Posted on 09/20/2020 9:03:54 AM PDT by Hojczyk
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Whether Sweden’s strategy is succeeding, however, is still very uncertain.
Its health authorities, and in particular chief epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell, keep repeating a familiar warning: It’s too early to tell, and all countries are in a different phase of the pandemic.
This should leave us to wonder if that wasn’t the ideal solution from the beginning. If we had locked down the nursing homes and provided relief to everyone over the age of 55 so they could stay home, along with anyone with a doctor’s note saying they had underlying respiratory or immune system issues, could we have just left the rest of the economy running? The idea of requiring a doctor’s note wouldn’t be any big deal. Most employers do that already for many Human Resources functions, including the use of sick time for more than a day or two. Further, the death toll in New York City wouldn’t have been anywhere near what we saw were it not for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous order forcing nursing homes to take in COVID-19 patients and forbidding the screening of new residents.
What would our current death toll be today if we had followed that path? The vast, vast majority of healthy people under the age of 55 who contract the virus still come out the other side alive and without any serious, permanent health issues. There are some who are hit very hard to be sure, but the same can be said for other diseases that we live with (or, in some cases, don’t) every year. We’ll have to wait until the second wave has finished washing over Europe to be sure, but it’s starting to look as if the Swedes were onto something all along.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
CASE Fatality rates: Sweden Deaths 5,865 Cases 88,237 CFR 6.65% USA Deaths 199,352 Cases 6,782,083 CFR 2.94% Sweden has a CFR that is 2.26 TIMES HIGHER the US CFR. Math is hard, huh, impimp?
CFR is stupid. I have a math degree. Overall fatality - deaths per million - the two are comparable. These numbers are readily available on Worldomter.
Selecting a denominator to match your predetermined outcome?
Yup, that’s the product (pun intended) of a math degree.
Death per million vs using Cases and Case Fatality Rates is a more accurate way of measuring success.
Don’t be a fearbro. The USA has more testing and we have our PCR tests more sensitive so we get more positives. You are the one cherry picking the denominator. The USA has an artificially inflated denominator. This hit Sweden harder and sooner than USA.
Think about the logic here as opposed to rhetoric. How would one propose to ‘shut down’ nursing homes? Lock the employees in forceably? What about employees who work two or three nursing home gigs? Some of them single parents. Because employees coming and going (and Cuomo’s decision to rack covid cases up in NY nursing homes by transferring patients in from hospitals) is exactly how CCPVirus spread in nursing homes.
When did we know that elderly were most affected? April? May? The first films and data coming out of chinese media showed all age groups affected. The ‘whistleblower’ doctor wasn’t nursing-home aged - neither were the nurses that dropped like flies.
I don’t see where it can be said that there are no lasting effects. We certainly saw them with H1N1. Consider:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/young-athletes-are-developing-myocarditis-after-covid-now-scientists-are-exploring-a-link/ar-BB18GCVI?ocid=msedgntp
testtube effects on heart muscle:
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-may-dice-heart-muscle-fibers-cells.html
Replication in neurons:
https://www.livescience.com/brain-invasion-coronavirus.html
Also bear in mind that blood type seems as major a factor as age, especially combined with pre-existing morbidities. A study of patients at Presbyterian Hospital in NYC showed type A were 33% more likely to test positive. (the USA being about 37% type 0 and 36% type A, China is 48% O and 28% A, Sweden is 32% type O and 37% type A, India is majority type B at 38%, and 28% type O, 21 % type A, Chile is 57-85% type O - two conflicting sources between babymed and wiki).
the role of blood type and pre-existing:
https://www.livescience.com/why-covid-19-coronavirus-deadly-for-some-people.html
blood types by country:
https://www.babymed.com/pregnancy/blood-type-and-rh-rhesus-status-countries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_distribution_by_country
As to Sweden specifically, at 37% type A blood, their policy failed miserably, as noted in this WebMD article:
“Authorities predicted that 40% of the people in Stockholm would get the disease and develop protective antibodies by May. The actual prevalence, however, was around 15%, according to the study published Aug. 11 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.”
“”It is clear that not only are the rates of viral infection, hospitalization and mortality [per million population] much higher than those seen in neighboring Scandinavian countries, but also that the time-course of the epidemic in Sweden is different, with continued persistence of higher infection and mortality well beyond the few critical weeks period seen in Denmark, Finland and Norway,” said researcher Dr. David Goldsmith, a retired physician in London.”
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200813/swedens-no-lockdown-policy-didnt-achieve-herd-immunity
Yup, that's the product (pun intended) of a math degree.
Just a reminder, calenel said "Sweden has well over twice the CFR the US has"
Which happens to be exactly what the data shows.
Justify your jump to a totally different metric just to prove him wrong.
That being said, rock solid arguments can me made for the use of either metric. Debating the relative merits is perfectly valid...
Population density needs to be factored into the analysis. The vast open regions of the US aren’t relevant to the comparisons. Better to compare the urban areas such as Stockholm and southern New York.
Sweden typically had a 3-4% mortality advantage over the major countries to her south and the tristate area in the US. And that occurred without Sweden sheltering in place. It’s also worth noting that Sweden is a healthier country. And what worked for Sweden may not have worked for the others.
That also opens a whole ‘nother can of worms.
Through all of recorded history a case wasn’t anyone with 40 cycle PCR positive test result.
A case was defined as anyone sick enough to seek medical care.
That always under reported no and mild symptoms infections.
Which, in its turn opens yet another can of worms! IFR Infection Fatality Rate!
CFR will always be higher than IFR which will always be higher than deaths per million.
With everyone picking the metric that supports their argument!
All three can be equally accurate, yet give totally different results.
Rabies has an essentially 100% case fatality rate. With post exposure vaccination, the rate is much lower. Compared to the total population the death rate is negligible...
That too! A population with lower rates of diabetes, obesity, hypertension, etc. is going to have a better outcome than a less healthy population.
In a fallen world there is always a risk of danger and early death. There will never be a perfect solution to the pandemic that eliminates all deaths. There needs to be a rational trade off between freedom and restrictions, that minimizes deaths but does not destroy business.
Headline: It’s looking like Sweden’s Herd Immunity Strategy worked.
First sentence: “Whether Sweden’s strategy is succeeding, however, is still very uncertain.”
That is contradictory.
Don’t miss this additional deal! We’ll also throw in an assortment of each nation’s individual rules for what counts as a COVID death! Did you die of COVID, of something else while sick with COVID, or just have a positive COVID test upon admission for your fatal accident?
“How would one propose to ‘shut down’ nursing homes? Lock the employees in forceably?”
Those are exactly the questions my physician posed to me during a conversation we had in late May, after ten deaths were reported in a local nursing home. He also said that he can take all the recommended precautions at the office, but he can’t control or monitor the behavior of his employees (some of whom may become asymptomatic carriers) after hours.
Simple.
Force them to take infectious patients while other safe, dedicated options are available, such as Javits Center or USNS Comfort, for example.
They'll be shut down due to deaths, and the reluctance of future customers to allow their loved ones to be at the mercy of a draconian government's diktats.
Counting chickens?
You are ALL wrong.
If a country chose to do no COVID testing, it would have a “0%” Case Fatality Rate. CFR is a completely subjective “standard.”
All that matters is the answer to two things:
1. Did the country let the virus roam freely or not by shutting down their economy in any major ways?
2. Were people who died tested for COVID?
Any country that let the virus roam freely effectively let the entire country, outside of those who self-isolated, get fully exposed. That means most all residents “got it.” So, the “Assumed Infections” ought to be 70+% of all residents.
Any country that locked everyone down now has to assume their testing numbers are their infected numbers as a base, with some added assumed spread without tests, being possible. That is where the US is.
Undeniably, Sweden is far better off than the US in CFR and is far better off in their economic numbers, too.
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