Sweden's prime minister admits the country got its coronavirus strategy wrong

[Puffing Devil]

Browsing this sub-forum Sweden has frequently been identified as the path that the UK should have taken to tackle COVID. It's not looking so shiny anymore. I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

Sweden's prime minister has admitted that the country misjudged its response to the second coronavirus surge, as intensive-care units in the capital Stockholm become overwhelmed with patients.

Sweden recorded 8,088 deaths from all causes last month, the country's statistics agency announced on Monday. That was the country's second-highest number of monthly deaths on record, surpassed only by the country's worst month of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Business Insider

The king of Sweden has said the country’s anti-lockdown coronavirus strategy has failed, as hospitals in the Stockholm region warned they were struggling to cope with a surge in cases and polls showed public confidence in the authorities had plunged to a new low.
Guardian

[Sweden's death numbers] stand in stark negative contrast to their Scandinavian neighbours who introduced lockdown measures: Per capita, we have nearly five times as many deaths as Denmark, nine times as many as Finland, and more than ten times as many as Norway.
The Dispatch

 

[Bantamzen]

Browsing this sub-forum Sweden has frequently been identified as the path that the UK should have taken to tackle COVID. It's not looking so shiny anymore. I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

Sweden's prime minister has admitted that the country misjudged its response to the second coronavirus surge, as intensive-care units in the capital Stockholm become overwhelmed with patients.

The king of Sweden has said the country’s anti-lockdown coronavirus strategy has failed, as hospitals in the Stockholm region warned they were struggling to cope with a surge in cases and polls showed public confidence in the authorities had plunged to a new low.

[Sweden's death numbers] stand in stark negative contrast to their Scandinavian neighbours who introduced lockdown measures: Per capita, we have nearly five times as many deaths as Denmark, nine times as many as Finland, and more than ten times as many as Norway.

Now line those figures up against Italy, Spain, France, UK etc....

**Spoiler Alert** We have covered this ground again, and again, and again....

 

[yorksrob]

He wouldn't be the first monarch to get something wrong.

 

[MikeWM]

Clearly they should have followed the lockdown and mandatory-mask route of Germany, which has been much more successful, as can be seen by this graph...

 

[Puffing Devil]

He wouldn't be the first monarch to get something wrong.

Not just the King - also the PM

 

[sjpowermac]

Browsing this sub-forum Sweden has frequently been identified as the path that the UK should have taken to tackle COVID. It's not looking so shiny anymore. I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

What you need to remember on these threads is to look at the graphs upside down.

Besides, comparing Sweden with Norway is completely unfair, everyone knows that in all regards Sweden is just like France

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Dec 2020 ==

Now line those figures up against Italy, Spain, France, UK etc....

**Spoiler Alert** We have covered this ground again, and again, and again....

Still good fun though. Thought I would get in first with pointing out that Sweden is just like France.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Clearly they should have followed the lockdown and mandatory-mask route of Germany, which has been much more successful, as can be seen by this graph...

View attachment 87247

Or perhaps have followed the policies of their neighbours with death rates 5-10 times lower?

 

[MikeWM]

Or perhaps have followed the policies of their neighbours with death rates 5-10 times lower?

If deaths from Covid *at this point* is the only criteria of a healthy prospering society, you may want to argue that.

Sweden - so far - have had the good sense to point out that there are other things to be considered too.

Also, part of the reason they have had higher death rates than their neighbours is that they had abnormally low mortality in 2019, so there is an element of a large number of very fraile people who would normally have died 'earlier'. See this graph. And if you didn't know there was a pandemic going on, could you spot it from the graph?

 

[yorksrob]

Not just the King - also the PM

We all know that PM's aren't infallible either. Even foreign ones.

 

[BJames]

My opinion remains unchanged - they may not be in the same strong position as they were earlier in the year, and maybe it's not ideal, but the fact of the matter is that they have remained democratic and reliant on goodwill throughout - yet we are still in the same poor position as we were in May, with the vast mandation of absolutely every aspect of our day to day life. If Sweden is in this position anyway, they've had a much better year getting here...

 

[oldman]

I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

I'm guessing No.

 

[bramling]

Browsing this sub-forum Sweden has frequently been identified as the path that the UK should have taken to tackle COVID. It's not looking so shiny anymore. I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

The more interesting question is has Sweden fared any *worse* than elsewhere? That depends on which countries they are compared with. They’ve certainly done no worse than us, and have spared themselves some of the economic damage.

 

[kristiang85]

Sweden's neighbours had a heavy flu season in 2019, so they had a higher susceptible population. Along with other factors (much higher urban density in Sweden), they are not really comparable. But this has been covered a lot on here...

Certainly Sweden seems to be ending up in the same place as everywhere else in Europe, but the people have had a much more pleasant 2020 than we have, and more to the point the long term looks better for them as less damage has been done to healthcare/economy/etc.

 

[Richard Scott]

I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

No, I'm in Wales, who's restrictions do you think I'd rather live under?

 

[MikeWM]

Sweden's neighbours had a heavy flu season in 2019, so they had a higher susceptible population. Along with other factors (much higher urban density in Sweden), they are not really comparable. But this has been covered a lot on here...

Certainly Sweden seems to be ending up in the same place as everywhere else in Europe, but the people have had a much more pleasant 2020 than we have, and more to the point the long term looks better for them as less damage has been done to healthcare/economy/etc.

Exactly so. If we're just looking at the outcome in terms of Covid, no-one was arguing that they'd end up significantly better off than others. The entire point is that they've done significantly better in almost every other way, while *not* having had a *worse* Covid outcome than comparable countries (once factors such as the exceptionally mild 2019 flu season are taken into account).

There's zero evidence that lockdowns, masks and all the other nonsense have achieved anything other than destroy the economy, society and morale of those living through them. The fact that Sweden is a good example of that fact understandably irritates those who - for some unknown reason - seem to like all those things.

 

[Mojo]

If deaths from Covid *at this point* is the only criteria of a healthy prospering society, you may want to argue that.

Sweden - so far - have had the good sense to point out that there are other things to be considered too.

Also, part of the reason they have had higher death rates than their neighbours is that they had abnormally low mortality in 2019, so there is an element of a large number of very fraile people who would normally have died 'earlier'. See this graph. And if you didn't know there was a pandemic going on, could you spot it from the graph?

View attachment 87249

Off topic but is there a similar graph for the UK?

 

[MikeWM]

Off topic but is there a similar graph for the UK?

I can't find one that includes November, but here is a graph for the last 20 years up to end October. Compared to Sweden, clearly *something* has happened this year, but hardly Armageddon.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I'll let you know what Sweden is like when I get there on Saturday

 

[oldman]

The more interesting question is has Sweden fared any *worse* than elsewhere?

For some reason Denmark is sometimes mentioned.

Tegnell's flu argument is looking a wee bit alternative. Denmark also had a mild flu season in 2018/19 - estimated excess mortality 790 in the 2018/19 season, 2,822 in the 2017/18 season and 751 persons in the 2016/17 season.

The 2019/2020 influenza season was the mildest season in several years. The spreading of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to Denmark at the end of February 2020 triggered the implementation of comprehensive measures to limit transmission in weeks 11 and 12, after which the occurrence of circulating influenza virus disappeared almost completely.

Source: The influenza season - report on disease occurrence in 2019/2020 (Statens Serum Institut - Denmark)

As for Norway:

Norway's state epidemiologist has rejected a claim from his Swedish counterpart that Sweden's much higher death rate from coronavirus can be attributed to having milder recent flu seasons.

"When we look at the death toll in Norway and compare it to that of Sweden, it doesn't look like there is that much difference," he told Dagens Nyheter. "... it doesn't look like there has been a particularly high death toll connected to influenza in recent years in Norway."

Source

 

[Yew]

I'm wondering if anyone has revised their opinion?

It's still not worse than we are, despite all our lockdowns and restrictions.

To summarise the previous thread; restrictions work if you can stop the disease from entering your country, however for us to have done this, we would have had to close the borders before we even knew that this had left Wutan, never mind came to Europe. Quite simply, the Norwegian model might have been an option for Sweden, but it was not available to us. What it does show is just how minimal the impact of our restrictions has been, despite their incredibly high cost.

 

[MikeWM]

To summarise the previous thread; restrictions work if you can stop the disease from entering your country, however for us to have done this, we would have had to close the borders before we even knew that this had left Wutan, never mind came to Europe. Quite simply, the Norwegian model might have been an option for Sweden, but it was not available to us.

Anders Tegnell has pointed out before that a lot of people in Sweden go on skiing holidays in Italy in late winter, so they had a similar problem to us in that regard.

What it does show is just how minimal the impact of our restrictions has been, despite their incredibly high cost.

Yes. You can see a similar result comparing the 50 states of the USA, where the virus has struck at different times due to seasonality, but with the same pattern independent of how strict or loose the local restrictions are.

And yet, clearly the answer is more restrictions! This truly is the year that science and rational thought have died a miserable death.

 

[jtuk]

Saw the sources the OP is listing, one of which was forced to make a retraction in relation to misleading articles on Sweden literally yesterday, then recalled the OP's form for posting this sort of stuff.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The more interesting question is has Sweden fared any *worse* than elsewhere? That depends on which countries they are compared with. They’ve certainly done no worse than us, and have spared themselves some of the economic damage.

Depends who you are comparing them to. Certainly not compared to their near neighbours https://www.businessinsider.com/cor...in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8?r=US&IR=T

And please don't try to suggest that Sweden is more like the UK than it's Nordic neighbours. That our economy is so badly affected is down to the ineptitude of this government.

 

[DustyBin]

Depends who you are comparing them to. Certainly not compared to their near neighbours https://www.businessinsider.com/cor...in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8?r=US&IR=T

And please don't try to suggest that Sweden is more like the UK than it's Nordic neighbours. That our economy is so badly affected is down to the ineptitude of this government.

Are you suggesting there is a way to shut down large parts of the economy without causing serious damage? That’s not to say the government aren’t inept incidentally!

 

[sjpowermac]

Depends who you are comparing them to. Certainly not compared to their near neighbours https://www.businessinsider.com/cor...in-q2-worse-nordic-neighbors-2020-8?r=US&IR=T

And please don't try to suggest that Sweden is more like the UK than it's Nordic neighbours. That our economy is so badly affected is down to the ineptitude of this government.

I can help you with that one, I read the Swedish thread in the summer, France is the one you must compare them to...

 

[brad465]

Our species seems to be somewhat arrogant in the sense that we think we can beat anything, when in reality no species is above nature as a whole. In a pandemic, there is going to be loss of life and suffering; we are naïve to think we can make it a rosy experience and we need to start accepting that.

That said at least Sweden's politicians have the courage and decency to admit to failures (whether they are failures or not); it would be nothing short of a miracle to get any of our lot to admit to their own faults on any policy/action.

 

[sjpowermac]

Our species seems to be somewhat arrogant in the sense that we think we can beat anything, when in reality no species is above nature as a whole. In a pandemic, there is going to be loss of life and suffering; we are naïve to think we can make it a rosy experience and we need to start accepting that.

That said at least Sweden's politicians have the courage and decency to admit to failures (whether they are failures or not); it would be nothing short of a miracle to get any of our lot to admit to their own faults on any policy/action.

Did the vaccine arrive from outer space?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Are you suggesting there is a way to shut down large parts of the economy without causing serious damage? That’s not to say the government aren’t inept incidentally!

No, every country has been adversely affected. However, some countries that had much stricter lockdowns haven't been as adversely affected.

 

[MikeWM]

No, every country has been adversely affected. However, some countries that had much stricter lockdowns haven't been as adversely affected.

And some countries that had stricter lockdowns were worse affected. I've posted this graph before based on data from the Oxford Goverment Response Tracker - there is no correlation to be seen whatsoever.

 

[sjpowermac]

I hadn’t realised that Sweden has closed its upper high schools for a month:

The decision means that upper secondary schools (generally teenagers aged around 16-18 in Sweden) will have to quickly switch back to online teaching for the rest of the semester, from December 7th until January 6th.

https://www.thelocal.se/20201203/swedens-schools-for-over-16s-shift-back-to-remote-learning

The Swedish fan club have kept that quiet. I do hope that Anders wasn’t involved in that decision, it could result in some forum members removing his poster from their bedroom walls

For anyone interested in the guidance currently in place in Sweden it’s here in this article:

https://www.thelocal.se/20201030/these-are-swedens-local-coronavirus-recommendations-where-you-live

The measures all look a bit familiar, other than that they are guidance rather than law.

We haven’t heard from @scarby recently, I wonder if the pandemic in Sweden is still all about enjoying a latte in the sun?