
Swedish epidemiology boss says questioned Covid-19 strategy seems to be working - mrfusion
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-strategy-idUSKCN24M25L
======
imartin2k
Some important context not mentioned in the article:

During summer, Swedes are spending as much time as possible outside (to make
up for the dark cold winter months). Most offices are closed anyway, and
unlike many other countries in Europe which have removed their previous
limits, Sweden still has a 50 people limit on public gatherings and strict
rules for how restaurants and bars can operate (for example, only table
service, no bar service, even for outdoor venues). Amusement parks are closed.
The authorities still ask people not to use public transport if they don't
have to. Plus, people in risk groups (who don't have antibodies) are still
asked to limit their interactions with others and to limit their mobility.

So considering that infections are happening mostly indoors, that Sweden
nowadays has more restrictions in place than many European countries that
locked down and then opened up, and that Swedes generally protect their
personal space and don't get too touchy with others (in comparison to some
other cultures), it's not a surprise that the numbers in Sweden are going
down.

I'm happy about this trend. The way I see it, the country gets a second chance
now to get things right ahead of fall/winter. Sadly, considering that the
state epidemiologist and his team still are the same (and that he evidently
mostly cares about telling everybody how great his strategy is/was), I guess
they'll find ways to screw things up again.

~~~
makomk
I'd say that the fact that Sweden still had the same level of restrictions as
they previously had is proof that their approach is working exactly as
intended - the people behind it have long said that the goal isn't to push for
herd immunity, but to impose measures that are sustainable in the long term
rather than a short-term lockdown. Especially since many of the countries that
have locked down and then opened up are seeing a resurgence of the disease,
and their definition of opening up is sometimes as strict or stricter than
Sweden's rules (for example, the UK bans gatherings of over 30 people and
restricts restaurants and bars to table service only, amongst many other
restrictions).

~~~
basch
>Especially since many of the countries that have locked down and then opened
up are seeing a resurgence of the disease

Isnt that the expected result? Did anyone think something else would happen?
The original communication everyone was fed was "hospitals arent ready, close
down to flatten the curve to buy time." They asked for a delay, not spread
prevention. Spread prevention being, stay locked down forever until everybody
gets its slowly.

~~~
1996
Sweden made a contrarian bet: that hospitals won't be flooded, and a few less
ambitious measures that people will tolerate for a longer time is better than
a large list of freedom destroying measures that can only lead to riots if
imposed for too long (depending on the countries, you had things like lockdown
at home, with only shopping on some days depending on the last digit of your
social security, or only going out for 1 hour per day with printed, signed and
dated papers to present to the police, etc)

~~~
abrookewood
And that the country was happy with a much higher death rate. Sweden has less
than half the population of Australia and they have had 5,667 deaths and
Australia has had 128.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Oz is probably the sparsest country in the world.

~~~
mr_eel
With the majority of the population living in cities on the coast. Sydney?
Melbourne? Big, dense cities. We're not all out living in the bush shouting
cooee at each other.

------
wrkronmiller
I wish this article went into more detail about the relative death rates.

The fact that Sweden’s death rate “far outstripped that of other nordic”
countries (all else being equal) would tend to indicate the Swedish strategy
failed, no?

Are there important confounding variables that would explain the higher death
rate?

~~~
lsllc
I found it interesting that the general consensus seems to be that Sweden
failed, and yet NY state was just hailed as "doing it correctly" by Dr. Fauci
[0] (despite one of the very highest per-capita death rates in the world). We
didn't do much better here in MA in terms of deaths, although like NY we're
only seeing a very small (and importantly flat) number of cases here.

Meanwhile Australia, a country that was previously hailed as having done it
right and contained COVID-19 has now locked down 6.6 million people [1],
closed state borders between Queensland and NSW [2] and currently seeing
record numbers of infections [3].

Only time will tell which is the best strategy.

[0] [https://abc7ny.com/covid-19-ny-fauci-anthony-
cuomo/6324584/](https://abc7ny.com/covid-19-ny-fauci-anthony-cuomo/6324584/)

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-
coron...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-coronavirus-
intl-hnk/index.html)

[2] [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-shutting-
border-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-shutting-border-
between-two-biggest-states-as-covid-19-surges-in-melbourne-2020-07-06)

[3]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/australia...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/australia-
sets-record-for-coronavirus-cases-with-victoria-surge)

~~~
Khaine
In Australia, there has been an increase due to failings of the state
government of Victoria in poor practices by guards of returned travellers in
forced quarantine resulting in its spread, particularly to public housing
apartment complexes[1]

As this jump occurred during school holidays, it looks like Melbournians have
spread it to NSW as well which is why there is a jump in NSW. [2]

Australia would still be in a relatively good position if it wasn't for the
incompetence of the Andrews Government.

[1] [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-21/coronavirus-
quarantin...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-21/coronavirus-quarantine-
hotel-security-guards-recruited-whatsapp/12476574)

[2] [https://www.smh.com.au/national/melburnian-linked-to-
sydney-...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/melburnian-linked-to-sydney-s-
crossroads-hotel-covid-19-cluster-20200715-p55cel.html) [2]

~~~
mmerlin
Definitely agree.

Although to get slightly meta about this, the core blame lies with the 25
years trend of Australian governments outsourcing or selling off every
possible previously-government-owned service they can (mostly to China-owned
corporations) for a short term sugar hit of revenue for the currently
incumbent politicians, to make themselves look good, without caring about the
negative long term consequences to government revenue.

Profitable government monopolies like the Land Titles Registries have been
sold to private international owners, who then raise costs for citizens, in
order to recoup their investment faster.

Politicians strongly favour awarding outsourced contracts to their donors. In
this case without opening the contract up for tender or competitive bidding,
and obviously without much due diligence e.g. I read that one of the security
firms donated $76k to Dan Andrews party last year.

So government outsources work to contractors who subcontract the work to
independent ABN holders, who in turn can subcontract the work out to their
employees, who in turn might be subcontractors themselves to the last company
in the chain.

Politicians and public servants are normally happy with this arrangement
because they can then wash their hands of blame for any mistakes, and pin it
on the outsourcers who stuffed up.

In this case though, the blame is serious enough that it has jumped the
subcontractor firewalls and burned its way all the way back up to the top (Dan
Andrews).

~~~
Khaine
Right, but its a bit of role reversal since Victoria is run by a Labour
government which outsourced this to poorly trained security guards, whereas
NSW with its Liberal (read conservative for Americans) government got the
police to do it.

~~~
Bendingo
Labour ==> Labor

~~~
Khaine
I know, I know. Its not my fault they can't spell :P

------
dgellow
At this point in time, asking the question "Was Sweden correct?" feels like
pure speculation, more like a betting game. The players (i.e: European
countries) did play their cards, but it's way too early to know the result.
What's the point of continuously asking?

~~~
m12k
I live just across the border from Sweden, in Denmark. Our health authorities
proposed the same strategy as Sweden - but our prime minister overruled them,
and chose a bigger lockdown quickly, after a serious warning from the Italian
health minister about the grievous ramifications of doing just a 'measured
response' like the epidemic playbooks prescribe. I'm glad she did. She chose a
strategy that bought us time - and since then we've learned several important
things: One is that social distancing is a much more effective weapon against
viruses than we had imagined - so it's not inevitable that everyone will
eventually get sick. And the other thing we've learned is that in addition to
its relatively high mortality rate, this virus causes many more side effects
by messing with our blood vessels, causing all sorts of organ damage. A
significant number of those infected end up with decreased lung capacity or
neural damage causing decreased cognitive function and/or decreased motor
skills. So yes, Sweden probably took a smaller initial hit to their economy
compared to ours in the first months, by not locking fully down. But what
percentage of the population needs to get permanent nerve damage before it can
be felt on your GDP for the next generation? Sweden's strategy does not allow
them to avoid this, because the infection has already run much of its course.
I'm glad we chose a more cautious approach. I think Sweden executed more or
less what was considered best practice in the epidemic playbooks - but I think
those playbooks will be re-written based on what this virus has taught us.

------
dmurray
It seems to me that the lesson we should be learning from Sweden is different.

The measures undertaken in Sweden weren't sufficient to control the spread of
the coronavirus at the start. They saw exponential growth like anywhere else
that did not impose a lockdown. But the growth stopped faster than predicted
by any models of herd immunity. They're now seeing 300 new cases a day,
compared to 1100 at their peak. They've had about 1% of the population test
positive, and about 0.1% of population die - and neither of those numbers look
likely to grow significantly. You can quibble over testing statistics or death
reporting, but they've had about 50% of the testing rate of Florida [0] and
the excess deaths are within a factor of two of reported deaths[1].

If only 20% of people are immune to Covid-19, with a base reproductive rate of
well over 1, this slowdown simply couldn't happen. The truth is there's
something else going on: either it's way more infectious (but less dangerous)
than realised, or more likely, a very large proportion of people have baseline
immunity to the infection. It spreads rapidly through those who had no
previous immunity and then burns out.

So it's not that Sweden did things right. They chose to be the control case
for the lockdown experiment, and they got lucky that the virus isn't as bad as
we thought. Back in March, it was a totally reasonable belief that the virus
if unchecked will spread to 60-70% of people and kill 1% of those - we'd only
seen the spread rates from the early days of the pandemic in China. Now, the
only observation we have from leaving the virus unchecked points to a much
lower number.

It's still rational for governments to err on the side of caution and wait for
more data (especially on long-term effects), and to manage the pandemic to
avoid saturating hospital and ICU use. But it's not rational to treat a
disease that threatens to kill 0.1% in the same way as one that threatens 1%.
If we see similar results in Florida - a region with good data and a
reckless/casual approach to lockdown - we should see a peak in terms of new
cases/day in the next three weeks and then it will be time to really accept
that the risk is lower than we thought.

[0] almost all stats from
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/)

[1] excess deaths from [https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-
maps/](https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/)

~~~
glofish
Come on, it was pretty obvious from very early on (during the Wuhan outbreak,
then validated in Italy soon after) that the disease did not kill 1%, the
symptoms for the vast majority of those that get sick are mild (to even being
asymptomatic), moreover that the age skew was extremely strong. The median age
of death is over 80!

All these factors together were used to decide on the strategy. Subscribing it
to luck is unfair. It is more about expertise or lack thereof. A bureaucrat
with little practical expertise is less likely to take risks since they are
afraid of being exposed as lacking knowledge. Anders Tegnell most certainly
was not afraid of going against the grain.

Introducing lockdowns in nursing homes early on would have avoided probably
60%-80% of deaths. This applies to Sweden and other countries as well.

~~~
dmurray
> Come on, it was pretty obvious from very early on (during the Wuhan
> outbreak, then validated in Italy soon after) that the disease did not kill
> 1%

I don't think this was that obvious. Without widespread testing it was hard to
tell how many people had got the virus. In China, 1 in 20 people who tested
positive have died. In Italy it's a shocking 1 in 7. That's using today's
figures: it was even more back then.

I remember respectable bodies estimating 0.5% or 1% mortality rate, though I
can't find a WHO source that is more committal than "it appears to be worse
than seasonal influenza". I'd call it a calculated risk.

~~~
mamon
To know the actual mortality rate you would have to test every single person
in a country. Right now is more of the cultural thing: How likely is the
person experiencing flu-like symptoms to go and test for coronavirus? Seems
that in Italy only seriously sick people would go and take test, that's why
you have this shocking 1 in 7 rate - because most of the mild cases go
undetected.

------
tgb
Does falling death rates really indicate widespread immunity? I'd like to see
the randomized immunology tests to back that up (maybe he has them, but this
article doesn't indicate it). I haven't heard of anywhere near herd-immunity
levels yet.

~~~
Kiro
The 40% immunity number (antibodies + t-cell) is based on randomized
immunology tests.

~~~
dariosalvi78
where does this 40% come from, do you have the source?

------
vmchale
How? A bunch of people died. Compared to Finland, Denmark, or Norway it looks
like a disaster.

------
Pfhreak
Doesn't this person have a vested interest in saying their approach is
successful?

Also, the article fails to define success -- death toll, economic impact, and
long term health consequences from exposure to covid are certainly all factors
and the article only mentions one.

~~~
walkingolof
Belgium is (about) the same size in Sweden, has (almost) twice the mortality
rate. Why?

Nobody really now yet, and its not over either, the pandemic still very much a
thing.

But some clues points towards that the virus slipped into the nursing home
system in both countries.

~~~
reportgunner
Perhaps Sweden having 15 times more land could have something to do with it.

~~~
walkingolof
No, 85% of Sweden's population lives on 1.5% of the land area.

------
dgut
It's not clear how Sweden's strategy is working compared to other Nordic
countries. Norway has at the time of writing 255 deaths, Sweden 5646, and 19
vs 769 new cases today.[1][2] Norwegians are more or less back to normal life.
Economically, Sweden did far worse than Norway as of 25. of June, with 25%
more bankruptcies than previous year - same period - vs only 6.5% increase in
Norway.[3]

[1]
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/norway/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/norway/)

[2]
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/)

[3] [https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/AdjrvM/svenskene-fikk-
konkursru...](https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/AdjrvM/svenskene-fikk-konkursrush-
selv-om-de-ikke-stengte-landet)

~~~
hkeide
As a Norwegian I don't trust a Norwegian newspaper to be anywhere near
impartial with regards to the economic question. I also think it's hard to
compare Norway and Sweden economically given the amount of money spent on
stimulus by Norway this year because of "the oil".

Are the Covid deaths counted the same way? It seems for example that Sweden
are very aggressive with labeling a death as Covid and e.g. Finland are
undercounting.

The number of cases seems more clear cut, and I agree that it's not clear that
the strategy either failed or succeeded. Just pointing out some potential
pitfalls comparing even these two relatively similar countries.

~~~
dgut
Unless you have reliable information about Sweden exaggerating the number of
Covid deaths, I can't see the argument. Even if Sweden wrongly labelled 25% as
Covid deaths, that's still a significantly larger number population size taken
into account.

The bankruptcy numbers aren't a matter of opinion, these are public numbers
that are regularly published by each respective country.

~~~
hkeide
I didn't claim you made up the bankruptcy numbers. I just pointed out the
economies are different. We are discussing a strategy for dealing with the
virus, not who has the most money. If you've been to Scandinavia you will know
who has the most money.

Exaggerating is a strong word. I don't think any two countries count deaths in
the same way however.

------
anoraca
Interesting to see this after reading this article yesterday:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronaviru...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-
swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/)

~~~
reportgunner
Thanks for the link, I think the OP's article is from a month earlier.

------
mhandley
I don't think we're going to have any idea which strategies actually worked
for another year or so. If there's a large second wave this winter in other
countries, and Sweden doesn't suffer from that due to immunity already
acquired, then we may say Sweden's strategy worked. But if other countries
that locked down early manage to keep it under control into the winter without
having to lock down again (and suffer the economic, psychological and non-
covid health consequences of that), and then a vaccine becomes available or
other methods to reduce the death toll and health consequences, then we would
conclude that the deaths so far were unnecessary and Sweden got it wrong. Most
European countries are at the end of the beginning right now, but not
necessarily the beginning of the end.

~~~
dariosalvi78
exactly, thanks for expressing this correctly and clearly. It's all
speculations now.

The only thing we can say is that the contagion is under control at the moment
(contrary to what many predicted) but the strategy has costed a number of
(probably) preventable deaths. Let's review this in 6 months or so.

EDIT: rephrasing.

~~~
glofish
the problem is with your word "preventable"

what you mean by "preventable" is "at a cost that we don't have a way to
quantify", hence will call that cost "inconvenience" and only focus on what we
have "prevented"

all these measures that we take will kill many times more people than the
disease. It is just the new deaths and damage are a diffuse costs whereas the
benefits are concentrated and visible.

~~~
Viliam1234
> all these measures that we take will kill many times more people than the
> disease.

I have seen this claim repeatedly, but always without numbers.

I completely agree that the measures have economic consequences, and the
economic consequences will cost lives. But how do you know that the number is
_greater_ than the fraction of population killed by the coronavirus?

For example, the coronavirus in Sweden killed 0.05% of the population. Also,
at least 0.7% got sick, with various consequences. Could you estimate what
fraction of their population have other countries killed by the lockdowns? Ten
percent? One percent? Zero point one percent?

~~~
iateanapple
> But how do you know that the number is greater than the fraction of
> population killed by the coronavirus?

You can measure it. For example you can look at excess mortality in the UK and
then look at what fraction of that excess mortality is directly attributed to
COVID.

Lots of people are doing this kind of data analysis on twitter.

Of course the guesswork comes in when you try to imagine how people would have
acted without a lockdown.

Without lockdown would people still have gone for non-essential medical
checkups for example?

~~~
Viliam1234
I haven't looked at data from other countries yet. In Slovakia, the total
mortality this year is _lower_ than in the comparable period during previous
years. I haven't investigated it, but my guess is fewer car accidents, and
fewer people dying from the usual contagious diseases.

Of course it is possible that some deaths will come later, such as people who
missed their medical checkups, have a condition that could have been cured a
few months ago but is fatal now, and are still alive at the moment. I don't
really think this is a large part of population.

I also suspect that if you do the simple calculation "excess mortality minus
_confirmed_ COVID deaths", this will be an overestimate, because many COVID
deaths are misclassified as something else, e.g. pneumonia. And all those
misclassified excess deaths would then appear as "victims of lockdown".

~~~
iateanapple
> I also suspect that if you do the simple calculation "excess mortality minus
> confirmed COVID deaths", this will be an overestimate, because many COVID
> deaths are misclassified as something else, e.g. pneumonia.

I think it depends on the country - a lot of countries are labelling any
deaths with COVID symptoms as COVID (even though the symptoms are common to
other illnesses like the flu).

In these countries it will likely be an overestimate.

> In Slovakia, the total mortality this year is lower than in the comparable
> period during previous years.

Yes, COVID has been fairly benign in a lot of countries and a massive killer
of the old in others.

------
viburnum
Every country that tried full eradication has succeeded (Vietnam, New Zealand,
Taiwan, Mongolia, etc). Trying to live with it does not work.

~~~
gknapp
Vietnam does not have the capacity to accurately test any reasonable swathe of
the country, nor are they known for being transparent with any government
data. I would take any data published from them with a lot of skepticism.

~~~
viburnum
Vietnam absolutely does have the capacity to test. They have an incredibly
advanced public health system, unlike the United States.

------
reportgunner
> June 23rd

> epidemology boss says "epdemic is being slowed down"

> all time high daily new cases in Sweden one day later[0]

[0]
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/)

------
dominik3
Their strategy might be working if you look at the cases however, lockdowns
still seem to be the way more efficient strategy. Sweden is still far away
from herd immunity and other European countries which had lockdowns have
lowered the cases weeks ago. Even Swedens economy isn't doing much better.

~~~
w0utert
>> _Sweden is still far away from herd immunity_

The point this guy is trying to make is that Sweden appears to be quite close
to herd immunity, considering both infections and deaths are apparently
declining by itself now. What makes you think this is impossible?

~~~
bluGill
Summer tends to give other reasons for a decline. We will see what next winter
brings.

~~~
beagle3
And yet summer fails to bring that decline in the US and other places.

~~~
bluGill
Compared to what?

~~~
beagle3
Sweden; GP claimed Sweden’s numbers are I declined thanks to “the summer”, a
claim which is disproved by the lack of decline in other places that
experience summer at the same time.

~~~
bluGill
The US has been exiting lockdown, which is a factor. I don't know what it
means - there isn't a true control where we can say X is different.

------
raziel2p
Looking at the graphs of Sweden's infection rate, it seems like it peaked in
early June and then went down. In May/June restrictions were only loosened,
not made stricter. So any decrease in infections has to be _in spite_ of the
government's strategy, not because of it... right?

And as other commenters have pointed out, the death toll and mortality rate is
inexcusable, and there was no economic gain from Sweden's approach. Just
because the trend is going in the right direction now doesn't excuse the fact
that their response had terrible results compared to neighboring countries.

~~~
jeltz
No, it most likely peaked in early April if you look at the number of deaths
and ICU admissions. The infection rate is mostly useless since we have changed
testing strategy several times.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
The quote below is what has stayed with me from the moment Anders Tegnell
started appearing in news items online. It's from an interview published in 21
April 2020 in Nature:

 _The big debate we are facing right now is around care homes for older
people, where we registered very unfortunate outbreaks of the coronavirus.
This accounts for Sweden’s higher death rate, compared with our neighbours.
Investigations are ongoing, because we must understand which reccommendations
have not been followed, and why._

[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x)

The quote betrays a complete and utter unwillingness to assume any
responsibility for the Swedish Publich Health Agency's "recommendations" and
blame everything on others for failing to follow them.

Note that the PHA's "recommendations" were based on an equally recalcitrant
unwillingness to accept that asymptomatic carriers can spread the disease.
From the same article:

 _There is a possibility that asymptomatics might be contagious, and some
recent studies indicate that. But the amount of spread is probably fairly
small compared to people who show symptoms. In the normal distribution of a
bell curve asymptomatics sit at the margin, whereas most of the curve is
occupied by symptomatics, the ones that we really need to stop._

Because of this unwillingness to consider unsymptomatic carriers' potential
for spreading the disease, the Swedish PHA's recommendations for care home
workers were inadequate to protect care home residents:

 _The agency’s advice to those managing and working at nursing homes, like its
policy towards coronavirus in general, has been based on its judgment that the
“spread from those without symptoms is responsible for a very limited share”
of those who get infected._

 _Its advice to the care workers and nurses looking after older people such as
Bondesson’s 69-year-old mother is that they should not wear protective masks
or use other protective equipment unless they are dealing with a resident in
the home they have reason to suspect is infected._

 _Otherwise the central protective measure in place is that staff should stay
home if they detect any symptoms in themselves._

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-
swede...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as-
elderly-pay-price-for-coronavirus-strategy)

------
tharne
This sounds like a desperate attempt to save face. Basically, their argument
boils down to, "Well some countries did better than us and some did worse, so
really our strategy wasn't so bad". The fact is a whole lot of people died in
Sweden both in absolute numbers and relative to their neighbors. I know Sweden
is used to being the smartest country in the room, but sometimes even the best
among us make mistakes.

It's ok, just own it. No one has a perfect answer to this situation. You tried
something different and it didn't work out.

~~~
dgellow
> I know Sweden is used to being the smartest country in the room

Sweden being "smarter" than other countries is just a common American trope.
For some reasons Scandinavian countries are misrepresented all the time by US
politicians and media trying to make a point.

~~~
tharne
Fair enough. The American left worships Sweden.

~~~
dgellow
From what I've seen they seem to worship a version of Sweden that doesn't
match reality, though I'm not that well informed on the American left
specifically.

~~~
tharne
You're better informed than you think, your take is pretty spot on. I have
relatives in Scandinavia and they always joke that they wished they lived in
America's version of Sweden.

------
iantrt
Whether their strategy was successful or not depends on the definition of
success, but -- more importantly -- I think it is still too early to tell.

Much will depend on the endgame: if there is a vaccine soon, Sweden's strategy
will look foolish, since it would have been better to enforce stricter
measures and wait for the vaccine. If the vaccine takes a long time to arrive,
they may have immunised a larger portion of the population much quicker than
those with stricter measures (basically their Nordic neighbours) and will be
in a position to return to "normal" much quicker.

Sweden has a high death-toll at the moment, but I think their strategy was a
valid choice. It seems that there are strong diminishing to the measures. That
is, even fairly light measures slow down the spread a lot, and the stricter
measures have very little punch, but much economic impact.

Running the numbers on this, my team and I guesstimated that measures
representing a 5% economic slowdown already reduce the infection rate by 60%,
whilst a 10% economic slowdown would buy a infection rate reduction of around
70%. A 15% slowdown would buy an infection rate reduction of around 75%. So
the thing is, the trade-off is not constant between economic impacts and the
reduction in the infection rate, the policies seem to have (strong!)
decreasing returns.

Sweden is closer to herd immunity than its neighbours. If the vaccine comes
soon, the strategy of their neighbours will look better. If the vaccine takes
a long time, Sweden's strategy may turn out to have been the better strategy.
It is, quite simply, too early to say at this point.

~~~
qqqwerty
I mostly agree, but I think there are some caveats here. If the duration of
immunity is shorter than expected, or if long term health issues turn out to
be fairly significant and prevalent, then Sweden's strategy won't end up
looking too good.

And of course the other caveat is that when these strategies were implemented,
the number of unknowns about COVID was much higher. So even if the outcome of
their strategy ends up being acceptable, that still doesn't mean they made the
correct decision base on the knowledge that was available at the time.

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cblconfederate
There is absolutely no reason to make such handwavy statements. Immunity can
be measured, and he is the one who can measure it. this is soo unscientific

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dariosalvi78
I'm afraid it's not that easy to measure, antibodies are only part of the
picture

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mamon
Some studies claim that immunity for SARS-CoV-2 only lasts for two weeks,
which would make that "herd immunity" strategy completely foolish.

[https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-immunity.html](https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-immunity.html)

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DangerousPie
In comparison to their neighbours they have a vastly higher death rate and
their economy has not done any better, despite their lighter lockdown.

So unless this person is claiming that no further infections would occur if
Sweden would stop all containment measures and go back to life as usual I
don't see how this could be called "working" in any sense of the word.

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h3ll0k4ll3
For many people understanding Swedish Bureaucracy can be difficult. But you
should be aware that in Sweden the political government cant fire Anders
Tegnell. Its prevented by the Swedish constitution. Politicians cant involve
themselves in Swedish government agencies. And due to labor laws he cant be
prosecuted or dismissed from his service if he does not violate the labor
laws. He cant be fired for "murdering" thousands of Swedish citizens with his
advice ( that directly opposes the advice of CDC, WHO, or any other expert
organization in 100+ countries).

Please Stop and Ask yourselves. Why Would This Person. Anders Tegnell (
working for a tiny swedish no so special agency ) Know better than the rest of
the competence of the entire world.

"Folkhälsomyndigheten" have done all in their power to silence any objections
from within the agency and the broader Swedish research community. Explicitly
choosing an think-tank of outside experts not objecting the strategy.

We are talking about an government organisation where like-mindedness is the
norm. They dont publish their sources for estimations, calculations or any of
their "theories & strategies" either.

Here are 25 of the prominent swedish researchers objecting the "strategy"
urging the rest of the world to please not Listen to Anders Tegnell.
[https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/21/coronavirus-
swedish-herd-immunity-drove-up-death-toll-column/5472100002/)

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walkingolof
This reads like some conspiracy Nonsense, he can at any point be relived of
his duties, also, the agency is not Tegnell, there is a lot of good people
working there that would step up if needed.

