Sweden's king says 'we have failed' over COVID-19, as deaths mount

[onthedarkside]

Several personal comment posts and replies have been removed. Forum rules say we are to be discussing the topic, not other forum members.

[Bluespunk]

5 hours ago, bodga said:

Exactly, so it cant be that much of a  failure.

You forgot the first part of that quote, let me help you out and post it for you...

 

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Sweden has registered more than 7,800 deaths, a much higher per capita rate than its Nordic neighbours

 

[cmarshall]

Here is the scorecard on government performance against the Covid virus.  The upper right-hand corner are the spectacular failures; the lower left-hand corner are the stars.  I would put the demarcation between the failures and successes at somewhere around the 100 deaths per million mark.  Notice that all the Western governments are abject failures.  While the countries depicted vary considerably across multiple dimensions, the successful governments all followed the same basic public health epidemic response: testing, isolating, and contact tracing, which none of the failed governments followed.

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/rate-confirmed-cases-vs-rate-confirmed-deaths.png?v=145

Edited December 18, 2020 by cmarshall

[Rimmer]

A misleading troll post has been removed

[GreasyFingers]

It looks like a few TVFers are refusing to eat their piece of humble pie. What a wonderful life when you are never wrong.

[from the home of CC]

11 hours ago, Tug said:

My deepest condolences to you and your wonderful country and citizens we here in the USA share your grief and pain it seems our (leadership) had the same idea just not the courage to say it out loud 

I read that latest expose on the 'handling' of this virus by the US authorities. Folks in power conspiring through a public health emergency, disgusting. When I read that a Canadian moron was being listened to concerning decisions being made to favor commerce over corpses my heart sunk. It made me feel ashamed that he hailed from my country..

[from the home of CC]

Tegnell should be imprisoned for manslaughter.. 

[pacovl46]

8 hours ago, cmarshall said:

 

I am really tired of this lockdown/no lockdown debate, which is really quite ignorant.  S. Korea never locked down and suppressed the virus with only 11.84 deaths per million.  Taiwan never locked down and has controlled the virus with 7 deaths.  That's not 7 deaths per million, but just a total of 7 deaths for its entire population of 23 million.

 

For some reason people like you ignore the many spectacularly successful Asian countries as though they are not relevant, because they are on Mars or something.  Intelligent and energetic governance is all that is necessary to shutdown the epidemic.  Many Asian countries had such governments; none of the Western countries did.

What you conveniently forgot to mention is that South Korea took drastic measures at a very early stage before it got really bad and long before the WHO declared it a global pandemic as opposed to most western countries who did nothing at all until it was too late for no lockdowns. They did widespread testing and isolated the infected and did contact tracing to isolate them, too, everyone wore masks free willingly, recommended social distancing was obeyed by essentially everyone free willingly as opposed to the anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-government protests BS that you found/still find in western countries and that’s what made the difference, not the not having a lockdown! No lockdown would’ve been possible in the west, too, if the population would actually listen to their governments instead of demanding to be able to get a fricking haircut and biatching about how they’re human rights get violated by government measures!!! 
 

P.S. For the west this was the first time that anything like this happened. For Asian countries it was the second time because they had SARS-CoV-1 back in 2003 and/or 2004. Therefore it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they were much better prepared for this either! 

Edited December 18, 2020 by pacovl46

[puipuitom]

11 hours ago, bodga said:

but lower than in Britain, Italy, Spain or France, which have all opted for lockdowns.  Exactly, so it cant be that much of a  failure.

An official governmental  lockdown in the streets = outside does not say anything about the behaviour of the people inside ( and outside)

[Rimmer]

A unattributed post and all the replies to it have been removed

[sezze]

1 hour ago, pacovl46 said:

What you conveniently forgot to mention is that South Korea took drastic measures at a very early stage before it got really bad and long before the WHO declared it a global pandemic as opposed to most western countries who did nothing at all until it was too late for no lockdowns. They did widespread testing and isolated the infected and did contact tracing to isolate them, too, everyone wore masks free willingly, recommended social distancing was obeyed by essentially everyone free willingly as opposed to the anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-government protests BS that you found/still find in western countries and that’s what made the difference, not the not having a lockdown! No lockdown would’ve been possible in the west, too, if the population would actually listen to their governments instead of demanding to be able to get a fricking haircut and biatching about how they’re human rights get violated by government measures!!! 
 

P.S. For the west this was the first time that anything like this happened. For Asian countries it was the second time because they had SARS-CoV-1 back in 2003 and/or 2004. Therefore it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they were much better prepared for this either! 

In March and April , yes you are right . They were much better prepared , and learned from the past . We are however a few months further on , and we are still in the same situation , while in many Asian countries , life might not be 100% normal , but certainly a lot closer to normal then in most/all western countries . The only light in the dark place is the start of vaccination .

[balo]

Almost 100 deaths daily now, they have still failed.
Did Sweden learn anything from their mistakes 8 months ago ?    

The hospitals in Stockholm are now up to full capacity, they are moving patients to other parts of the country.  Just crazy! 
 

[candide]

3 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

What you conveniently forgot to mention is that South Korea took drastic measures at a very early stage before it got really bad and long before the WHO declared it a global pandemic as opposed to most western countries who did nothing at all until it was too late for no lockdowns

Actually, they didn't start very early, but they moved very fast. The problem was more that other countries started too late.

 

The first emergency meetings occured after the first case in SK on 20 January, at the time the WHO was starting to warn about H2H transmission and shortly before the WHO Public emergency declaration on 30 January. The main point is that they made decisions very quickly and started implementing them very quickly.

 

The first cases were detected in France, for example, at around the same time (24 January) so European countries have been warned early enough. Apart from Germany, they did not prepare themselves for the epidemic.

[JensenZ]

15 hours ago, ezzra said:

No sheet Sherlock, so the Swedish grand idea of 'herd immunity' didn't work eh? who would have thought now? of all the dumb thing to do to let Covid fix itself...

• You've simplified that a bit. Herd immunity is not going to work amongst the very old and frail, who just as easily will succumb to a seasonal flu, but it does work in the general younger population. Sweden should have isolated their elderly population while they went about their regular business. The virus does not disappear just because you're hiding from it, as most countries are now discovering as they are hit by 2nd and 3rd waves. You either have to develop natural immunity or take the vaccine. For frail old people it's isolation, vaccine, or both.

[ericthai]

11 hours ago, cmarshall said:

 

The need to lockdown indicates a failure of policy.  For some reason you persist in focusing on the point after policy has already failed.  You should read up on S. Korea, Taiwan, and Viet Nam to understand what an intelligent and energetic government can do.

Korea, Vietnam, Thailand etc have all been through this before with MERS and SARS so the citizens have experience and  understand what needs to be done and listen what is asked of them....most of the time.  

[placeholder]

9 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Here is the scorecard on government performance against the Covid virus.  The upper right-hand corner are the spectacular failures; the lower left-hand corner are the stars.  I would put the demarcation between the failures and successes at somewhere around the 100 deaths per million mark.  Notice that all the Western governments are abject failures.  While the countries depicted vary considerably across multiple dimensions, the successful governments all followed the same basic public health epidemic response: testing, isolating, and contact tracing, which none of the failed governments followed.

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/rate-confirmed-cases-vs-rate-confirmed-deaths.png?v=145

Actually, this chart depends on the accuracy of reporting. And lots poorer nations either don't have the means to report accurately or just don't want to or both. Consider the case of Tanzania

COVID-19 Diaries: Can Tanzania Really Be Coronavirus-Free?

But a few weeks ago, President Magufuli declared the pandemic in Tanzania officially over and said people should resume normal lives without even having to wear facemasks.   

He said God had solved the issue with a divine intervention after national prayers. "Corona cannot survive in the body of Christ; it will burn,” the president had said.   

COVID-19 Diaries: Can Tanzania Really Be Coronavirus-Free?  | Voice of America - English (voanews.com)

Among economically fully developed nations it can mostly be trusted and other middle income nations that have invested a decent sum in public health. 

But lots of other nations, not so much.

[cmarshall]

8 hours ago, ericthai said:

Korea, Vietnam, Thailand etc have all been through this before with MERS and SARS so the citizens have experience and  understand what needs to be done and listen what is asked of them....most of the time.  

 

That's true, but public health policy is decided by the public health officials, not the public themselves.  Meanwhile, books were being published with titles like "The Coming Pandemic."  The Obama administration explicitly alerted the Trump transition team that the biggest risk they would face would be a pandemic.  Nevertheless, Trump shutdown the White House Pandemic Response Team and reduced the staff of the CDC's Beijing office, from 47 to 14 eliminating all the epidemiologists in the process.  So, that was the end of US efforts to surveil pathogen emergence in China.  The European governments should have drawn the same lessons from SARS and MERS that the Koreans did, but they failed to do so.  Every single Western government failed spectacularly, but not following the advice of epidemiologists to watch China.  They wouldn't even have had to do it themselves.  They could have just told the Koreans to give them a ring if they see anything suspicious.

 

So, it's the fault of the Western governments 100%.

[cmarshall]

8 hours ago, placeholder said:

Actually, this chart depends on the accuracy of reporting. And lots poorer nations either don't have the means to report accurately or just don't want to or both. Consider the case of Tanzania

COVID-19 Diaries: Can Tanzania Really Be Coronavirus-Free?

But a few weeks ago, President Magufuli declared the pandemic in Tanzania officially over and said people should resume normal lives without even having to wear facemasks.   

He said God had solved the issue with a divine intervention after national prayers. "Corona cannot survive in the body of Christ; it will burn,” the president had said.   

COVID-19 Diaries: Can Tanzania Really Be Coronavirus-Free?  | Voice of America - English (voanews.com)

Among economically fully developed nations it can mostly be trusted and other middle income nations that have invested a decent sum in public health. 

But lots of other nations, not so much.

Undoubtedly true.  Nevertheless, even after we have excluded the dubious data points the picture that I described remains: all the countries that successfully controlled the virus, i.e. deaths per million < 100, did so by following the best practices of testing, isolating, and contact tracing, while all of the Western countries failed to implement those best practices and failed to control the virus, the result of which is that large numbers of their populations died unnecessarily.

[simple1]

13 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

all of the Western countries failed to implement those best practices and failed to control the virus, the result of which is that large numbers of their populations died unnecessarily.

 

Plus the messages coming from right wingers - freedom to do want we want, tyranny blah, blah and plain ignorance, all contributed to the mess we see today in some Western countries.

 

Can you imagine a president who knew the virus is deadly and highly contagious, falsely asserting otherwise yet still receiving 74 million votes - how <deleted> is that!

Edited December 18, 2020 by simple1

[daveAustin]

Yeah sucks. Good effort going for herd immunity, but it entails sacrifice and is not 'apparent' early. Only problem with a virus, they are devious b'stards and mutate to survive so you are back to square one. Better off shutting up shop like the aussies/Thais to wait or the big boys to make the vaccine and then claim success.  

[simple1]

1 hour ago, daveAustin said:

Yeah sucks. Good effort going for herd immunity, but it entails sacrifice and is not 'apparent' early. Only problem with a virus, they are devious b'stards and mutate to survive so you are back to square one. Better off shutting up shop like the aussies/Thais to wait or the big boys to make the vaccine and then claim success.  

 

Most of Australia hasn't 'shut up shop', but mitigation in place for managing new cluster outbreaks - always moron breaking the rules...

[cmarshall]

2 hours ago, daveAustin said:

Yeah sucks. Good effort going for herd immunity, but it entails sacrifice and is not 'apparent' early. Only problem with a virus, they are devious b'stards and mutate to survive so you are back to square one. Better off shutting up shop like the aussies/Thais to wait or the big boys to make the vaccine and then claim success.  

 

How's the weather over there in fantasyland?  "Herd immunity" is a concept that applies to vaccinated populations and has never been achieved by infection.

[pacovl46]

13 hours ago, sezze said:

In March and April , yes you are right . They were much better prepared , and learned from the past . We are however a few months further on , and we are still in the same situation , while in many Asian countries , life might not be 100% normal , but certainly a lot closer to normal then in most/all western countries . The only light in the dark place is the start of vaccination .

I can only speak for Germany now. We had a hard lockdown in spring. By June 10th or so the number of new infections went down to 242 a day. Then the idiots took to the street and demanded to be able to get haircuts and stupidly the government gave in and eased the lockdown. Now we’ve just hit 30000 new infections in one day and roughly about 8 to 900 people are dying daily. That’s the population of a small village that dies every day! 
 

The lockdown clearly worked and they should’ve stuck with it and kept the borders closed! 

[pacovl46]

12 hours ago, candide said:

Actually, they didn't start very early, but they moved very fast. The problem was more that other countries started too late.

 

The first emergency meetings occured after the first case in SK on 20 January, at the time the WHO was starting to warn about H2H transmission and shortly before the WHO Public emergency declaration on 30 January. The main point is that they made decisions very quickly and started implementing them very quickly.

 

The first cases were detected in France, for example, at around the same time (24 January) so European countries have been warned early enough. Apart from Germany, they did not prepare themselves for the epidemic.

Sadly Germany caved in to the demands of the cavemen that felt their human right to have a haircut was violated and now we’re at 30000 new infections and 900 new deaths daily! 

[CharlieH]

Off topic posts removed.

 

This topic is NOT about Trump ! 

[placeholder]

3 hours ago, daveAustin said:

Yeah sucks. Good effort going for herd immunity, but it entails sacrifice and is not 'apparent' early. Only problem with a virus, they are devious b'stards and mutate to survive so you are back to square one. Better off shutting up shop like the aussies/Thais to wait or the big boys to make the vaccine and then claim success.  

Just one small problem with your claim: it's false. They did try.

Australia terminates University of Queensland vaccine deal with CSL after false positives for HIV

Australia terminates University of Queensland vaccine deal with CSL after false positives for HIV | World news | The Guardian

[Patong2021]

Many months ago, the forum was filled with claims of  pandemic hoax and how ineffective social activity and crowd control was. And almost always the example of Sweden was used to support the claims. Also would read the claims of "herd immunity", and all other types of fantasy land theories. The strategy was not popular with public health professionals and they were few who supported it.

For the past 3 months many criticisms of Swedish strategy were made and the government and some political groups suppressed the criticism. Too many citizens did not want to  listen. Now HM King Carl Gustaf, a man who rarely comments on social policy, is forced to speak out, knowing that people will listen. He was like the national papa saying in a loving way,  children you are making a mistake, please stop. He had to hold the people who forced an untried, untested strategy accountable before they killed more with the ineffective strategy.  Very powerful to say; “I think we have failed. We have a large number who have died, and that is terrible", because it holds the politicians who promoted the strategy and the public who  were in denial accountable.

 It is shameful that Sweden government allowed the strategy to continue, even though it was obvious it was not working months ago. 

[johnnybangkok]

On 12/18/2020 at 8:55 PM, JensenZ said:

• You've simplified that a bit. Herd immunity is not going to work amongst the very old and frail, who just as easily will succumb to a seasonal flu, but it does work in the general younger population. Sweden should have isolated their elderly population while they went about their regular business. The virus does not disappear just because you're hiding from it, as most countries are now discovering as they are hit by 2nd and 3rd waves. You either have to develop natural immunity or take the vaccine. For frail old people it's isolation, vaccine, or both.

And you’ve got this completely wrong. Herd immunity for any major infection/disease has NEVER been achieved throughout the entire 20th/21st century without a vaccine. Ever!

What you are talking about is an acceptance of  mortality through general infection much in the same way we accept deaths by the flu. C19 is no flu though with much higher infection and mortality rates, hence why even a general acceptance was not possible until a vacine came along. 
Once the most vulnerable are inoculated, perhaps a general acceptance might be possible but that’s a long way off, even now.  

[bodga]

On 12/18/2020 at 6:35 AM, pacovl46 said:

Of course it’s a failure because lots of deaths could’ve been prevented if they had had a lockdown! Duh! 

Duh.... u  missed the point, the other countries HAD lockdowns and still had  higher ( i presume per capita) death rates, I couldnt care  less if it does or doesnt work if they still had less deaths than those lockdown countries mentioned ......duh

[pacovl46]

20 hours ago, bodga said:

Duh.... u  missed the point, the other countries HAD lockdowns and still had  higher ( i presume per capita) death rates, I couldnt care  less if it does or doesnt work if they still had less deaths than those lockdown countries mentioned ......duh

Isn’t it amazing? You conveniently forgot to take into consideration the age of the general public in the countries that had a higher fatality rate per capita. Italy, for example, has the oldest population in Europe whereas Sweden on the other hand has a fairly  young population. There’s other factors as well, for example how soon did those countries react, how well did the population play along etc.

 

Fact is, Sweden is on place 8 in terms of highest fatality rates and its neighboring countries who DID have lockdowns are on place 26, that’s Denmark, place 29, Finland and lastly Norway which has the lowest fatality rate in Europe on place 31. 
 

Oh and Russia, the other nation that has been cited as an example for no lockdowns is now on place 4 in the global rankings of number of infections. 
 

In other words, no lockdown doesn’t work, no matter how much you’d like that to be the case and it’s just common sense, that isolation is the way to go when you combat a virus pandemic! Duh!

Edited December 21, 2020 by pacovl46