or more than) other countries? Interested to understand how you have come to this conclusion (and also very interested in the study on mask wearing given that it is standard for surgeons in hospitals and was even before COVID).

Thanks
J

#8

Hi David

Was this the article you were talking about?

https://theindicter.com/why-swedish-herd-immunity-model-should-not-be-followed-covid-19-case-fatality-rate-in-sweden-and-neighbouring-countries/

The focus overall seems to be on the human cost so far, without much discussion of the human cost to come. But I found some bits interesting:

1 - The stated aim for the Swedish model was not herd immunity (which seems laughably false, but hey) but rather to protect the old and frail. This was a complete and utter failure (like everywhere that tried this without a good track and trace system). To the point where

Health authorities in Sweden issued a directive stipulating certain groups of patients should be left out of intensive care

Which led to the horrifying situation where

Ensuing, in May 2020, Karolinska Hospital reported that only 80 % of IVA places at Karolinska Hospital were occupied. This prompted Swedish TV to broadcast it as “very positive”, while Aftonbladet wondered whether “we are making it better than in other countries”. Meanwhile scores of Swedish elderly had been denied treatment at those intensive care facilities.

Protect the old and frail indeed. No wonder the Chair of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR) is calling them out. Incidentally, not mentioned in this article is the following result about the policy of protecting the elderly (over 70s)

This started a wave of ageism going through the country. Older people were verbally abused for walking outdoors or going to shops, and thus jeopardizing the Swedish system of infection control

2 - the Swedish media are censoring the straight forward facts in the article written by an eminent Swedish scientist.

The publication of these findings was declined by Swedish mainstream newspapers, despite the phenomenon of the high CFR in Sweden was not known, or been previously reported. They prefer, instead, to control discourse, permitting only mild criticism, which serves the authorities in the current Covid-19 debate.

3 - You shouldn’t be too surprised about the crashing Swedish economy. The FT predicted back in may that it would likely do no better than its neighbours. This seems like an understatement. The fact is that Swedish people locked down to almost the same extent as other countries. They just chose to do that without government enforcement. This is why I’d be interested to know if Sweden had less problems with mental health than other countries. Speaking personally, I know that I would be horrified to live in a country that was refusing treatment to my older relatives, wading through a massive death toll, suffering huge economic pain, censoring information in the media and telling me that everything is fine and I should send my children to school and go for a coffee in town. That kind of gaslighting would be extremely bad for my own mental health…

So, attacking colleagues who wear face masks, censoring information in the media, deleting emails on herd immunity, refusing treatment to the elderly and sick…

Yeah. The more I look at Sweden the less I like what I see. If they have a bad second wave this winter, then I hope some people take out a criminal prosecution against their government.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, this seems to be exactly the model that the folk from the Great Barrington Reef are proposing.

I’m not convinced yet. Let’s see how Sweden fares through the winter.

Cheers

#9

I can see it will be hard to convince either of you on this, as my perception of the Swedish model is based mostly on distrust and distaste for those who are opposed to it ! None of us has access to true economic data or sufficient knowledge to put it in perspective in comparison to other countries, but my judgement is based simply on the fact that Sweden’s economy did not lock down the way that it did elsewhere. I always distrusted Sweden for being a puppet colony of the US and NATO, but what happened here made me think otherwise. They seem to be almost the only country which is against mask wearing - and that is my main bete noir at the moment. (an Article on the Masquerade is in the pipeline today - and includes a link to Raina macintyre’s research during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009. I found the research on surgical masks when looking at that one, but will look again. Part of the reason masks showed no difference in the operating theatre was because other methods of infection control were very good, so the rate of infections was very low anyway. But that was bacterial infections of course.
I support the Great Barrington declaration 100% btw!

#10

Forgot link:

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