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10 takeaways from Sweden’s controversial approach to the Coronavirus pandemic: Soft strategy puts faith in personal responsibility
OC Register ^ | 05/10/2020 | By DEEPA BHARATH

Posted on 05/10/2020 11:35:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

In the worldwide campaign to stamp out death and illness from the coronavirus pandemic, Sweden is clearly an outlier.

There’s no lockdown in Sweden. Its bars, restaurants and even nightclubs have not been closed since COVID-19 first reached its shores on Jan. 31. Elementary and middle schools remain open, though high schools and universities now rely on distance learning.

There are no government orders to wear masks or socially distance, though the latter is recommended and most citizens have voluntarily complied. In fact, voluntary compliance and individual responsibility is at the heart of Sweden’s strategy to slow the spread of the virus.

Its approach is not completely hands off, however. Sweden has banned gatherings of 50 or more people and visits to nursing homes, where about half of its COVID-19 deaths have occurred. It has encouraged people to work at home if possible.

The country’s soft approach was devised by scientists and backed by the government, even though not all of Sweden’s virologists and immunologists are convinced it is on the right path. Although Sweden has been widely condemned around the world for the strategy, its own citizens largely embrace it.

So how are things working out?

The number of COVID-19 cases and related deaths has been higher in Sweden compared to its Nordic neighbors — Norway and Finland, which both imposed complete lockdowns. As of Friday, May 8, Sweden had recorded 25,265 cases of the coronavirus and 3,175 deaths for a population of about 10.2 million. Norway, with about half the population, has 8,055 cases and 218 deaths, while Finland (population 5.5 million) has 5,738 cases and 260 deaths.

Dr. Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist who devised the country’s coronavirus response, talked about Sweden’s experience and the lessons learned during a webinar

(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; herdimmunity; sweden
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1 posted on 05/10/2020 11:35:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

10 POINTS TO LEARN ABOUT SWEDEN’s STRATEGY ( CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE DETAILS ):

1. Sweden caught the virus early, and started testing early

2. Higher infection and fatality rates, especially among the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are cause for concern

3. Achieving ‘herd immunity’ is not Sweden’s goal

4. We don’t know how long this immunity will last

5. Wearing masks in public is not mandatory

6. There is no financial incentive for sick people in Sweden to go to work

7. Why younger children still attend school, while high school and college students do not

8. The pandemic has disproportionately affected migrant communities

9. Disinformation has not been a huge problem

10. Physical distancing is a critical part of keeping the economy open


2 posted on 05/10/2020 11:39:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

Everything you said is a recipe for weakening people’s immune systems.

Where did you do your residency, doctor?


3 posted on 05/10/2020 11:50:09 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Who could have guessed the Communist Revolution would arrive disguised as the common cold?)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sweden’s stats are hard to interpret because it looks like their CV reporting process largely shuts down on weekends. Still, it looks like their overall trend is at least as good as - maybe better than - ours, though not as good as most of Europe.


4 posted on 05/10/2020 11:52:57 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
There’s no lockdown in Sweden. Its bars, restaurants and even nightclubs have not been closed since COVID-19 first reached its shores on Jan. 31. Elementary and middle schools remain open, though high schools and universities now rely on distance learning. There are no government orders to wear masks or socially distance, though the latter is recommended... Sweden has banned gatherings of 50 or more people and visits to nursing homes, where about half of its COVID-19 deaths have occurred. It has encouraged people to work at home if possible.

5 posted on 05/10/2020 11:52:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Steve_Seattle

RE: it looks like their overall trend is at least as good as - maybe better than - ours, though not as good as most of Europe.

OK, the rest of Europe locks down and isolates its people from exposure to the virus and the curve flattens for now. What next? What happens if EU inter-nation travel starts again? Will the virus magically disappear?

Same question applies to Australia and New Zealand.


6 posted on 05/10/2020 11:56:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

And the entire target population having the tb vaccine


7 posted on 05/10/2020 11:57:51 AM PDT by BlackAdderess
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To: SeekAndFind

And shuttering all the Confucius Institutes


8 posted on 05/10/2020 12:00:26 PM PDT by BlackAdderess
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To: Steve_Seattle

Their trends look pretty good even counting slow reporting on weekends.

Here is their site.

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa


9 posted on 05/10/2020 12:01:59 PM PDT by PeteB570 ( Islam is the sea in which the Terrorist Shark swims. The deeper the sea the larger the shark.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Everything you said is a recipe for weakening people’s immune systems.

Where did you do your residency, doctor?

______________________________

Why are you directing your question at me? I am just enumerating the points made by Dr. Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist of Sweden.

Ask him and tell him that he’s wrong and ask him where he had his residency, not me.

To make it easy for you, I’ll cite his medical background from Wikipedia:

Tegnell was born in Uppsala. He became a licensed physician at Lund University in 1985, subsequently interning at the county hospital in Östersund, and later specialised in infectious disease at Linköping University Hospital.

In that capacity, in 1990 he treated the first patient in Sweden with a viral hemorrhagic fever, believed to be a case to be either the Ebola or the Marburg virus disease.

From 1990 to 1993 he worked for the WHO in Laos to create vaccination programs.

Tegnell obtained a PhD in Medicine from Linköping University in 2003 and a MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2004.

He worked at the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control (Smittskyddsinstitutet) 2004–2005 and the National Board of Health and Welfare from 2005,[8] 2010 to 2012 serving as head of the Department for Knowledge-Based Policy.

He was department head at the Institute for Communicable Disease Control 2012–2013. Since 2013 he is the State Epidemiologist of Sweden, first at the Institute for Communicable Disease Control, which in 2014 became part of the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

Anders Tegnell was elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences in 2005. His inaugural lecture was on the effect of pandemics on society


10 posted on 05/10/2020 12:02:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Controversial”

Slanted headline.


11 posted on 05/10/2020 12:11:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Steve_Seattle

It’ll be years before we know if Sweden’s approach was better, worse, or the same as the rest of Europe’s.

The most important success, so far, has been the lack of political posturing regarding public health measures, which has been so damaging here in the US.

But understanding the outcome will just have to wait until the results are in.


12 posted on 05/10/2020 12:12:39 PM PDT by absalom01 (You should do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, and you should never wish to do less.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Sweden has three Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway & Finland.
Not sure why Finland is ignored but when you combine the populations of all three it totals 16.75 million. Sweden's population 10.18 million. Approx. a third less than her immediate neighbors ... Sweden's death rate due to Covid-19 is 3225. Denmark, Norway & Finland combined have a death total of 1011.
Sweden's experiment is definitely flawed.
13 posted on 05/10/2020 12:28:19 PM PDT by BluH2o
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To: SeekAndFind
We were having a walk and saw a long row of painted rocks in the park with a sign saying that this was a coronavirus stay-at-home children's art project so please do not take the rocks.

On the way home my child and I collected a few rocks to paint and then add them to the children's art project...


I painted a severed rat head

14 posted on 05/10/2020 12:28:25 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: BluH2o

RE: Sweden’s death rate due to Covid-19 is 3225. Denmark, Norway & Finland combined have a death total of 1011.
Sweden’s experiment is definitely flawed.

____________________________

What happens when Sweden’s Nordic neighbors OPEN UP their economy? Are they going to permanently shut their countries off from outside travel? It’s a very important question because they can’t shut down permanently.


15 posted on 05/10/2020 12:31:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: BluH2o

By the way, when Sweden went ahead with this strategy, Worldwide experts predicted that it would have 40,000 COVID-19 deaths by May 1,2020.

The actual number on May 1 was 2,769.


16 posted on 05/10/2020 12:33:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

Faith in personal responsibility is not needed to adopt the Swedish approach. You can believe the data that has been reported here but not on CNN, which shows: (1) The disease is nowhere near as fatal as the plagues of yore, except for older people with preexisting conditions. (2) There has been much false attribution of death to the disease alone. And (3) there is good reason to believe that people getting the virus without symptoms, or getting symptoms that were not reported, have not been included in the fatality percentage.


17 posted on 05/10/2020 12:40:00 PM PDT by Socon-Econ (adical Islam,)
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To: SeekAndFind

Dial up an expert on the immune system, George Carlin, if you want to know the truth! ;)


18 posted on 05/10/2020 12:42:28 PM PDT by choctaw man (Good ole Andrew Jackson, or You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma...)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sweden wont get the second wave of infection since its citizens aren’t in hiding like the rest of us.

The final numbers, after this all is over....will tell us a lot.


19 posted on 05/10/2020 12:44:44 PM PDT by xenia ("In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sweden had some early cases that arrived from other nations, but community spread didn’t start until middle of March.


20 posted on 05/10/2020 1:00:24 PM PDT by DannyTN
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