SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[ManUArfa]

Sorry I meant 'Not unthinkable' silly typo.

Absolutely, there's been an assumption that a Vaccine is 12-18 months away. Obviously we all hope that's the case but it may not, we don't know.We also don't know how many people this virus has actually killed. Countries like the UK are obviously under-reporting because we'll only count people who've had a test confirmed in a lab. China have lied through their teeth and lots of countries just don't have the infrastructure.

I have seen on the UK daily Government updates, at least on one particular day, additional death figures to include not only community and hospital deaths with a positive test but also those with deaths added based on "suspected COVID-19" on the death certificate. It was a few days ago but we were also told that the data is publicly available.

They have always maintained that the adjusted excess deaths will be the more accutate figure.

 

[Wibble]

The news so far have been good, with many vaccines being on human trials. Obviously, it might happen that we won’t find a vaccine soon (after all there are no vaccines for other coronaviruses). However, I think that we will considering the incentive to do so (and consequently the number of people and the amount of money thrown at it). There was not much incentive to develop vaccines for SARS and MERS, considering that they were contained diseases. It would have been spending a shitload of money that won’t give any profit.

If in the end, we fail to get a vaccine, I guess the life will go on, like it has gone for many other diseases (Spanish flu, smallpox etc). Tens of millions will die during the years (maybe even in the region of hundreds of millions) with the virus coming and going like many other seasonal viruses. Those that get it and survive become immune (for at least some time) in turn limiting the spread of the virus, though next year would be even worse than this one.

That is what I thought but I read that there is a very promising MERS vaccine in humans trails now and Falchi said the US had a prototype SARS vaccine awaiting human trials (I think).

 

[Revan]

That is what I thought but I read that there is a very promising MERS vaccine in humans trails now and Falchi said the US had a prototype SARS vaccine awaiting human trials (I think).

Sure. I meant no licensed vaccinated ready for mass production. There are candidate-vaccines for them, same as there are more than a hundred candidate-vaccines for covid. In fact, there were several candidate-vaccines for SARS quickly after the disease and ready for human trials, but there was just no interest for them after the disease got contained.

I think to a lesser degree the same can be said for coronaviruses that cause human cold. There are 4 of them, and accumulatively they contribute for around 20-30% of human cold cases. I think there just was not enough incentive to make a vaccine. I mean, it would take a lot of money and resources to do so, and then it might be 60% effective for one of the viruses (who let’s say causes 5% of the cases). Pretty much no one would bother to get it if all it does is reduce your chances of getting a cold by 3%.

For covid, there is just a different game, so like it or not, the capitalism here is a perfect system to make a good vaccine. The first company who will do it will literally earn billions, so many smart people are working countless hours.

 

[Wibble]

Okay, so stupid question. Why doesn't the government give everyone the common cold then? All get a dose, then a few weeks later when immunity is working, a large amount of the population can go about their lives and if we all catch it, it will be a milder version. Then we all develop immunity to covid too?

Or is this not worth trying or pursuing?

A few types of coronavirus are responsible of 25-30% of colds and we currently just don't know if having antibodies for any of these give even limited immunity to SARS-CoV-2. To do this we would need to culture these viruses and somehow deliver them to people. So in effect a global vaccination program with live viruses. It would take longer to roll out than it will to develop an actual vaccination program and we don't even know if it would help at all.

 

[JMack1234]

The news so far have been good, with many vaccines being on human trials. Obviously, it might happen that we won’t find a vaccine soon (after all there are no vaccines for other coronaviruses). However, I think that we will considering the incentive to do so (and consequently the number of people and the amount of money thrown at it). There was not much incentive to develop vaccines for SARS and MERS, considering that they were contained diseases. It would have been spending a shitload of money that won’t give any profit.

If in the end, we fail to get a vaccine, I guess the life will go on, like it has gone for many other diseases (Spanish flu, smallpox etc). Tens of millions will die during the years (maybe even in the region of hundreds of millions) with the virus coming and going like many other seasonal viruses. Those that get it and survive become immune (for at least some time) in turn limiting the spread of the virus, though next year would be even worse than this one.

I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get a vaccine but who knows? If we don't. Then we'll put in place in protections to stop the health services being overwhelmed and the virus will meander through the population.

 

[Wibble]

Sure. I meant no licensed vaccinated ready for mass production. There are candidate-vaccines for them, same as there are more than a hundred candidate-vaccines for covid. In fact, there were several candidate-vaccines for SARS quickly after the disease and ready for human trials, but there was just no interest for them after the disease got contained.

I think to a lesser degree the same can be said for coronaviruses that cause human cold. There are 4 of them, and accumulatively they contribute for around 20-30% of human cold cases. I think there just was not enough incentive to make a vaccine. I mean, it would take a lot of money and resources to do so, and then it might be 60% effective for one of the viruses (who let’s say causes 5% of the cases). Pretty much no one would bother to get it if all it does is reduce your chances of getting a cold by 3%.

For covid, there is just a different game, so like it or not, the capitalism here is a perfect system to make a good vaccine. The first company who will do it will literally earn billions, so many smart people are working countless hours.

Post covid wouldn't it be nice to see a universal annual vaccine that combines, SARS-CoV-2, flu and any other vaccine we develop - the benefits to the world would be unbelievable in just terms of productivity and health care savings.

 

[Revan]

Post covid wouldn't it be nice to see a universal annual vaccine that combines, SARS-CoV-2, flu and any other vaccine we develop - the benefits to the world would be unbelievable in just terms of productivity and health care savings.

Assuming that there won't be any negative effect on combining it with the flu shot, I think it would be good to administer them together. In fact, the flu shot is actually a vaccine for 3 different viruses (H1N1, H3N2 and influenza type B), so just make it for four viruses, and in one go save countless flu-related deaths all over the world.

One problem might be that the flu viruses mutate much faster, so typically the flu shot protects you for a season or a year, while the hope is that when it comes to covid, the protection would be longer (for example, SARS antibodies were found up to 3 years). So it might be that we might require the covid vaccine every few years, while the flu shot needs to be given every year. Nevertheless, I hope that the covid pandemic makes people seriously consider getting the flu shots. I actually never did (more negligence than anything else), but I am going to get it when the winter comes.

 

[Revan]

I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get a vaccine but who knows? If we don't. Then we'll put in place in protections to stop the health services being overwhelmed and the virus will meander through the population.

Yep. I don't even think that there will be much protections in place. Probably just masks and hope for the best.

You can plan lockdowns and social distancing for months but not for years.

 

[westmeath]

I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get a vaccine but who knows? If we don't. Then we'll put in place in protections to stop the health services being overwhelmed and the virus will meander through the population.

I hope you are right to be optimistic but from what I’ve heard and read about vaccines this past few weeks, it’s no better than a 50-50 shot and even then it could take years. We are going to have to find a way to live with it and move on with our lives but this presents so many challenges.

 

[Wibble]

Assuming that there won't be any negative effect on combining it with the flu shot, I think it would be good to administer them together. In fact, the flu shot is actually a vaccine for 3 different viruses (H1N1, H3N2 and influenza type B), so just make it for four viruses, and in one go save countless flu-related deaths all over the world.

One problem might be that the flu viruses mutate much faster, so typically the flu shot protects you for a season or a year, while the hope is that when it comes to covid, the protection would be longer (for example, SARS antibodies were found up to 3 years). So it might be that we might require the covid vaccine every few years, while the flu shot needs to be given every year. Nevertheless, I hope that the covid pandemic makes people seriously consider getting the flu shots. I actually never did (more negligence than anything else), but I am going to get it when the winter comes.

I have had it every year for over a decade and getting pneumonia while getting (presumably) H1N1 in 2009. I've only had one bad flu like event since then and that was probably just a bad cold.

 

[Wibble]

I hope you are right to be optimistic but from what I’ve heard and read about vaccines this past few weeks, it’s no better than a 50-50 shot and even then it could take years. We are going to have to find a way to live with it and move on with our lives but this presents so many challenges.

Unless there is some weird safety issue I'm pretty confident that one or more of the 70+ current vaccine development programs will produce a viable virus. We know 100% for sure a The when is harder to predict. I heard that some trials are already producing large quantities if vaccine for a large scale human trial in anticipation of the current trial succeeding. If this works out a large scale human trial might start as early as September. Of course this is the best case scenario and things can and do go wrong in medical trials.

But this seems promising https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/...otent-protective-response-pre-clinical-trials

 

[Revan]

I have had it every year for over a decade and getting pneumonia while getting (presumably) H1N1 in 2009. I've only had one bad flu like event since then and that was probably just a bad cold.

Yep, makes sense to get it. No harm on it, it takes nothing. Just that I rarely get sick, so just didn't bother to get it.

 

[Wibble]

Yep, makes sense to get it. No harm on it, it takes nothing. Just that I rarely get sick, so just didn't bother to get it.

That was my justification until I really didn't enjoy pneumonia. I should have been hospitalised but I was running my own business so couldn't afford to stop.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

To be clear he wasn’t saying lockdowns were a bad decision. There was no data on countries without any kind of lockdown. And the consensus was that this would lead to a catastrophe.

It was more about whether a more Swedish approach might have been better for everyone (music to the ears of @Regulus Arcturus Black) Allowing younger people to lead a more normal life while making sure that the elderly/vulnerable are properly cocooned (which is where Sweden dropped the ball) The latter bit is tricky, obviously. Proper PPE. Regular compulsory testing of all staff working at places like care homes. Anyone living with elderly/vulnerable people forced to cocoon alongside them etc etc etc.

Obviously this is all being wise with hindsight. This data wasn’t available when the shit first hit the fan. Hopefully it will inform PH policies with any second or subsequent waves though.

haha, music indeed @Pogue Mahone

It’s been a strange few weeks, Sweden do finally appear to have the care home thing under some control, which whilst being good news now is also the single biggest failure of their approach, if they had addressed these issues earlier or bought themselves more time, the death toll could be much much lower at present.
Whether that is sustainable with care homes long term, I don’t know, the missus Grandma is climbing the walls and keeps trying to escape, her mental state is plummeting and she’s not the only one, reports all over the country that two months of care home isolation has created a horrific situation for our elderly. If this continues for another few months, we doubt she’ll make it through

Looking at the SCB increased mortality stats up and until 8th May (15 extra deaths per day for 2020 and dropping daily) I’d imagine it’ll be a few hundred either way by the end of 2020.

The other good news here is that last Friday ICU Covid-19 patients had finally dropped below 500 (from a high of 550+) and this Friday dropped below 400. Today it sits at 375 and now just 135 in all of Stockholm. We have over 1000 available ICU beds. So the curve isn’t just flat, it’s dropping right off.

All this achieved whilst keeping kids in school and society partially open. Keeping kids in school and in sport has been Sweden’s biggest success for sure.

@Classical Mechanic nailed it with with the lockdown vs. no lockdown debate when he mentioned Sweden and Belgium, there’s simply so much more to it. Likely, as I argued weeks and weeks ago, some Asian countries got out in front, but for everyone else it’s likely a matter of timing, the biggest factor was how much virus was already circulating in your country when we realised what was going down in Italy.

That’s not to say that the likes of Norway, Finland, Denmark and several other European counties etc haven’t done a tremendous job so far, they quite obviously have. But if they can leave lockdown as they have and not make the Swedish care home mistakes, they should feel confident about living with this virus even if their track and trace strategies don’t work long term.

I’ll finish with saying that I’m fed up with political optics on this issue and that’s why I hardly bother to post here now. The German league yesterday I thought was an utter joke. The subs thing, the celebration thing, the disinfecting of the balls, all appear nonsensical and just a case of pampering to the non existent crowd.
There seems to be tunnel vision with Covid-19, so many decisions made with only Covid-19 in mind and no consideration to anything else, as that infection rate is the only important thing to consider, the pics of kids in school in Munich turned my stomach, not only it is daft when looking at the evidence so far, that cannot be good for young kids mental standing.

 

[massi83]

haha, music indeed @Pogue Mahone

It’s been a strange few weeks, Sweden do finally appear to have the care home thing under some control, which whilst being good news now is also the single biggest failure of their approach, if they had addressed these issues earlier or bought themselves more time, the death toll could be much much lower at present.
Whether that is sustainable with care homes long term, I don’t know, the missus Grandma is climbing the walls and keeps trying to escape, her mental state is plummeting and she’s not the only one, reports all over the country that two months of care home isolation has created a horrific situation for our elderly. If this continues for another few months, we doubt she’ll make it through

Looking at the SCB increased mortality stats up and until 8th May (15 extra deaths per day for 2020 and dropping daily) I’d imagine it’ll be a few hundred either way by the end of 2020.

The other good news here is that last Friday ICU Covid-19 patients had finally dropped below 500 (from a high of 550+) and this Friday dropped below 400. Today it sits at 375 and now just 135 in all of Stockholm. We have over 1000 available ICU beds. So the curve isn’t just flat, it’s dropping right off.

All this achieved whilst keeping kids in school and society partially open. Keeping kids in school and in sport has been Sweden’s biggest success for sure.

@Classical Mechanic nailed it with with the lockdown vs. no lockdown debate when he mentioned Sweden and Belgium, there’s simply so much more to it. Likely, as I argued weeks and weeks ago, some Asian countries got out in front, but for everyone else it’s likely a matter of timing, the biggest factor was how much virus was already circulating in your country when we realised what was going down in Italy.

That’s not to say that the likes of Norway, Finland, Denmark and several other European counties etc haven’t done a tremendous job so far, they quite obviously have. But if they can leave lockdown as they have and not make the Swedish care home mistakes, they should feel confident about living with this virus even if their track and trace strategies don’t work long term.

I’ll finish with saying that I’m fed up with political optics on this issue and that’s why I hardly bother to post here now. The German league yesterday I thought was an utter joke. The subs thing, the celebration thing, the disinfecting of the balls, all appear nonsensical and just a case of pampering to the non existent crowd. The pics of kids in school in Munich turned my stomach, not only it is daft when looking at the evidence so far, that cannot be good for young kids mental standing.

Belgium has 75% less deaths than at peak. Sweden 50%. So lockdown was twice as effective. Belgium just was worse hit to begin.

Sweden's proportion of care home deaths is no different than elsewhere. The way to protect elderly is to keep all infection down.

Have you looked at Austria, regarding lockdowns. Remember the country where most Stickholm's cases came from. So by definition they had a worse situation to start with than Sweden. Austria has basicly suffocated the virus and can now live more normally than Sweden and have 6 (SIX!) times less deaths.

 

[TMDaines]

The Observer/The Guardian leading hard on the Northern regions revolting against Westminster. They have a very good point, but we’re not a federal system, and ironically just had a general election about whether the UK wanted to hold all its power in Westminster or pool its sovereignty into the EU.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Belgium has 75% less deaths than at peak. Sweden 50%. So lockdown was twice as effective. Belgium just was worse hit to begin.

Sweden’s peak came later than Belgium to be fair (5 days later?). Are Belgium good at confirmation of the exact date rather than just worldometers random daily updates?

 

[massi83]

Sweden’s peak came later than Belgium to be fair (5 days later?). Are Belgium good at confirmation of the exact date rather than just worldometers random daily updates?

I will check a bit later. No comment on Austria or Czech Republic?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I’ll finish with saying that I’m fed up with political optics on this issue and that’s why I hardly bother to post here now. The German league yesterday I thought was an utter joke. The subs thing, the celebration thing, the disinfecting of the balls, all appear nonsensical and just a case of pampering to the non existent crowd.
There seems to be tunnel vision with Covid-19, so many decisions made with only Covid-19 in mind and no consideration to anything else, as that infection rate is the only important thing to consider, the pics of kids in school in Munich turned my stomach, not only it is daft when looking at the evidence so far, that cannot be good for young kids mental standing.

That was definitely for the optics but why would you call it political? The Bundesliga games were being watched by the whole of Europe. It was important for them to make a bit of a song and dance about how they were at least attempting social distancing. So everyone watching is reminded that it’s still important. Would have been irresponsible of them to do otherwise.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

I will check a bit later. No comment on Austria or Czech Republic?

We’re talking about Belgium though mate, let’s stick to that first @massi83

Belgium’s highest death day according to their official stats was 344 on 12th April. Belgium then reported 323 deaths on 6th May to worldometers which is obviously nonsense and a bunch of days all reported at once.
So I’d like official stats backing up your 50% claim and how long it took from peak-50%.

Sweden’s highest deaths day was 15th April (3 days later), 116 deaths, and they officially reported 50 deaths on 8th May.

Unsure how you are making sweeping claims from those stats? I’m not saying you’re wrong, you may well be bang on, but I’d like to see official sources for the percentages you gave.

 

[redshaw]

Brazil 15k deaths total and 15k cases a day, 800 dead per day right now.

In Europe's hard hit countries there's a loose correlation even though deaths should be lagging, you see roughly 1k cases 100 deaths daily, ~3k cases ~300 deaths, 5k ~500, 6-8k cases ~700-900 deaths.

 

[massi83]

Sweden’s peak came later than Belgium to be fair (5 days later?). Are Belgium good at confirmation of the exact date rather than just worldometers random daily updates?

https://epistat.wiv-isp.be/covid/covid-19.html

Same death numbers from official Belgium health institute. Deaths have been under 100 since 29.4. Every day.

And you can compare the total currently in ICU numbers. Peak at 8.4. 1285. On 15.5. 364. Reduction of 72%!

So your thesis of Belgium and Sweden doing similarly has been proven wrong. Thanks for playing.

 

[massi83]

We’re talking about Belgium though mate, let’s stick to that first @massi83

Belgium’s highest death day according to their official stats was 344 on 12th April. Belgium then reported 323 deaths on 6th May to worldometers which is obviously nonsense and a bunch of days all reported at once.
So I’d like official stats backing up your 50% claim and how long it took from peak-50%.

Sweden’s highest deaths day was 15th April (3 days later), 116 deaths, and they officially reported 50 deaths on 8th May.

Unsure how you are making sweeping claims from those stats? I’m not saying you’re wrong, you may well be bang on, but I’d like to see official sources for the percentages you gave.

So now that we have done Belgium can we look at Austria or you only deal with data points that fit your agenda?

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

So now that we have done Belgium can we look at Austria or you only deal with data points that fit your agenda?

Lovely stat site that Belgium especially ICU numbers.
Is there a reason you can’t just debate without acting a wanker? I’m debating with you to ask questions and get answers that I admit I don’t have.

Sweden ICU peak of new patients going into ICu was 50 people on 22nd April. On 14th May just 14. That’s a significant drop isn’t it?

 

[Maagge]

haha, music indeed @Pogue Mahone

It’s been a strange few weeks, Sweden do finally appear to have the care home thing under some control, which whilst being good news now is also the single biggest failure of their approach, if they had addressed these issues earlier or bought themselves more time, the death toll could be much much lower at present.
Whether that is sustainable with care homes long term, I don’t know, the missus Grandma is climbing the walls and keeps trying to escape, her mental state is plummeting and she’s not the only one, reports all over the country that two months of care home isolation has created a horrific situation for our elderly. If this continues for another few months, we doubt she’ll make it through

Looking at the SCB increased mortality stats up and until 8th May (15 extra deaths per day for 2020 and dropping daily) I’d imagine it’ll be a few hundred either way by the end of 2020.

The other good news here is that last Friday ICU Covid-19 patients had finally dropped below 500 (from a high of 550+) and this Friday dropped below 400. Today it sits at 375 and now just 135 in all of Stockholm. We have over 1000 available ICU beds. So the curve isn’t just flat, it’s dropping right off.

All this achieved whilst keeping kids in school and society partially open. Keeping kids in school and in sport has been Sweden’s biggest success for sure.

@Classical Mechanic nailed it with with the lockdown vs. no lockdown debate when he mentioned Sweden and Belgium, there’s simply so much more to it. Likely, as I argued weeks and weeks ago, some Asian countries got out in front, but for everyone else it’s likely a matter of timing, the biggest factor was how much virus was already circulating in your country when we realised what was going down in Italy.

That’s not to say that the likes of Norway, Finland, Denmark and several other European counties etc haven’t done a tremendous job so far, they quite obviously have. But if they can leave lockdown as they have and not make the Swedish care home mistakes, they should feel confident about living with this virus even if their track and trace strategies don’t work long term.

I’ll finish with saying that I’m fed up with political optics on this issue and that’s why I hardly bother to post here now. The German league yesterday I thought was an utter joke. The subs thing, the celebration thing, the disinfecting of the balls, all appear nonsensical and just a case of pampering to the non existent crowd.
There seems to be tunnel vision with Covid-19, so many decisions made with only Covid-19 in mind and no consideration to anything else, as that infection rate is the only important thing to consider, the pics of kids in school in Munich turned my stomach, not only it is daft when looking at the evidence so far, that cannot be good for young kids mental standing.

Have Sweden upped the tests/day?
As far as I can see the daily news cases is more or less unchanged since the end of April, so you'd expect a fairly stable amount of ICU patiens as well, unless testing has gone up such that more mild cases are detected.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Have Sweden upped the tests/day?
As far as I can see the daily news cases is more or less unchanged since the end of April, so you'd expect a fairly stable amount of ICU patiens as well, unless testing has gone up such that more mild cases are detected.

Testing has increased significantly especially with hospital workers and even more so with care homes due to the issues here with that.

Think there’s a graph on FHM’s website showing how many of the cases are staff cases.

 

[massi83]

Lovely stat site that Belgium especially ICU numbers.
Is there a reason you can’t just debate without acting a wanker? I’m debating with you to ask questions and get answers that I admit I don’t have.

Sweden ICU peak of new patients going into ICu was 50 people on 22nd April. On 14th May just 14. That’s a significant drop isn’t it?

Only because you have a tendency to ignore many of the facts (I am not Benitez ) I do present. So I have less patience than I should have. And you have made 2 personal attacks before, not me.

It is good news! I would look at total ICU numbers or 3-5 day averages to get better quality data.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Only because you have a tendency to ignore many of the facts (I am not Benitez ) I do present. So I have less patience than I should have. And you have made 2 personal attacks before, not me.

It is good news! I would look at total ICU numbers or 3-5 day averages to get better quality data.

@Regulus Arcturus Black already gave the total ICU numbers for Sweden with his first post today. From 550+ down to 375. That’s a 32% reduction. Although maybe too early to fairly compare with Belgium?

What’s still missing from me re Sweden is an important upside to their lighter version of the lockdown. I have kids and play a lot of sports, so my life would have been miles better in Sweden. I’ve coped though. And I don’t think me enduring a shitty couple of months isn’t a price worth paying to save a bunch of lives.

Which leaves the economic burden. And I haven’t seen any data showing that Sweden is doing better economically than its neighbours. And they have definitely paid some sort of covid mortality cost by allowing more citizens get infected than they would have in a more severe lockdown. That shouldn’t be up for debate. We can argue all day about how big that cost is but that’s beside the point,.

Has anyone seen any evidence of this economic upside?

 

[golden_blunder]

This Kawasaki thing seems to be growing legs. Poor baby

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/baby-dies-coronavirus-related-kawasaki-22039781

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Only because you have a tendency to ignore many of the facts (I am not Benitez ) I do present. So I have less patience than I should have. And you have made 2 personal attacks before, not me.

It is good news! I would look at total ICU numbers or 3-5 day averages to get better quality data.

78 into ICU between 10th-14th May: Average: 15.6

217 into ICU during peak 5 day, around April 8th. Average: 43.4

That’s a 64% reduction right ? Rather significant.

I’m ignoring Austria only because part of the point I was agreeing with was that there are anomalies in this, and Austria doing better than Ireland, Belgium, The UK, Portugal, Germany, Sweden is almost crazy, especially considering some of those countries were late with lockdowns, some were early, one didn’t.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Has anyone seen any evidence of this economic upside?

Nope, not even us here.

 

[arnie_ni]

@Regulus Arcturus Black already gave the total ICU numbers for Sweden with his first post today. From 550+ down to 375. That’s a 32% reduction. Although maybe too early to fairly compare with Belgium?

What’s still missing from me re Sweden is an important upside to their lighter version of the lockdown. I have kids and play a lot of sports, so my life would have been miles better in Sweden. I’ve coped though. And I don’t think me enduring a shitty couple of months isn’t a price worth paying to save a bunch of lives.

Which leaves the economic burden. And I haven’t seen any data showing that Sweden is doing better economically than its neighbours. And they have definitely paid some sort of covid mortality cost by allowing more citizens get infected than they would have in a more severe lockdown. That shouldn’t be up for debate. We can argue all day about how big that cost is but that’s beside the point,.

Has anyone seen any evidence of this economic upside?

Read an article ages ago that said sweden is being stupid because a large part of their economy is tied in with the rest of Europe so it doesnt really matter what they do.

If Europe takes a bit hit they will to.

Which made the whole playing fast and loose worse.

No idea how true that is because i know nothing about the swedish economy

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

On the subject of Belgium, I haven’t actually been following what’s happened there (other than noticing their grim stats) but the citizens seem pretty pissed off with their government. Anyone know what they did wrong/differently to everyone else?

 

[Maagge]

Has anyone seen any evidence of this economic upside?

I've only seen some early projections that had Sweden and its neighbours doing very similarly. I don't think we'll really know what the economic repercussions will be until much later in the year. I'd guess a lot hinges on how good respective governments are at stimulating the economy when they're ready to start doing that.

 

[massi83]

@Regulus Arcturus Black already gave the total ICU numbers for Sweden with his first post today. From 550+ down to 375. That’s a 32% reduction. Although maybe too early to fairly compare with Belgium?

What’s still missing from me re Sweden is an important upside to their lighter version of the lockdown. I have kids and play a lot of sports, so my life would have been miles better in Sweden. I’ve coped though. And I don’t think me enduring a shitty couple of months isn’t a price worth paying to save a bunch of lives.

Which leaves the economic burden. And I haven’t seen any data showing that Sweden is doing better economically than its neighbours. And they have definitely paid some sort of covid mortality cost by allowing more citizens get infected than they would have in a more severe lockdown. That shouldn’t be up for debate. We can argue all day about how big that cost is but that’s beside the point,.

Has anyone seen any evidence of this economic upside?

Yes, I know he did. And I knew Sweden's number before he posted. I follow it weekly. But he does have a tendency to use 1 day numbers and small sample sizes and only look at data which agrees with his bias. So it was a general point.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Nope, not even us here.

Fair enough. I actually forgot to mention the other potential upside. A higher % of people immune after infection. Guess the serology data will help us out on this one.

 

[massi83]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

On the subject of Belgium, I haven’t actually been following what’s happened there (other than noticing their grim stats) but the citizens seem pretty pissed off with their government. Anyone know what they did wrong/differently to everyone else?

It is the only country that reports its deaths correctly. Excess deaths are really similar to UK and Spain.

Burn-Murdoch from Financial Times has nice graphs on twitter.

 

[Don't Kill Bill]

The Observer/The Guardian leading hard on the Northern regions revolting against Westminster. They have a very good point, but we’re not a federal system, and ironically just had a general election about whether the UK wanted to hold all its power in Westminster or pool its sovereignty into the EU.

Got a link, I'd like to read the articles.

Its a false dichotomy as those are not the only alternatives.

 

[massi83]

78 into ICU between 10th-14th May: Average: 15.6

217 into ICU during peak 5 day, around April 8th. Average: 43.4

That’s a 64% reduction right ? Rather significant.

I’m ignoring Austria only because part of the point I was agreeing with was that there are anomalies in this, and Austria doing better than Ireland, Belgium, The UK, Portugal, Germany, Sweden is almost crazy, especially considering some of those countries were late with lockdowns, some were early, one didn’t.

It is significant, and good! Still a lot less than Belgium.

Austria is not an exception. Czech republic, NZ, Aus, and many others

 

[Pogue Mahone]

It is the only country that reports its deaths correctly. Excess deaths are really similar to UK and Spain.

Burn-Murdoch from Financial Times has nice graphs on twitter.

Similar to UK and Spain would still have it amongst the worst. I’m just curious if the Belgian medics protesting are justifiably pissed off or if the Belgian government might be getting unfairly criticised when they’ve just been unlucky.