5 Charts That Show Sweden’s Strategy Worked. The Lockdowns Failed

[Leongsam]

5 Charts That Show Sweden’s Strategy Worked. The Lockdowns Failed
Sweden showed there's a better way to combat COVID-19.
Friday, October 9, 2020

Image Credit: Yinon Weiss-Twitter

Jon Miltimore
Politics Sweden COVID-19 Coronavirus The Great Barrington Declaration Lockdowns Unintended Consequences United Kingdom Spain France
Government officials in Sweden announced this week that the government expects to maintain its mild restrictions on gatherings “for at least another year” to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Unlike most other European countries and nations around the world, Sweden declined to initiate a nationwide lockdown or mask mandates, opting instead for a policy that restricted large gatherings and relied on social responsibility to slow transmission of the virus.
For months, Sweden was criticized for its decision to forego an economic lockdown.
“Sweden becomes an example of how not to handle COVID-19,” CBS declared in its headline in a July article.
Sweden had become a “cautionary tale,” the New York Times declared the same month.
“They are leading us to catastrophe,” The Guardian warned in March.
Dozens of similar examples can be found. With every passing week, however, it’s becoming more clear that Sweden got the virus right. For starters, Swedish officials point out that even if lockdowns did save lives, they cannot long be endured.
"The measures that are being taken in Europe are not sustainable, we're trying to find a level that is steady and that keeps the spread down. We can't get rid of it, but we can keep it down at a reasonable level," Johan Carlson, the director general of Sweden's public health agency, said in an interview with public broadcaster SVT on Sunday.
It’s also worth pointing out that Sweden has avoided some of the economic carnage of its European neighbours experienced by implementing harsh lockdowns. In August, the BBC pointed out that Sweden’s economy experienced much less damage during the pandemic.
Both of these facts help explain why Sweden has not witnessed the widespread social unrest other nations have seen.
"A certain fatigue is setting in, this has been going on for a number of months,” Carlson admitted. “But we are not seeing anger or aggression, we're not seeing the same reactions as in Europe.”
This should come as no surprise. Life in Sweden is still relatively normal. People never stopped going to restaurants and bars, pools or parks. Schools and places of business remained open. Hence, the mass protests, violence, and spikes of mental health deterioration, drug overddoses, and suicide nations around the world have witnessed in 2020 have been notably absent in Sweden.
Perhaps most importantly, Sweden’s “lighter touch” seems to have tamed COVID-19. While many European countries that implemented lockdowns are witnessing a resurgence of the virus, Sweden’s cases and deaths remain a stark contrast to other European nations.

It’s true there was concern around a slight uptick in cases that began in mid-September, but the increase is well below other European nations, which has resulted in fewer COVID-19 related deaths.
Yinon Weiss, a founder of RallyPoint and a Harvard Business School grad, has shown, Sweden’s current daily death rate is exponentially lower—25x, 10x, 7x—than many of its European counterparts that initiated strict lockdowns, such as Spain, the United Kingdom, and France.

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Throughout the pandemic, many have claimed Sweden can’t be compared to these larger nations, since they have higher population density. The link between COVID-19 and urban density is weak at best, but even if you account for population density data show that Sweden’s capital of Stockholm has outperformed American cities that locked down like Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. (And of course New York.)




Even the Nordic countries with low death rates that Sweden often is unfavorably compared to are now seeing a sharp rise in cases (though death in all Nordic countries thankfully remains low).




Critics of Sweden’s policy will point out that Sweden’s COVID-19 death rate is still higher than its Nordic neighbors—the result of a failure to adequately protect its eldercare homes—but the goal was never to have the lowest coronavirus death rate in Europe. It was to limit the spread of the virus and prevent hospital systems from being overwhelmed.


Despite predictions that its laissez-faire policy would result in mass infection and 96,000 deaths, Sweden succeeded and its per capita death toll today remains well below many of its European neighbors.


The last three months have been particularly striking, Weiss points out.





With every passing week we’re seeing that the world’s lockdown experiment failed, and failed horribly—destroying millions of businesses, tens of millions of jobs, and causing widespread mental and physical health deterioration. (There’s a reason European leaders such as Boris Johnson are now consulting with Sweden’s top infectious disease expert, Anders Tegnell.)


As John Tierney recently explained in City Journal, the best that can be said of stay-at-home orders is that they may have made sense before we had solid data and little clue about the type of virus we were dealing with. We know better now. There is no correlation between lockdown stringency and COVID-19 deaths, while their harms are induspitable.


This is why thousands of medical practitioners and public health scientists have signed a new declaration—the Great Barrington Declaration—expressing grave concerns over the adverse effects of lockdowns and calling for a more targeted approach.


In June, following publication of an NPR report that showed COVID-19 is not as dangerous as first believed, I suggested lockdowns could prove to be the biggest expert “fail” since the Iraq War.


Four months later, the evidence only looks stronger.

 

[Leongsam]

 

[syed putra]

Letting virus ‘run free’ with eye to herd immunity ‘unethical’, says WHO
Tuesday, 13 Oct 2020 08:33 AM MYT

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against calls in some countries to let Covid-19 run its course until enough people develop the immunity needed to naturally halt its spread. — Reuters pic
GENEVA, Oct 13 — The World Health Organisation (WHO) chief warned yesterday against just allowing the new coronavirus to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, saying it was “unethical”.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against calls in some countries to let Covid-19 run its course until enough people develop the immunity needed to naturally halt its spread.


“Herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached,” he pointed out during a virtual press briefing.
For measles, for instance, it is estimated that if 95 per cent of the population is vaccinated, the remaining five per cent will also be protected from the spread of the virus.

For polio, the threshold is estimated at 80 per cent.


“Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it,” Tedros said.
“Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,” he insisted.
The new coronavirus has killed well over one million people and infected more than 37.5 million since it first surfaced in China late last year.
Relying on naturally obtaining herd immunity in such a situation would be “scientifically and ethically problematic”, Tedros said.
“Allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical. It’s not an option.”
He pointed to the lack of information on the development of immunity to Covid-19, including how strong the immune response is and how long antibodies remain in the body.
Tedros pointed to some cases where people are believed to have been infected with the virus a second time.
‘Unnecessary infections, suffering, death’
He also stressed the many long-term health problems of infection, which researchers are only just beginning to understand.
And he pointed out that it has been estimated that less than 10 per cent of the population in most countries are believed to have contracted the disease.
“The vast majority of people in most countries remain susceptible to this virus,” he said.
“Letting the virus circulate unchecked therefore means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death.”
Overall, it is estimated that 0.6 per cent of people who contract Covid-19 die from the disease, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on the virus, told yesterday’s briefing.
“That may not sound like a lot,” she acknowledged, stressing though that it “is a lot higher than (for) influenza”.
She also pointed out that “the infection fatality ratio increases dramatically with age.”
While the elderly and people with underlying health conditions are clearly most likely to fall seriously ill from Covid-19, Tedros stressed that they are not the only ones at risk.
“People of all ages have died,” he said.
The UN agency also voiced optimism at the speed at which vaccines against the virus are being developed, with 40 vaccine candidates in clinical trials, including 10 in late-stage Phase III trials.
US President Trump has repeatedly promised that a Covid-19 vaccine will be ready before next month’s US elections.
But WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the vaccines in late-stage trials were not expected to produce sufficient data to request regulatory approval until December, at “the earliest”.
“Into the early part of 2021, we expect a number of trials to start providing data for regulators to look at,” she said.
After that though, regulators would need to go through the data before making their decisions.
“This is going to be a lot of data and also for the WHO,” she said. — AFP

 

[Leongsam]

Letting virus ‘run free’ with eye to herd immunity ‘unethical’, says WHO
Tuesday, 13 Oct 2020 08:33 AM MYT

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against calls in some countries to let Covid-19 run its course until enough people develop the immunity needed to naturally halt its spread. — Reuters pic
GENEVA, Oct 13 — The World Health Organisation (WHO) chief warned yesterday against just allowing the new coronavirus to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, saying it was “unethical”.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against calls in some countries to let Covid-19 run its course until enough people develop the immunity needed to naturally halt its spread.


“Herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached,” he pointed out during a virtual press briefing.
For measles, for instance, it is estimated that if 95 per cent of the population is vaccinated, the remaining five per cent will also be protected from the spread of the virus.

For polio, the threshold is estimated at 80 per cent.


“Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it,” Tedros said.
“Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,” he insisted.
The new coronavirus has killed well over one million people and infected more than 37.5 million since it first surfaced in China late last year.
Relying on naturally obtaining herd immunity in such a situation would be “scientifically and ethically problematic”, Tedros said.
“Allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical. It’s not an option.”
He pointed to the lack of information on the development of immunity to Covid-19, including how strong the immune response is and how long antibodies remain in the body.
Tedros pointed to some cases where people are believed to have been infected with the virus a second time.
‘Unnecessary infections, suffering, death’
He also stressed the many long-term health problems of infection, which researchers are only just beginning to understand.
And he pointed out that it has been estimated that less than 10 per cent of the population in most countries are believed to have contracted the disease.
“The vast majority of people in most countries remain susceptible to this virus,” he said.
“Letting the virus circulate unchecked therefore means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death.”
Overall, it is estimated that 0.6 per cent of people who contract Covid-19 die from the disease, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on the virus, told yesterday’s briefing.
“That may not sound like a lot,” she acknowledged, stressing though that it “is a lot higher than (for) influenza”.
She also pointed out that “the infection fatality ratio increases dramatically with age.”
While the elderly and people with underlying health conditions are clearly most likely to fall seriously ill from Covid-19, Tedros stressed that they are not the only ones at risk.
“People of all ages have died,” he said.
The UN agency also voiced optimism at the speed at which vaccines against the virus are being developed, with 40 vaccine candidates in clinical trials, including 10 in late-stage Phase III trials.
US President Trump has repeatedly promised that a Covid-19 vaccine will be ready before next month’s US elections.
But WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the vaccines in late-stage trials were not expected to produce sufficient data to request regulatory approval until December, at “the earliest”.
“Into the early part of 2021, we expect a number of trials to start providing data for regulators to look at,” she said.
After that though, regulators would need to go through the data before making their decisions.
“This is going to be a lot of data and also for the WHO,” she said. — AFP

Sweden did not let the virus "run free". They put is many measures but did not lock down the whole economy because as is the case with all things in life, the solution lies in finding a balance between competing factors.

 

[dyson]

Sweden did not let the virus "run free". They put is many measures but did not lock down the whole economy because as is the case with all things in life, the solution lies in finding a balance between competing factors.

Singapore did not want to lock down initially too. But Singapore chickened out.

 

[Leongsam]

These are the measures in place in Sweden :

thelocal.se

The coronavirus rules and recommendations you should still be following in Sweden this autumn
The Local

6-7 minutes


Staying at home if you have symptoms, and keeping distance from others at all times, are two of the key recommendations. Photo: Magnus Hjalmarson Neideman / SvD / TT
The Local

12 October 2020

14:26 CEST+02:00

With the number of new Covid-19 cases rising and the cooler weather sending many social gatherings indoors, Swedish authorities have repeatedly emphasised the importance of continuing to follow the recommendations in place.

The following rules apply across the whole country until further notice.

Restrictions could change in future, and the Public Health Agency is looking into tighter local restrictions in response to outbreaks, which would likely be limited to a specific time period and specific geographical locations. You can find the latest up-to-date information in English from The Local, Krisinformation, and the Public Health Agency.

Large gatherings

Public events with more than 50 people are currently banned in Sweden due to the pandemic. This applies to concerts, demonstrations, and theatre performances for example, but not to workplaces, shopping centres or private events. However, even in circumstances where this law doesn't apply, you are expected to avoid meeting in big groups.

The Public Health Agency asks everyone to avoid organising or participating in "large events", including parties, weddings and funerals.
At restaurants, bars and nightclubs other rules apply. Although more than 50 people are allowed, venues should have other measures in place in order to limit crowding, with table service only and space between tables. It is not just venues that have the responsibility to ensure this, but also individuals, with authorities asking that people not enter crowded places.

• What can Europe do to battle 'pandemic fatigue'?
  
• ANALYSIS: What does Sweden's rise in coronavirus cases tell us?

Stay at home if you are ill

If you are experiencing any symptoms of the coronavirus, you should stay at home. That means not leaving the house to meet other people, go to work or school, or go to shops. The official advice is to stay at home for at least two full days after becoming entirely free of symptoms.

You should also get tested if your symptoms last for longer than 24 hours. If you test positive for Covid-19, you should continue to stay at home for a minimum of seven days after the first symptom, and at least two days after becoming fever-free, according to the Public Health Agency. If you test negative, you should still stay at home until you are entirely symptom-free.

Symptoms could be a fever, loss of sense of smell or taste, cough, runny nose, among other things, and you do not need to be experiencing more than one symptom for the advice to apply. You should contact 1177 if you need medical advice.

Photo: Isabell Höjman/TT

Stay at home if someone in your household has Covid-19

Even if you yourself have no symptoms, you are considered a possible Covid-19 case if you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

This means adults are asked to stay at home for seven days after the household member tests positive, and take a coronavirus test after five days. If you develop symptoms or test positive, you should follow the advice outlined above. Children are allowed to attend school or preschool even if a household member has Covid-19.

Anyone affected by the rules should be contacted by an infection tracker, or you can contact your doctor or 1177.

Keep your distance indoors and outdoors

Everyone should keep a distance from people outside their own household, whether indoors or outdoors. That means following markers and signs in shops and workplaces, staying seated at your table in restaurants as much as possible, and keeping distance in other situations.

Health authorities have advised against hugging or kissing friends outside your household, and although there is no official limit on the number of people or households you can socialise with, the advice is to keep this circle limited.

• 
  
  A billboard in Stockholm reminds people that keeping two metres apart as often as possible is "a way to save lives". Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

Stay safe on public transport

The Public Health Agency asks everyone to use other means of transport than public transport if possible, such as walking, cycling, or driving, and using transport where you can book an allocated seat if possible.

If you need to use public transport, avoid rush hour if possible and keep distance from other people while onboard and at stations or platforms.

If you are in a risk group or aged over 70

People who are aged over 70 or in another group at high risk of serious illness from Covid-19 should follow special precautions. This group is asked to limit social contacts as much as possible and keep a minimum of an arm's length distance from anyone you meet outside your household. Unfortunately, that means no hugs with grandchildren for example.

The Public Health Agency advises meeting outside if possible, keeping a distance, and washing your hands thoroughly as soon as you get home.
You should also avoid areas with groups of people, including public transport and shops. If possible, get your shopping delivered to your home.
However, the Public Health Agency has said it is looking into loosening the guidelines for this group soon.

 

[tobelightlight]

these 2 poscasters mentioned a little bit about the situation in Sweden in the early part of the cast.

 

[knnccb]

thanks for reminding, later must go ikea buy shoe rack and eat meatballs

 

[MaximiLian]

Lockdowns only work in China

 

[Sideswipe]

Lockdowns only work in China

yeah. China full lockdowns are successful. Europe half fucked lockdowns cannot make it.

 

[syed putra]

Singapore did not want to lock down initially too. But Singapore chickened out.

That was after they found out about the dorms.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

China tests entire city for virus as WHO slams herd immunity idea
China is rushing to test the entire population of Qingdao -- nine million people -- for the coronavirus AFP/STR
13 Oct 2020 02:05PM
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BEIJING: China rushed on Tuesday (Oct 13) to test an entire city of nine million within days after a minor coronavirus outbreak, as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that letting the pathogen run free to achieve herd immunity was "scientifically and ethically problematic".
The virus is still spreading rapidly around the world, with well over 37 million infections, and nations that had suppressed their first outbreaks are now struggling with fresh surges - especially in some parts of Europe.
In the absence of a vaccine, governments are wary of allowing the virus to spread unchecked, with China launching a sweeping drive to test all residents of Qingdao after a handful of cases were detected on Sunday.
"As of 8 am ... our city has taken 3.08 million samples for nucleic testing," the city's health commission said on Tuesday, adding that no new positive samples were found.
Chinese officials intend to test the entire city - around 9.4 million people - by Thursday.
In scenes contrasting with the fumbled testing efforts of other nations, health workers in protective clothing swiftly set up tents and residents queued deep into Monday night to provide samples.
HERD IMMUNITY
In opposition to economically painful lockdowns and social distancing, there have been proposals in some countries to let the coronavirus circulate in the population to build up "herd immunity" - where so much of the population has been infected there are insufficient new victims for the virus to jump to.
But the World Health Organization said such plans were unworkable, and required mass vaccinations to work.
"Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday, describing the idea as "scientifically and ethically problematic".
"Allowing a dangerous virus that we don't fully understand to run free is simply unethical. It's not an option."
Further illustrating the challenge, a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal indicated that exposure to the virus may not guarantee future immunity -- and the second infection could come with even more severe symptoms.
VACCINE SETBACK
The pandemic has claimed more than one million lives worldwide, and spurred breakneck efforts to develop vaccines and effective treatments.
Some have made it to late-stage clinical testing, but the optimism was dented on Monday when Johnson & Johnson announced it had temporarily halted its 60,000-patient trial because of an unexplained illness in one participant.
There are ten firms conducting Phase 3 trials of their candidates globally, including Johnson & Johnson.
The pharma giant has been awarded about US$1.45 billion in US funding under Operation Warp Speed, championed by President Donald Trump, who is keen for a political boost ahead of the November election with a coronavirus breakthrough.
Critics have excoriated Trump for his handling of the crisis, with more known infections and deaths in the United States than anywhere else in the world.
Trump was sidelined from the campaign trail for 10 days after he got Covid-19, but returned to the stage on Monday.
"I went through it and now they say I'm immune... I feel so powerful," Trump told a cheering crowd in Florida, few of whom wore masks.
"CATASTROPHIC, CATASTROPHIC"
European nations are trying to contain new surges in infections, and governments are rolling out tighter restrictions to avoid the devastation of the earlier outbreaks.
Cases have soared in France, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic in recent days.
And there has also been a spike in Britain, which has the highest death toll in Europe.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered pubs in Liverpool to shut as part of a new strategy to tackle a surge in infections.
He said businesses forced to close would get support from the government, but his focus on shutting hospitality venues sparked anger.
"Catastrophic, catastrophic," said Simon Ashdown, owner of the Chepstow Castle pub in Liverpool.
"I don't think there'll be many businesses after this lockdown."

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Johnson & Johnson pauses COVID-19 vaccine trial after participant experiences unexplained illness
Posted 8hhours ago, updated 7hhours ago

Johnson & Johnson said such pauses are normal in big trials, which can include tens of thousands of people.(Johnson&Johnson/AP: Cheryl Gerber)
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Johnson & Johnson says it has temporarily paused its COVID-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials due to an unexplained illness in a study participant, delaying one of the highest-profile efforts to contain the global pandemic.
Key points:

• The participant in J&J's trial is being reviewed and evaluated by an independent monitor
• It follows AstraZeneca's pause of its vaccine trial, which has since been resumed in the UK, Brazil, South Africa and India
• J&J has said its vaccine has produced a strong immune response against the coronavirus

The participant's illness is being reviewed and evaluated by an independent data and safety monitoring board as well as the company's clinical and safety physicians, the company said.
J&J, which reports quarterly financial results on Tuesday, said that such pauses are normal in big trials, which can include tens of thousands of people. It said the "study pause" in giving doses of the vaccine candidate was different from a "regulatory hold" required by health authorities. The current case is a pause.
However, J&J's move follows a similar one by AstraZeneca Plc. In September, AstraZeneca paused late-stage trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, due to an unexplained illness in a UK study participant.
While trials in the UK, Brazil, South Africa and India have resumed, the US trial is still on hold pending a regulatory review.
How fast is coronavirus growing around the world?
Data sources: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Our World in Data, The COVID Tracking Project, ABC
Dr William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said by email that "everybody is on the alert because of what happened with AstraZeneca," adding that it could take a week to gather information.
"It would have to be a serious adverse event. If it was something like prostate cancer, uncontrolled diabetes or a heart attack — they wouldn't stop it for any of those reasons," he said.

"This is likely to be a neurological event."

Last month, J&J said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a strong immune response against the novel coronavirus in an early-to-mid-stage clinical trial, following which the company kicked off a final 60,000-person trial, with results expected by the end of this year or early 2021.
Catch up on the main COVID-19 news from October 13 with our coronavirus blog.
Johnson & Johnson declined to elaborate on the illness due to privacy concerns. It did say that some participants in studies get placebos, and it was not always clear whether a person suffering a serious adverse event in a clinical trial received a placebo or the treatment.
Stat News reported the pause earlier in the day citing a document sent to outside researchers, which stated that a "pausing rule" had been met, the online system used to enrol patients in the study had been closed and the data and safety monitoring board would be convened.
Wait goes on for western nations
The team behind the AstraZeneca vaccine trial at the University of Oxford, which Australia has an early-access deal in place for, says it is working at "unprecedented speed".

AstraZeneca is the pharmaceutical company behind the clinical trials of the Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine candidate.(Reuters: Dado Ruvic)
"There's a good chance we'll know whether the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine is effective before the end of 2020," the researchers said in September.
US drugmaker Pfizer Inc (with German partner BioNTech SE) and US biotech Moderna are in similar positions, with Johnson & Johnson not far behind.
Any word on a vaccine?

Whether you're worried about the economy or when you'll next be able to see your family in person, you're probably wondering when a coronavirus vaccine will be ready. These are the latest developments.
Read more
Australia also has a deal in place for a vaccine being developed at the University of Queensland. That vaccine is still at phase 1 of clinical trials, with phase 3 predicted to be completed by mid-2021.
While Russia — which back in August claimed it had won the race for the world's first approved coronavirus vaccine — and China have pushed ahead with mass public vaccination programs, the vaccines they are using have not passed final phase 3 trials.
There are concerns that Russia has prioritised national prestige over solid science and safety.
China's emergency-use vaccination program is aimed at essential workers and others at high risk of infection, and was launched in July. That program has since seen hundreds of thousands of people vaccinated.
The wait for Australia will be longer, with the country waiting for a vaccine that passes all of the Therapeutic Goods Administration's safety and efficacy assessments.
The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the World Health Organization have also set similar minimum standards for effectiveness.
Vaccines must demonstrate at least 50 per cent efficacy — meaning there has to be at least twice as many infections among trial volunteers who got a placebo than in the vaccine group.
Reuters/ABC