Sweden has highest new Covid cases per person in Europe

‘Sweden has reported Europe’s highest number of new coronavirus infections per head over the past week and has more patients in intensive care than at any time since the pandemic’s first wave.

‘The Scandinavian country, which has opted against strict lockdowns but gradually ratcheted up its still mostly voluntary restrictions, has a seven-day average of 625 new infections per million people, according to ourworldindata.org.

‘That compares with 521 in Poland, 491 in France, 430 in the Netherlands, 237 in Italy and 208 in Germany, the data showed. The figure was many times higher than the 65, 111 and 132 per million in Sweden’s Nordic neighbours Finland, Denmark and Norway.’

Read here (The Guardian, Apr 13, 2021)

‘Mutant coronavirus’ seen before on mink farms, say scientists

‘The coronavirus mutation causing concern in Denmark has arisen before in mink, scientists have revealed. The mutated virus has been detected retrospectively in mink at a farm in the Netherlands, but it did not spread to humans, said a leading Dutch expert...

‘The genetic data from Denmark was released on an international database a few days ago, with some scientists questioning why it had not been released sooner. "I think that it is most disappointing that the data have only just reached the light of day," said Prof James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK...

‘Six countries have reported coronavirus outbreaks at mink farms: the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the US.’

Read here (BBC, Nov 9, 2020)

Hysteria is the most dangerous coronavirus symptom

 ‘Steve Reicher, a professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews who advises the Government as part of its Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours, tells the Telegraph: “When you look at the literature on fear and risk, it’s not pointing out there is a danger which causes people to be terrorised by fear. If you tell people what the risks are and give them a clear understanding of what the mitigation is, you don’t get dread and anxiety as people know what to do.” He wants ministers to show clarity about their strategy, warning: “In a vacuum, when people are already concerned, they’ll imagine the worst circumstances.”... ‘For example, the average Briton was found last month to estimate that the disease had wiped out as much as 7 per cent of the United Kingdom, which would equate to around 4.6 million people, rather than the actual rate in the tens of thousands.

‘Although Covid-19 sparked a more draconian response from the British Government, its effectiveness will remain open to question given the UK’s better death rate and economic performance can still be compared unfavourably with Sweden, which eschewed any lockdown whatsoever... When the winter draws near, speculation about whether strict measures like local lockdowns may be necessary to clamp down on Covid will no doubt run rife. In response, many Britons will undoubtedly be tempted to focus on keeping calm and follow what the Prime Minister hails as “good British common sense” - with a bit of Swedish sangfroid.’

[This story is behind a paywall]

Read here (The Telegraph, August 22, 2020)

Is Sweden's coronavirus strategy a cautionary tale or a success story?

‘Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown. Its unusual strategy for tackling the coronavirus outbreak has been both hailed as a success and condemned as a failure. So which is it? Those who regard the strategy as a success claim it reduced the economic impact, but it isn’t clear that it did. What is clear is that so far Sweden has had a more protracted outbreak with far more deaths per capita than its neighbours.

‘While it is sometimes implied that Sweden didn’t have a lockdown, it did. It was just largely voluntary, with only a few legal measures such as a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people. “Voluntary restrictions work as well as legal ones,” says the architect of Sweden’s strategy, chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.

Read here (New Scientist, August 13, 2020) 

Governments losing support for their handling of Covid-19: Survey

‘Governments are fast losing support for their handling of the coronavirus outbreak from a public that widely believes death and infection figures to be higher than statistics show, a survey of six countries [US, Britain, France, Sweden, Japan and Germany] revealed on Saturday (July 25).’

Read here (Straits Times, July 25, 2020)

Finland’s cautious lockdown vs Sweden’s laidback approach

‘Despite being neighbours with some social similarities, Finland and Sweden adopted vastly different methods in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. Their differing ways of confronting this virulent disease resulted in a wide gap in the number of infections and deaths in both Scandinavian countries. Finland opted for a cautious lockdown; it has reported over 7,300 infections and more than 300 deaths. In contrast, Sweden embraced a laidback attitude; it has now over 78,500 confirmed infections and nearly 5,700 deaths.’

Read here (Aliran, July 24, 2020)

Coronavirus: Sweden has become the world's cautionary tale

‘Sweden's grim result - more death and nearly equal economic damage - suggests that the supposed choice between lives and pay cheques is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 8, 2020)

Should we aim for herd immunity like Sweden?

‘One thing is to decide against a Hammer. That’s fine. It happened. We can’t change the past. A very different thing is to know you can Dance to reduce your epidemic dramatically and for quite cheap, but actively decide not to do it. The UK’s government has acknowledged its mistakes and changed course. Pressure is mounting for Sweden to do the same. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake. If the government doesn’t decide to acknowledge its mistakes and correct its course, bodies will keep piling up for nothing.

Summary of the article: ‘Sweden is suffering tremendously in cases and deaths. Yet few people have been infected yet. They are a long way from Herd Immunity. Between 0.5% to 1.5% of infected die from the coronavirus. Left uncontrolled, it can kill between 0.4% and 1% of the entire population. Many more suffer conditions we don’t yet understand. Unfortunately, that death and sickness toll is far from having bought us Herd Immunity anywhere in the world. Only protecting those most at risk sounds great. It’s a fantasy today. Even if Sweden’s economy has remained mostly open, it has still suffered as much as others. From now on, it might start doing worse. Sweden now has regrets. But not enough. It can control the virus without a lockdown if it acknowledges its mistakes and takes the right measures. Other countries, like the US or the Netherlands, are toying with a Herd Immunity strategy. It will only cause more economic loss and death.’

Read here (Medium, June 10, 2020)

Scientist defends Sweden’s hotly debated virus strategy

‘Sweden’s chief epidemiologist on Wednesday defended his country’s controversial coronavirus strategy, which avoided a lockdown but resulted in one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world... “We still believe that our strategy is good, but there is always room for improvement. ... You can always get better at this job,” [Anders] Tegnell told a news conference in Stockholm.

‘According to the national health agency, Sweden, a nation of 10.2 million people, has seen 4,542 deaths linked to COVID-19, which is far more than its Nordic neighbors and one of the highest per capita death rates in the world. Denmark has had 580 coronavirus deaths, Finland has seen 320 and Norway has had 237, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.’

Read here (Associated Press, June 3, 2020)

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt on the lockdowns: “I think it is a huge mistake”

‘Q: What’s your view of the lockdown policy that so many European countries and states in America have introduced?

‘A: I think it is a huge mistake. I think we need smart lockdowns. If we were to do this again, we would probably insist on face masks, hand sanitizers, and some kind of payment that did not involve touching right from the very beginning. This would slow down new outbreaks and I think that for example they found as I understand, that children, even if they’re infected, never infect adults, so why do we not have children at school? Why do we not have people working? England, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, are all reaching levels of saturation that are going to be very, very close to herd immunity — So that’s a good thing. I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track — before they were fed wrong numbers and they made a huge mistake.’

Read here (AIER, May 31, 2020)

The architect of Sweden’s controversially lax coronavirus response says he thinks it’s working

‘Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, has defended his country’s unusually lax response to the coronavirus. Sweden has encouraged social distancing but has not forced businesses, restaurants, or schools to close. Tegnell said the strategy had achieved its goal of defending the health service and that Stockholm was showing signs of herd immunity. Its case numbers are comparable to neighbouring countries, but the death rate is much higher. Tegnell said it was “very difficult” to know if a lockdown could have prevented more deaths, particularly in care homes.’

Read here (Business Insider, April 24, 2020)

The architect of Sweden’s controversially lax coronavirus response says he thinks it’s working

‘Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, has defended his country’s unusually lax response to the coronavirus. Sweden has encouraged social distancing but has not forced businesses, restaurants, or schools to close. Tegnell said the strategy had achieved its goal of defending the health service and that Stockholm was showing signs of herd immunity. Its case numbers are comparable to neighbouring countries, but the death rate is much higher. Tegnell said it was “very difficult” to know if a lockdown could have prevented more deaths, particularly in care homes.’

Read here (Business Insider, April 24, 2020)

Sweden health agency withdraws controversial coronavirus report

‘The Swedish Public Health Agency made international headlines yesterday by estimating that one-third of Stockholm residents would be infected with the coronavirus by May 1. Less than 24 hours later, the Agency has taken a dramatic u-turn and withdrawn the report.

‘The decision was announced via Twitter: “We have discovered an error in the report and so the authors are currently going through the material again. We will republish the report as soon as it is ready”.’

Read here (Forbes, April 22, 2020)

Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke‘s forthright views on Covid-19

In this 34-minute interview, Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:

1. UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based 
2. The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only 
3. This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product” 
4. The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better 
5. The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact 
6. The paper was very much too pessimistic 
7. Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway 
8. The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown 
9. The results will eventually be similar for all countries 
10. Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people. 
11. The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1% 
12. At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

View here (LockdownTV, Youtube, April 17, 2020)