The Swedish Experiment

Thought this was about the other experiment.

No
I never been to IKEA

The ASDA nearest to me is now employing IKEA herding methods, aisles marked as one way, attempting to push you round the store in a controlled manner.

Swedish Health spokesman still
Going ahead with the experiment

Cool aloof Swedes!!!

In all seriousness it's actally good they are different, same as some other countries.
They are to some extent a "control".
I just feel bad for doddery old Swedish pensioners.

Ok lets change the subject to something totally unrelated.
Is there a "death pool" here, and how do I get on Ulrika Johnson?

Just Checking • April 5, 2020 6:45 PM BST
how do I get on Ulrika Johnson?

You join the queue and wait your turn.

wash ur hands first

Kill a few on here imo

Sweden’s government is drawing up new legislation to allow it to take “extraordinary steps” to combat Covid-19, local media have reported, amid concern that its relatively soft approach may be leading to a higher death rate than in other Nordic countries.

Denmark and Norway are among the many countries to have imposed tough lockdowns, closing borders and shutting schools and non-essential stores, and Finland has isolated its main urban area around Helsinki. But Swedes are still able to shop, go to restaurants, get haircuts and send children under 16 to class.

On Sunday Sweden reported a total of 401 deaths so far from Covid-19, up 8% from Saturday and greater than the totals of its three Nordic neighbours combined. Sweden’s toll per million inhabitants is 37, compared with 28 in Denmark, 12 in Norway and 4.5 in Finland.

The state broadcaster SVT said on Sunday that after an outcry by opposition parties, the Social Democrat-led government had abandoned plans reported earlier in the weekend to rule by decree, bypassing MPs.

Under legislation to be tabled next week, the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament, will now be consulted before the government takes any new emergency steps such as shutting airportsor train and bus stations, closing shops and restaurants, further limiting public gatherings or requisitioning medical equipment, according to SVT.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, has described the country’s coronavirus strategy as an attempt to ensure “a slow spread of infection and that the health services are not overwhelmed”, arguing that it is important for a part of the population to acquire immunity.

Tegnell has denied trying to build rapid “herd immunity” to the virus, a strategy originally adopted by the UK and the Netherlands before projected soaring death numbers prompted those countries to change course, but he has conceded that such a policy is “not contradictory” to Sweden’s objectives.

“It is important to have a policy that can be sustained over a longer period, meaning staying home if you are sick,” he said recently. “Locking people up at home won’t work in the longer term. Sooner or later people are going to go out anyway.”

Tegnell acknowledged last week that Sweden’s infection curve was “starting to become somewhat steeper” but insisted that overall it was still “fairly flat”. Amid a sharp rise in cases in Stockholm, however, the capital is soon to open a field hospital with 140 beds, rising eventually to 600, in a convention centre.

There are also growing concerns for the country’s older population after a third of Sweden’s municipalities reported confirmed or suspected cases of the virus in nursing homes, where distressed staff have warned publicly of a lack of protective equipment. One third of Stockholm’s nursing homes are affected.

Although Sweden has closed senior high schools and banned gatherings of more than 50 people, the prime minister, Stefan Löfven, has preferred to rely on Swedes’ sense of civic responsibility, asking rather than ordering them to avoid non-essential travel, to work from home and to stay indoors if they are over 70 or are feeling ill.

The Swedish experiment looks to have failed.

Swedish Government know the immigrants wouldn't tolerate lockdown,lets see if they try.

Which of your favourite grifters implanted that thought into your head?

Swedish government have agreed terms with Sven Goran Erikson for a 4 year $50m a year contract to manage Swedens response to Coronavirus

Records its highest death rate of 170
Bringing it to over 1200

119 deaths per 1M of population, UK is 190, Germany is 43.

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We won't know whether it's succeeded or failed until after it's ended.  Obviously it's going to lose in terms of incremental deaths compared to ir's neighbours, but the economy and the mental and physical health of those that survive will be better

Possibly.

119 deaths per million without a lockdown is pretty amazing tbh

The German's are coming out as the stand out shrewdies so far.  It has a median age 5 years higher than the UK too.

85% of the Swedish population live in urban area, higher than the UK.  Industralised Germany, the manufacturing centre of Europe is only 77%.  I certainly wouldn't have predicted that!

More than 50% of households in Sweden are of single occupancy.

Does anyone know how many people in the UK have died OF Corona virus directly with NO confirmed underlying health conditions ?

and their ages..

it's all so blurred, total death figures are misleading.

Does anyone know how many people in the UK have died OF Corona virus directly with NO confirmed underlying health conditions ?

About 10 ans six of them were suspected nut allergy

Seems Florida is trying a new experiment
Beaches now fully open and
PACKED

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Apr 15, 2020 -- 7:25PM, macarony wrote:

Does anyone know how many people in the UK have died OF Corona virus directly with NO confirmed underlying health conditions ? About 10 ans six of them were suspected nut allergy

An underlying medical condition is so vague it could mean anything couldn't it!

As many as TEN

Apr 19, 2020 -- 8:45AM, Cardinal Scott wrote:

And their deaths per million of the population are still 78 behind us!

But 96 higher than Germany.

I wouldn't imagine Sweden's R number has been as high as the likes of UK or Germany's was at any stage. That's why they haven't locked down to the extent others have. You have a high R number and you have to lock down if it doesn't reduce enough. They've basically had social distancing etc in place naturally from before the virus existed, which kept their R number low and has allowed them to take the course they have. They have introduced measures in reaction to an increase or non-decrease of R. If it gets higher, which I doubt at this stage, they will lock down like everyone else. So, I don't see what they are doing as much different to other EU countries, certainly not an 'experiment' compared to other EU countries. Just playing the hand they were dealt by the way their society and demographics are set up, a very strong hand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52308783


The ONS looked at nearly 4,000 deaths during March in England and Wales where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate.
In 91% of cases the individuals had other health problems.
The most common was heart disease, followed by dementia and respiratory illness.
On average, people dying also had roughly three other health conditions.


To what extent is coronavirus shortening lives?
This is extremely hard to judge.
Nick Stripe, head of health analysis at the ONS, said understanding what the deaths from coronavirus meant was "difficult and challenging".
He pointed out the risk of dying from heart disease and strokes had fallen, which could suggest they were dying from coronavirus instead of other things.


To conclude: clear as mud.

CORONAVIRUS | SWEDEN
Coronavirus: Sweden was dragging its heels, so I created ‘the Monster’ to save us
A communicable diseases expert in Stockholm moved quickly to snap up Chinese know-how to slow the spread of Covid-19
Louise Callaghan, Stockholm
Sunday April 19 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Health
Asia
China
Vivien Yang Swartz is part of a team now churning through 5,000 tests a day
Vivien Yang Swartz is part of a team now churning through 5,000 tests a day
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In an airy, spacious Stockholm laboratory, four young Chinese technicians looked apprehensive as they huddled around a genome-sequencing machine nicknamed “the Monster”.

They had been flown in from Shenzhen to help Swedish researchers ramp up testing for the coronavirus — but had been shocked by what they found.

Unlike many Swedes, who have taken a relatively relaxed approach to the virus, the technicians wore masks and protective equipment both inside the lab and in Stockholm’s streets. On the other side of the glass from them — his face bare — stood Professor Lars Engstrand, 63, an expert in communicable diseases.

“They are so afraid we’re going to infect them,” Engstrand said. “In the beginning it was Europeans who were worried about being infected by the Chinese; now it’s the other way round.”

Engstrand and his technicians are co-ordinating a remarkable project that they hope will slow Sweden’s death rate, greatly ramp up its testing abilities and protect frontline workers.


It is a big change from earlier this spring, when Engstrand was spending his days analysing intestinal flora alongside a team of Chinese researchers. As the virus started to sweep through Sweden, he decided something had to be done. The state, he thought, was not acting quickly enough to secure the materials to test for and analyse the virus.

China — which had the equipment they needed — was closing down because of the coronavirus, so he had to act fast. With no funding secured, he ordered millions of pounds’ worth of testing equipment — using his lab’s relationship with a Chinese genomics company, BGI Group, to have technicians brought over to Sweden to install new equipment and reprogramme machines from analysing gut bacteria to sequencing and diagnosing the coronavirus.

“I didn’t have the money. It was terrifying,” Engstrand said. “But I knew we had to get in there. The state was not moving quickly enough. I bought this incredibly advanced equipment and 250,000 testing kits.”

Today his lab, following a £4m cash injection from a foundation set up by the Wallenberg industrial family, has some of the most advanced diagnostic and sequencing equipment in Europe.

Last week, for the first time, the researchers were able to start working in earnest: churning through 5,000 tests a day, seven days a week, from their light-filled lab by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. If needed, they say, they can stay open 24 hours a day working in shifts — clearing 16,000 tests a day of key workers and the vulnerable, using a priority list provided by the state.

Within two weeks, they hope to have tested all frontline medical workers and those working in residential homes for the elderly in Stockholm before expanding operations to other parts of the country.

Professor Lars Engstrand, pictured with Swartz, felt Sweden was not moving quickly enough
Professor Lars Engstrand, pictured with Swartz, felt Sweden was not moving quickly enough
This, they believe, will hold the key to slowing down Sweden’s casualty rates, which are far higher than its Nordic neighbours’.

Unlike most of Europe, Sweden has taken a relatively laissez-faire approach to stopping the coronavirus’s spread: imposing some restrictions, but stepping short of a full lockdown. The theory was to allow the virus to spread as slowly as possible through the healthy population, building immunity while protecting the vulnerable.

Yet one group of vulnerable people has not been protected. Of the 1,400 Swedish casualties from the coronavirus, around a third were elderly people living in residential homes. With rigorous testing of employees, residents and public health workers, Engstrand hopes the risk can be reduced.

“We’re not testing business leaders or people like that, we’re following the people on the public health agency’s priority lists,” he said.

“I think we should protect the elderly by testing and isolating. Someone will have to stand up for that mistake later on. This is an important message to everyone that you have to have collaboration with academics. The fact we have this equipment was just luck and some guts from me. Now people are scrambling to get machines like this but they can’t because China is closed off.”

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who is the public face of the Swedish state’s coronavirus response, has apologised for failing to stop the spread of the virus in residential homes for the elderly, calling it an “extremely tragic” mistake.

Critics of the government’s response say that it acted too late, allowing the virus to spread to the most vulnerable, and ignored research showing that it was possible to transmit the virus while showing no symptoms.

“The asymptomatic patients are the tricky ones — the ones we think might have got the virus into elderly homes,” said Engstrand. “People were being told to stay home if they felt sick, and they probably did, so it seems like asymptomatic people still went to work and spread the virus. That happened because we weren’t testing. Then it was too late.”

It is still unclear, however, what proportion of infections are asymptomatic and how easy it is to transmit the virus while not exhibiting symptoms. Widespread testing in Iceland in March — taking in about 9,000 people — showed that approximately half of those who tested positive reported no symptoms. But, according to the World Health Organisation, the risk of catching the virus from patients with no symptoms at all is very low.

Despite its wealth and advanced medical system, Sweden was, Engstrand and many other scientists have claimed, ill prepared for the crisis. During the Cold War, it held large stocks of food, water and medical equipment in case of war with the Soviet Union but decades of peace have seen these disappear without being replaced.

“We used to have stockpiles 30 years ago but now they’re gone and we’ve been caught with our trousers down,” Engstrand said. “This will have huge consequences. There’s no point complaining in retrospect, but next time we have to be ready.”

Instead of maintaining their own medical stocks, he pointed out, many countries have relied on supplies from China — which are now all but impossible to access when the world is shut down.

Engstrand’s relationship with BGI Group — which started life as a Chinese state-backed lab before becoming a private enterprise — has inevitably raised questions about data security.

As researchers at Engstrand’s lab examine the virus, they are not only diagnosing who has been infected and who hasn’t, but also gathering information on RNA sequencing that will, they hope, help them understand how the virus works, the level of immunity in those who have recovered and the ways in which a vaccine might be developed. But none of the genetic information gathered, they say, is being sent to China.

“They’re not interested in that,” said Vivien Yang Swartz, 38, head of business development in Nordic countries for BGI.

BGI’s chairman, Wang Jian, has set up a lab in Wuhan to test for the virus and is expanding his operations across the world, adding to existing facilities in countries such as Denmark and America.

Wang has stirred controversy in the past by urging his employees to use genomics to avoid having children with birth defects and to live to at least 99. His defenders say he is a visionary whom they hope will change human medicine through gene sequencing and vigilant genetic testing to screen for illnesses such as heart disease or dementia.

With the coronavirus, however, the challenge is different. “Compared with the virus we are nothing,” said Swartz. “We just have to understand how to live with it.

“Sequencing can help us understand why some get it and others don’t. We’re all different. Human beings have almost all the same genetics, but see how different we look.”

@LouiseElisabet

Shouldn't Sweden be devastated by the virus by now ? isn't that what the experts predicted for Countries that failed to lockdown, don't recall them saying everyone but Sweden.

Probably the real comparison to make is not Sweden compared to those who fully lockdown, but Sweden compared to what the expert predicted in the event of no lockdown .

Perhaps the Swedish Experiment will succeed
e.g economy not destroyed

Their socialist govermment might be the
WINNER

WHO are praiseing the Swedish model

Ala yo yo

Any model would pass their ideas