Sweden's prime minister orders an inquiry into the failure of the country's no-lockdown coronavirus
Source: Business Insider
Sweden's prime minister has ordered an inquiry into the country's decision not to impose a coronavirus lockdown after the country suffered thousands more deaths than its closest neighbours.
"We have thousands of dead," Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven said at a press conference on Wednesday, while admitting that the country's handling had exposed Sweden's "shortcomings," The Times of London reported.
"Now the question is how Sweden should change, not if."
Unlike most other European countries, including its closest neighbours, Sweden did not implement strict, wholesale lockdown measures in response to the pandemic. Instead, the country has largely allowed businesses and hospitality to remain open and students to attend school.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-opens-inquiry-into-coronavirus-strategy-of-no-lockdown-2020-7?r=US&IR=T
Please raise your hand if you predicted this.
✋
sandensea
(21,530 posts)And he was right.
secondwind
(16,903 posts)RockRaven
(14,784 posts)admit that their policies were wrong.
artemisia1
(756 posts)sakabatou
(42,083 posts)Crowman2009
(2,478 posts)This horrible idea by Sweden reminds me of the idiots advocating mailed germ covered lollipops in the mail, or advocating chickenpox parties.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)It's just probably that method of achieving herd immunity would not be considered 'working' by the people who ended up ... ya know ... dead or maimed in the process, or their loved ones.
PSPS
(13,516 posts)Javaman
(62,442 posts)The people of Sweden vote unanimously to cut off the prime ministers balls as retribution for his abject fucking stupidity
OnlinePoker
(5,702 posts)They're at 842 deaths per million, behind San Marino's 1238. I know Belgium's lockdown only lasted a month or so, but they had already had over 4000 deaths before it was partially lifted in April.
On edit: Sweden is 7th globally at 536 deaths per million.
sandensea
(21,530 posts)Had Poirot been an epidemiologist, rather than a detective, I think even he would have a hard time answering that one.
bobbieinok
(12,858 posts)sandensea
(21,530 posts)SunSeeker
(51,377 posts)I have a friend who lives in Brussels, Belgium. She says things are pretty much the same there as in other EU countries, they just count every death that might related to Covid-19. If other countries did that, their numbers would be double, which would take Belgium out of the top 5. So many elderly are dying in our nursing homes from Covid-19 without ever being tested. We know that deaths are much higher than they were last year. Belgium is counting thise numbers. We're not.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)probably pretty significantly.
Maybe Belgium is older, on average?
SunSeeker
(51,377 posts)Belgiums official coronavirus toll closely tracks excess deaths for the pandemic period the number of deaths that exceed what would be expected for the period, based on the countrys historical death rates. For example, Belgium attributed 7,559 deaths between March 16 and April 26 to the coronavirus, in part because the country had 7,397 more deaths in that time period than would have been expected. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/why-belgium-has-recorded-so-many-coronavirus-deaths/2020/05/17/7bfd5a14-9492-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html
Covid-19 is not out of control in Belgium, like it is in, say, Arizona or Houston right now where ICUs are at capacity. Even at the diseases peak in Belgium, in early April, ICUs were only at 57 per cent capacity. According to Belgiums Federal Public Service for Health, just 46 per cent of the countrys total official deaths were in hospitals where coronavirus cases were confirmed. But 53 per cent of the Belgian tally, were from care homes, and of these, 84 per cent are suspected but unconfirmed coronavirus deaths.
If we used the same system, our numbers would be double.
Because countries are counting their coronavirus deaths differently, epidemiologists have begun to favor excess death calculations as the most accurate way to track the impact of the virus. Belgium may be the only country with an accurate count. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-belgium-death-toll-lockdown-trump-who-uk-spain-italy-a9494186.html
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)w0nderer
(1,937 posts)Sweden has and has had some serious problems
(some history)
Having since pretty much the late 1980's when they noticed soviet wasn't there much..they went WOOHOO no enemy
and started disassembling army, civil defense preparedness and civic preparedness used to be a big part of swedens defence agaisnt all sorts of crisis ..etc
what is etc?
well swedish prep used to include hmm 5 i believe but it probably was more world class military portable field surgical hospitals(2 now barely)
it used to include 1 year of medication, ppe and similar stored
it used to include 1 year peace time or a couple of weeks war time diesel and gasoline stores
it used to include 1 year of food (boring but nutritious) for every man woman and child inside the borders
it USED to include that buildings like gyms and similar were planned and built in such a way that in a crisis they could be converted to hospitals (or to bomb/gas shelters) or both, there used to be oxygen generators (even old chemical ones the iron or iron oxide and what ever that other powder was a strong oxidizer (subs used it too))
all these and so so so much more was removed, with the applause of a large amount of the swedish people (why waste my tax money on that right?) and politicians, in some cases donated to other countries (where they still do duty in some cases) in some cases 'disposed of ' (read thrown away)
for instance food suppliey prep now are based on stores that keep in THEIR stock rooms and is in their responsibility sphere
hands up if JITO (just in time ordering) rings a bell
that's right folks..possibly 2 weeks there may be a little more
then sweden looked to America and said, what can we learn from America
and started 'effectivizing' the healthcare till sweden had among the lowest amount of hospital beds per capita in the EU
then started privatizing the ownership (still partially keeping the service of it as a semi socialized thing) and especially the elder care
at the same time the bureaucratic way of life more and more took on its own life
for comparison, the town i live in when i left sweden for the US had 10 000 population about 50-75 bureaucrats hired
1 building /office (not counting outdoor staff, just paper-pusheerii)
now
15 years later (bit more)
that same town has
13000 population well over 200 bureocrats, 4 buildings (of which one is the old building that has been expanded) and that building is one of the smaller ones)
the same bureaucratic way of life also became 'a hide behind rules regulations from personal responsibility'
a ''i was just following orders''(nobody learned from Nurenberg in sweden i guess) ''it wasn't me, it was the department''
where if something was done wrong, and people suffered it wasn't a persons fault, it wasn't even a departments fault and no one was punished or 'let go' instead an 'investigation' was done, to be followed by an evaluation of the investigation, then an investigation into the evaluation of the investigation and then an evaluation of the investigation of the evaluation of the investigation, keep it going as long as you want, as long as no blame was placed, no results happened, no persons were punished (merely relocated so they could do damage elsewhere instead)
then add receiving close to (and i am not really that against it) but ca 15-20% increase in population from refugees and immigants in less than 10 years i believe it was, with no plan on how to integrate them into society
and THEN, comes covid19
so
1 sweden didn't have resources for it
2 they don't have the leadership because frankly, leadership requires a chain of command and responsibility being able to be placed
3 they estimated that the population would LISTEN to the advice of the state it used to be the phase 'we recommend you to' meant 'do this, we dont want to have to make a law or call out military to enforce this' but since sweden hasn't seen crisis really for 200 plus years, the people AND leaders are clueless
4 the people didn't take it seriously...because anders tegnell and others kept down playing it to not cause panic and using professional words and forgot the cautionary principle...if it is unknown, then treat it partially as dangerous until proven otherwise, instead they just assumed that...well herd immunity WILL work because it works on other diseases..well some..well a couple..and kinda..well sorta...well you know...a bit (which is a fun game to play in a mathematical simulation perhaps, it takes on a whole other level when you run it on live subjects, but again..NO training in responsibility, no culture of it, no willingness and actually in many cases no knowledge of real world situations..school bench to school bench to univ table to politician never doing common man/woman life)
so this was expected, inevitable actually
an investigation will be made, and nothing will happen
it will be made and no one will pay any price aside from possibly an 'well that was a mistake' and then get relocated with a payraise to another department
sorry bout the long rant
i'm a 5 %er-if/when i get covid, i will get severely ill or die and - due to diseases i will not get care, they might waste morphine on me so i die faster but that's maybe
so not only am i pissed off that i saw this back in december and started a slow self isolation
but i am pissed of at how i could possibly be swedish, i am insulted by what my passport states as my nationality
to be associated with these idiots make me feel bad
SunSeeker
(51,377 posts)But since Europe isn't letting Americans in right now, Americans will be spared the humiliation of being asked how America could haved botched its Covid-19 response so badly, and in a related question, how America could have let a moron like Trump be President.
Cha
(295,926 posts)We've seen that in the good ol USA, too.
SunSeeker
(51,377 posts)And the rest of us underinsured.
Cha
(295,926 posts)who wants to delete Obamacare
maxrandb
(15,192 posts)or OJ looking for the real killer?
"God Damnit! Who was in charge here when I fucked this up!?"