@BootsyCollins
I'm sorry for the tone of my response, I wasn't even aware you were the one I had quoted in the first post. Your post just happened to be at hand, because it was an idea I was mad at, not you specifically. I used it as a frame for my thoughts, it wasn't my intention to seem personal.
@africanspur
There is no one I'm more pissed off at than other doctors (a specific subset of them), I've said this a few times in my previous posts. I only mentioned me being a doctor in relation to the discussions with my own family, because it wasn't so long ago that they were commending me for "predicting" stuff like the shutting down or chaos in ER services. Suddenly it seems I'm no longer qualified, they start arguing with me in the most inane of things because they've been spending time reading about this on facebook.
I do not think my "authority" comes from being a doctor, although our knowledge of the "right" basic sciences to comprehend this certainly helps a lot. I have imposed my "authority" when arguing with seasoned specialists simply because I know and they don't. What makes the difference in Covid-19 is how long you've been looking at it, and how long you've studied it yourself, because this thing, for most of us, is less than three months old. Curriculum matters nothing in this initial stage. The fact that I'm a member of redcafe makes more of a difference on my understanding of this than my basic qualifications. I was somewhat "lucky" to get ahead of the curve because of this thread, otherwise I, like most of my colleagues here, wouldn't have paid enough attention to Covid-19 until mid-March. It does help that until very recently I was probably one of the most unoccupied doctors in my country.
My biggest despair, is that there are random people in here or reddit, many of whom aren't even doctors or are just medical students, who happen to have a broader comprehension of Covid-19 (of course many stutter in some details) than actual Public Health specialists throughout the world. And I think this is what explains the poor answers in the west. At least the top Public Health guy in Portugal is completely oblivious in regards to this thing, but fortunately he has been ignored by the government. Am sorry if I'm very skeptical to the idea that the Swedish experts are really that much aware of they are doing.
That said, I completely agree that Swedes should not be put to blame for eventual copycats in other countries, nor should they change the policy they feel is right for their country because of other countries. If anything, the impression I get is that the more local your policies are, the more accurate they tend to be and the better the response to the problem becomes. I've been very near the top of the vigilance of this in Azores and I know every chain of transmission here by memory. This being a region with 9 islands of very different sizes, it's a great place to ascertain that. Initially we had one policy for the entire archipelago, which was an incredibly stupid thing. There are still 3 islands with zero cases, 4 islands where there aren't new cases for a month, and the other two seem good as well. It seems we'll never enter mitigation phase, containment is easy in smallish islands, which is a big relief. It makes sense for us to draw our own policies instead of following continental Portugal, which faces completely different scenarios.
I was "just" ranting. You're right I was very emotional about this in the beginning, because I was doing nothing and felt like banging my head on the wall. When I started working on this I became pragmatic and relieved, and barely posted here during that time. Now, after a pause - on which I tested negative - I'm changing places and going from vigilance to the ER, starting tomorrow, which is a place where I feel like a fish out of the water, given that my previous medical experience isn't suited to that kind of work at all (I was a pathology resident). That alone has made me more anxious these last few days, but fortunately I know I'll be working with the right people and will make myself useful quickly.
