Posted on 05/17/2020 2:55:50 PM PDT by thecodont
By late March, nearly every country in Europe had closed schools and businesses, restricted travel and ordered citizens to stay home. But one country stood out for its decision to stay open: Sweden.
The country’s moderated response to the coronavirus outbreak has drawn praise from some U.S. politicians, who see Sweden as a possible model for the United States as it begins to reopen.
“We need to observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, said at a hearing Tuesday.
But while Sweden has avoided the devastating tolls of outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain, it also has seen an extraordinary increase in deaths, mortality data show.
In Stockholm, where the virus spread through migrant communities, more than twice the usual number of people died last month. That increase far surpasses the rise in deaths in U.S. cities like Boston and Chicago, and approaches the increase seen in Paris.
[...]
Swedish public health officials have defended their strategy, while acknowledging that the country has failed to protect the elderly. The goal is to limit the spread of the infection without having to lock everything down, they said.
“Once you get into a lockdown, it’s difficult to get out of it,” said Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell. “How do you reopen? When?”
Instead of imposing strict lockdowns, public health officials said that Swedes could be relied on to go out less and follow sanitation guidelines. That proved to be true: As a whole, Swedes visited restaurants, retail shops and other recreation spots almost as little as residents of neighboring countries, according to Google mobility figures.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
But while Sweden has avoided the devastating tolls of outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain, it also has seen an extraordinary increase in deaths, mortality data show.
—
Wait, what? So the deaths are *lower* in Sweden than other Euro countries.
Right. I think they’re trying to explain away the Swedish example.
Sweden did an immense service to the entire world by not locking down.
It may work to their benefit, it may not, but other countries did not pursue this path and but for Sweden, the endless lockdowns and economy destruction would become a default reaction to any health crisis going forward. Every experiment needs a control group.
https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden
https://covid19.healthdata.org/norway
https://covid19.healthdata.org/denmark
https://covid19.healthdata.org/finland
Maybe they did know what they were doing....
L8r
Right now Sweden is running 100 more deaths per million than we are.
Do the Swedish stats include the rape & murder rate by Muslim invaders?
But while Sweden has avoided the devastating tolls of outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain”
This sentence defeats the purpose of the article.
I’ll be curious to see where Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. are a year from now. I suspect the death totals won’t be that different by then. This whole lockdown was sold as a way to avoid having the healthcare system overwhelmed and it makes sense that you don’t want people who could live instead dying because there’s no room in the hospital or not the right equipment or medicines for them.
But I haven’t heard anything about Sweden’s healthcare system being overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, so I’m going to guess that the people who have died were going to die either way. It’s unfortunate, but the reality is some people will definitely die of this thing no matter what. Even in full lockdown mode, the US has seen upwards of 80,000 people die. I think Sweden may have found a better balance between keeping the economy moving and keeping the healthcare system able to function effectively, but only time will tell if that’s actually true.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's the same migrants who don't assimilate in any way with Swedish culture didn't go along with the health recommendations regarding the virus. Hence, they died at a much higher rate.
I can agree with everything you said. I’m not on the Sweden bandwagon though.
Have you seen the provisional death stats on teh CDC site?
Covid only deaths are running less than pneumonia only deaths since Feb 1.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
Northern Italy, northern Spain and all of the UK are densely populated and those areas were hit by COVID-19. Sweden has a population density lower than the USA
one hundred per million is a rounding error. They point of the lockdown never was to impact the total numbers it was to “flatten the curve” so health care did not get overwhelmed. Sweden has managed to stay open and not overwhelm their health care system something that we should have done as well
You do realise that Sweden went on virtual lockdown. People practice social distancing, stayed away from restaurants etc and work from home. Oh and 56% of all Swedish households are SINGKE PERSON households, compared to 2w% in the USA.
Sweden’s CV curve is a lot worse than most countries in Europe, but is similar to that of the US, UK, Canada, and Poland. Most European countries have seen a dramatic fall-off in new cases and deaths, whereas Sweden, the US, UK, Canada, and Poland have seen a much slower decline in new cases and deaths.
“”””“We need to observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, said at a hearing Tuesday,”””
First, the obligatory snarky comment from NYT about what Rand Paul said.
“””Swedish public health officials have defended their strategy, while acknowledging that the country has failed to protect the elderly””””
So instead of a snarky comment about Rand Paul, the NYT should have said that there is have very little problems keeping the schools open and that agrees with what Rand Paul said on Tuesday.
show us Sweden’s RUNAWAY EXPONENTIAL CURVE, NYT.
with all the anti-Sweden-approach stuff coming from the FakeNewsMSM daily, you would think they actually cared about people in Sweden dying (not just the “migrants” as the Times, BBC etc keep mentioning).
no, they cannot stand Sweden, with it’s milder restrictions, being a potential control group, which epidemiologists & statisticians can study post-covid.
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