Sweden part III: Lead epidemiologist in Sweden says he made a mistake
This is the third post on MGoblog about Sweden’ controversial strategy.
In this latest news, “Sweden’s top epidemiologist has admitted his strategy to fight Covid-19 resulted in too many deaths, after persuading his country to avoid a strict lockdown.”
He switched the samples
Sounds like something a guy on the run would say.
Just watched The Fugitive again last month. I think it really holds up well. “I don’t care!! Put the gun down!!”
I contend it’s still way too early to know for certain what the right approach was or continues to be.
There never will be a consensus.
I mean sort of. It is very clear that Sweden's strategy resulted in more deaths than their most comparable nations and a recent estimate found only 7% of individuals in stockholm had antibodies meaning they are still nowhere close to herd immunity. If Sweden is just as poorly situated for a second wave with a full opening then they traded those additional lives compared to Norway or Denmark for no advantage.
He is likely right that answer is somewhere in between the responses but its bad to be on the side that resulted in extra deaths rather than the side that was too cautious
There never will be a consensus.
Still?
Taiwan’s approach was right and it continues to be so.
Test early, test often
I feel like this should be MSU's "go green/go white" chant.
Could apply to PEDs or STDs.
I contend that there is probably not a single right approach for every state or country. Montana and NYC are very different.
It's true. It will occupy medical scholarship for years. The thing the public fails to understand, is that when the most effective approach is unknown, medical experts are going to lean on the most heavily conservative strategy, to avoid disaster. It's no different than air travel safety. One in ten million flights crashes. But is something is wrong with a plane that changes that risk to 1 in 10,000, that plane isn't flying. Even though the risks remain incredibly low.
I contend that only a person who has no idea how to analyze data but still thinks they're smarter than experts would share your views.
Plenty of examples of countries that did it right, and plenty of example of countries that did it wrong. The former being countries that listened to infectious disease experts.
Also, "What’s more, there’s so far limited evidence that Sweden’s decision to leave much of its society open will support the economy. Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson recently warned that Sweden is facing its worst economic crisis since World War II, with GDP set to slump 7% in 2020, roughly as much as the rest of the EU."
So it was a lose-lose strategy.
Their economy grew in the second quarter.
The second quarter is going on right now. There is no data yet.
Sweden's economy grew by 0.1% in the first quarter (Jan-March) but the first 2+ months of that were before the pandemic. Social distancing didn't become a thing until about mid-March in most Western countries.
Beat me to it
I think you may be referring to the first quarter? Since the second quarter is not yet over, I’m pretty sure we don’t know that it grew.
You are correct my mistake
He was just pointing out something he figured Sweden's finance Minister didn't know.
economies are driven by consumer emotions. And, given the death rate combined with the number of daily new cases in Sweden, consumers will be afraid to go out and spend money. Compare that to countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Japan where consumers will be excited to go out knowing their countries have some of the lowest case rates and death rates in the world and that they can trust their governments to keep them safe.
Bad assessment. Personally, I believe Sweden should done more to shut down early on, but what's done is done. To say that their approach failed just because the current economic contraction is the worst since WWII is a logical fallacy - it was always going to be the "worst since" and has been so for just about every nation in the world. The real question (possibly unanswerable in full) is how bad would the contraction have been had they shut down as suggested?
I think you're missing the point here. In spite of Sweden's more lax guidelines their "GDP is set to slump 7% in 2020, roughly as much as the rest of the EU." So there seems to be no economic benefit to their plan either. If they had shut down as suggested, they most likely would have faced the same economic realities as the rest of the world, but would have saved more than a few lives in the process.
Wait two weeks from the protests. It’s going to be ugly again. If it’s not, then we should open everything back up with some precautions.
A lot of variables here. On one hand, the protests are mass gatherings, which generally facilitates virus transmission. On the other, the protesters are mostly youngish, they are outdoors, many are wearing masks, and we're experiencing summer weather. Most of the protesters themselves should be OK due to their age, but are they visiting older friends/family? I guess we'll see.
I’ve also heard concern that tear gas could cause some issues: 1)the coughing it induces can cause greater spread 2)irratatating lungs could make you more susceptible to infection.
And less than a day later he has at least partially walked back that statement.
Plus Norway's Prime Minister Solberg says that Norway may have gone too far and should not have closed schools.
Norway had 44 deaths per million. Only 6 states in the US have less than that.
That news is going to lead to a lot of vehement supporters of the Swedish approach to create new blog accounts.
Yes one person said they should have done better, while Sweden is still happy with their results. Which are being followed by numerous countries now and many others admit they shouldn’t have shut everything down. Their head scientist admits they could always do better. Remember their economy has risen in the second quarter.
One person? No, the top person who made the decision.
As usual, the proof is in the pudding:
Read 'em and weep...
Notice the four countries in the upper right corner. They are China’s neighbors. They were right to be suspicious of China.
Are they saying that mobility is an economic equivalent? Neither axis has a traditional economic measure.
Sweden has low mobility? How do they measure mobility? Some of the countries with low mobility have re-opened their schools some time ago.
Can someone explain why the death rate of any country didn't improve after their shutdown? (Maybe it did but I can't find it.) Sweden's per capita death rate is atrocious but it was atrocious on day one. It appears to me that every country's death rate was predetermined by age, culture, genetics, or something as every curve looks the same to me (slow up and slow down or fast up and fast down but no one with a slow start created a quick recovery with a lock down.
"Can someone explain why the death rate of any country didn't improve after their shutdown? "
It's a bad question because many of those countries never shut down. Korea closed schools. That was about the only thing that was forced closed. Even clubs have been open, and even after a small outbreak from one, they're still open (with rules like registering your phone number).
Weep, I don’t think so. You are taking something that Anders Tangell said. He also said that he believes that it was and is the correct approach. If things could be revisited they would do things different in their retirement homes, I think and hope we all would. My concern is not building up an immunity to the virus. The hope of a vaccine is just that a hope. Shutting down a economy hurts so many in so many ways. When people loose hope this hurts the entire family for along time. Please remember the millions that are worried about rent, food, cloths and many other items that I admit I take for granted.
There will be no herd immunity without a vaccine.
If that’s the case, it really sucks there’ll never be a reliable vaccine.
Sorry, but this chart is bullshit, because recoveries aren't even being reported in the Netherlands and UK, nor are many states reporting them, and some states that are, are not reporting all of them. If every state simply did what Michigan does and report recoveries 30 days after diagnosis (a conservative number) we'd be around 60% recovered instead of about 25%. Recoveries are the shakiest and least consistent reporting number you can find, and that's saying something. A chart making a judgment about where countries stand based on the recoveries they've reported is no good at all.
To Sweden's epidemiologist: ya think?
"We basically still think that this is the right strategy for Sweden that we are doing." - Tegnell later that day
Not much to see here. I think it's too early to tell what the right thing to do is, which means it was almost certainly the wrong thing to panic and shut everything down.
Half of what appears to have prompted Tegnell's initial 'we'd do a few things differently' comments is just the realization that even if Sweden was right to keep things open, Europe took away a lot of the benefits of that by panicking.
I’ll take Sweden’s Coron strategy if we can also have their social safety net and tax structure! This Swede needs to shut up as I was this close to convincing my Fox News watching cousin...
When even the Swedish guy says Sweden screwed up...then maybe all of the 'let's do what Sweden did' posters here need to admit that...maybe they were wrong.
No one who was on the “be like Sweden” tip ever admits to being wrong. The need to dominate the battle space of the argument. Even if they look stupid in doing so
He didn't say they were wrong, he said he would do things differently. If you read what he actually said, he gave a couple examples of changes, none of which would have resulted in a lockdown.
Mostly he feels they didn't do enough to protect the most vulnerable.
This is the third post on MGoblog about Sweden’ controversial strategy.
Third? It's been a good half-dozen or more. And somehow every one of them misrepresents the situation.
Maybe it was only the third one to survive the moms?
Without commenting on the particular's of Sweden's situation other to say that it's kind of an apples-to-lutefisk comparison in some ways,the quote by my state's health director that keeps coming back to me is:
"If we do this right, then afterwards we'll wonder what all the fuss was about"