The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
The Swedish Agency for statistics has put their spreedsheet on reported deaths online and just eyeballing it, until the beginning of april it is about the same and then the usual level of 220-320 deaths/day jumps to 300-360. (I am not including the last few days, as SCB notes that their numbers lag, and demonstrates it in table 8.)
This matches fairly well the Corona mortality reported to have climbed to around 100/day and which looks right now to be stagnating at that level. So far, it is mainly Stockholm that is worst hit.
Healthcare in Sweden has expanded the amount of intensive care that can be provided and has plans to expand more if needed. Much of the hospitals can be converted to ICUs. Equipment has been a problem, but it looks like it is now the amount of and endurance of the staff that will be the real limiting factor. There has been succesful recruiting for temporary exoansion, inventories has been made among existing staff and crash courses has been established to get doctors and nurses up to speed to work in ICU departments, but in the end there is limits here to what can be done in a short time if the staff is to be able to handle it. So far, the health care system is handling it. People are dying from the disease, not from lack of healthcare.
Btw, I am uncertain on how much Sweden really differs in amount of social distacing, and how much is just a difference in approach. Instead of bans and legislation Sweden has mainly used agency recommendations, broadcasted at two o'clock every afternoon. Most people seems to be following the recommendations.
Most everyone who can work from home do, social distancing is to a large extent observed and most establishments has taken action to enforce a minimum distance of one anf a half meters. Grocery stores has marked out recommended distance on the floor, restaurants has made sure (under threat of this being included in food and safety inspections) to space out tables or close of every other table, etc etc.
Main difference is in keeping schools and daycare for kids open. The agency in charge of people's health argues (from research) that it should be enough if everyone with symtoms self-isolate until symtoms has passed and then another 48 hours. Regulation for staying home with ill kids has been amended, so has regulations for staying home ill, and payments has been made slightly more generous. At any time, some 25-30% of kids in schools, teachers in schools, staff at most places were you can't work from home, are home with symtoms or self-isolating for 48 hours.
In general, the approach seems to work as markets are crashing. People may go out to eat, but they are not. People may travel, but they are not.
Almost every organisation I am a member of has scrapped all physical meetings and are learning to have digital meetings instead (the virus arrived just in time for the big meeting season). They may hold physical meetings, but they are not.
A neighbour who is a painter (the kind that paints interior walls and puts up wallpaper) says that no one wants a stranger coming into their house right now. He's not worried though, the mix of government support coming in will tidy him over. Government printing press is running like if we hadn't had three decades of arguments about how money doesn't grow on trees, etc.
The reasoning behind the more volountary approach is that this way will have a high enough percentage of people following the recommendations, while generating less opposition. I don't know what works better, but I sure hope it will work.
I also get the sense that there is still a relatively high level of social cohesion and respect for rules etc. in Sweden which means social distancing doesn't have to be enforced quite so much as in other countries. In Spain thousands of fines have been handed out to people breaking the rules, in France you have to fill out paperwork, in the UK there has been some slightly heavy handed policing.
Ireland also followed a largely more voluntary approach with "advice" rather than legal enforcement the norm. Emergency legislation giving the police powers of enforcement has only recently been activated, and so far has been sparingly used.
Generally speaking government and public health communications have been good and have engendered trust, although this was not helped when the Minister for Health mistakenly referred to Covid-19 having 18 progenitors. He thought the 19 referred to the number of previous corona virus diseases, not the year in which it emerged!
That put him in the same boat as Trump advisor Kelly-Amm Conway in the good old USA. In fairness he has abjectly apologised for his mistake. He wouldn't have gotten away with trying to brazen it out, Trump style. Index of Frank's Diaries
I think the main disadvantage Sweden has had was a large number of starting cases in early March as there is a one week Spring break in late february where you traditionally go skiing. And being able to afford going to the Alpes instead of our domestic mountains, is a sign of wealth. So we had a bunch of conspicous consumers going back and forth to Italy there. I think that is one reason - in addition to more public transport - that Stockholm has been worst hit. I was surprised that there was no quarantine, I think that would have postponed and flattened the outbreak here. That would probably been considered extreme then, but that was almost months ago.
Politically, when it comes to the disease the government is mostly pointing at the expert agency and Anders Tegnell, the state epidemologist, has become a household name (I doubt people knew we even had a state epidemologist before this). So the prime minister holds speaches about the importance of following the experts advice.
But let's not turn causality on its head. The government did not consciously design a Swedish model for confronting the pandemic based on trust in the population's ingrained sense of civic responsibility. Rather, actions were shaped by bureaucrats and then defended after the fact as a testament to Swedish virtue.... Through it all, Sweden's government remained passive. That partly reflects a unique feature of the country's political system: a strong separation of powers between central government ministries and independent agencies. And, in "the fog of war," it was also convenient for Löfven to let Tegnell's agency take charge. Its seeming confidence in what it was doing enabled the government to offload responsibility during weeks of uncertainty. Moreover, Löfven likely wanted to demonstrate his trust in "science and facts," by not - like US President Donald Trump - challenging his experts.... Now that COVID-19 is running rampant through nursing homes and other communities, the Swedish government has had to backpedal.
... Through it all, Sweden's government remained passive. That partly reflects a unique feature of the country's political system: a strong separation of powers between central government ministries and independent agencies. And, in "the fog of war," it was also convenient for Löfven to let Tegnell's agency take charge. Its seeming confidence in what it was doing enabled the government to offload responsibility during weeks of uncertainty. Moreover, Löfven likely wanted to demonstrate his trust in "science and facts," by not - like US President Donald Trump - challenging his experts.
... Now that COVID-19 is running rampant through nursing homes and other communities, the Swedish government has had to backpedal.
"Their measure of success is how things are going to be in 5 years time."Sweden has taken a different approach to #COVID19, but is it the right one?@rosamundmtaylor spoke to @seatrout to find out about Europe's biggest coronavirus gambleListen now: https://t.co/IQ8rqZKhrE pic.twitter.com/S92OLY8bqt— The Bunker (@bunker_pod) April 23, 2020
"Their measure of success is how things are going to be in 5 years time."Sweden has taken a different approach to #COVID19, but is it the right one?@rosamundmtaylor spoke to @seatrout to find out about Europe's biggest coronavirus gambleListen now: https://t.co/IQ8rqZKhrE pic.twitter.com/S92OLY8bqt
by gmoke - Nov 30
by gmoke - Nov 24
by gmoke - Nov 7
by gmoke - Nov 11
by Oui - Dec 14
by Oui - Dec 13
by Oui - Dec 12
by Oui - Dec 11
by Oui - Dec 10
by Oui - Dec 9
by Oui - Dec 8
by Oui - Dec 7
by Oui - Dec 6
by Oui - Dec 61 comment
by Oui - Dec 51 comment
by Oui - Dec 4
by Oui - Dec 3
by Oui - Dec 312 comments
by Oui - Dec 2