reload141 wrote:Gant wrote:Sweden has not locked down like other countries, including their neighbors. Now the results are coming in.
Graph shows Sweden’s coronavirus death toll rapidly increasing compared to other countries
Prime minister opts against strict lockdown in contrast to neighbours
Alarming data has shown Sweden’s approach to containing coronavirus has led to a far greater number of fatalities than their Nordic neighbours.
As a result of the spiralling numbers, the country's prime minister, Stefan Lofven, has received criticism for his government’s light-touch strategy to contain Covid-19.
There have been 13,216 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Sweden, a country of just over 10 million, with 1,400 deaths as of Friday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.
With the total number of death exceeding the sum of their neighbours combined: Denmark (321), Norway (152) and Finland (75).
While Sweden’s total fatalities per-million (118) is also concerning when compared to their neighbours: Denmark has suffered 55 deaths per million, while Finland’s rate is just 13 - with both nations implementing strict early lockdowns in an effort to limit the spread of the pathogen.
In fact, their per-million total is considerably higher than Germany (42), though lower than the UK (182) and significantly lower than both Italy (349) and Spain (399).
“If you compare to the closest comparable countries, Norway, Denmark and Germany, we’re doing worse,” Dr Olle Häggström, a professor in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Gothenburg, told The Independent.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-deaths-lockdown-social-distancing-denmark-finland-norway-a9470771.html?utm_source=reddit.com
I know what Sweden is doing is against the grain but in 2 years when all the deaths from corona and suicide (due to loss of business and unable to support family, domestic violence deaths because of lockdown etc) are added up vs other countries and how they fair as a country after compared to everyone else.
They will either come out of this looking incredibly stupid or the only country who truly "survived" this....
In Australia they are talking about everyone having a mandatory app to track your location, seems absolutely ridiculous and invades our privacy hopefully they realise that as people are TOTALLY against it... except my wife who doesn't really leave home unless to drop off and pick up kids and gym, shop etc haha! But she's Russian so maybe she's used to this sort of thing?
It will be interesting to see, but it's a huge gamble, primarily because there is still so much we don't know about the virus yet, including immunity. But you're right, the results won't be known in until a couple of years from now. Their mortality numbers might be up right now, but it could also be representative of the sheer number of people who have it, probably far more than known. The numbers of neighbouring countries might reach the same level over a longer time while having a bigger impact on society in general from longer shutdowns.
People's phones are already tracking data, but if there wasn't an alternate interest aside from COVID-19 in getting it, they would be implementing the app differently. Like storing location data only on the device and it requires the owner to agree to sharing it if they test positive. That would still enable contact tracing without the government collecting data they don't need. So I too am concerned about the number of laws and changes governments are trying to sneak in while they can.
There does need to be a balance though. They are saying we will be testing for COVID-19 in sewerage plants to identify cluster suburbs earlier (as cases can be found positive from faeces 2 to 3 days prior showing symptoms, see
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-17/australia-to-test-sewage-for-coronairus-as-testing-net-widens/12156858). That kind of method has my approval as they will know the suburbs to target testing without knowing specific person data. Our others measures here are starting to look successful and I'm hoping we might be able to slowly move out of this while keeping the borders closed.
