In a story in TIME magazine, two Swedish writers declare that Sweden’s approach to the Coronovirus has been a disaster. The authors are KELLY BJORKLUND AND ANDREW EWING. Kelly Bjorklund is a writer and human rights activist who has worked on public policy and advocacy with elected officials, civil society and media for two decades. Andrew Ewing is a professor of molecular biology and chemistry at the University of Gothenburg and a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Unlike other European nations, Sweden decided not to lockdown the economy, not to close schools, and to count on people to wear masks and practice social distancing. Their public health officials predicted that the nation would quickly achieve “herd immunity” by exposing people to the virus.
The authors write:
The Swedish COVID-19 experiment of not implementing early and strong measures to safeguard the population has been hotly debated around the world, but at this point we can predict it is almost certain to result in a net failure in terms of death and suffering. As of Oct. 13, Sweden’s per capita death rate is 58.4 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data, 12th highest in the world (not including tiny Andorra and San Marino). But perhaps more striking are the findings of a study published Oct. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which pointed out that, of the countries the researchers investigated, Sweden and the U.S. essentially make up a category of two: they are the only countries with high overall mortality rates that have failed to rapidly reduce those numbers as the pandemic has progressed.
Yet the architects of the Swedish plan are selling it as a success to the rest of the world. And officials in other countries, including at the top level of the U.S. government, are discussing the strategy as one to emulate—despite the reality that doing so will almost certainly increase the rates of death and misery.
Countries that locked down early and/or used extensive test and tracing—including Denmark, Finland, Norway, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and New Zealand—saved lives and limited damage to their economies. Countries that locked down late, came out of lock down too early, did not effectively test and quarantine, or only used a partial lockdown—including Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Spain, Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.—have almost uniformly done worse in rates of infection and death.
Read the article in full to see the graphs and accompanying evidence for the failure of Sweden to achieve “herd immunity.”
Genocide-lite.
Though some have argued that rising case numbers can be attributed to increased testing, a recent study of Stockholm’s wastewater published Oct. 5 by the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) argues otherwise.
The speaker from Sweden in the video sounds like Trump: we have more cases because we test more. It’s hard to admit when you have made a tragic mistake.
They not only are not admitting they made a mistake, but they are attacking anyone who points that out.
That’s the very opposite of science.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash
Ed reformers hold an event about K-12 education and covid:
Transforming K-12 Education in the Time of COVID-19
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October 20 at 10:15 am PDT/1:15 pm EDT
Part 1:
Guest Betsy DeVos, Secretary, US Department of Education
Moderator Ian Rowe, Resident Fellow, AEI
Part 2:
Guest Arne Duncan, Managing Director, Emerson Collective; former Secretary, US Department of Education; Author, “How Schools Work”
Moderator Nina Rees, President and CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Part 1 of this ed reform echo chamber event is voucher cheerleaders and Part 2 is charter cheerleaders.
90% of the students in this county attend public schools yet no one who supports public schools was invited. Public schools, students and families are deliberately excluded from all ed reform events.
Is it any wonder they haven’t lifted a finger for public schools in this pandemic? Anyone have any doubt about why that is? Public schools don’t even exist within the echo chamber.
Interesting rightwing company for Arne.
OMG! & in the midst of this pandemic, still banging the drums.
I guess the world of the aforementioned is so rarefied & elite that they have absolutely no idea of the real world.
Nor do they choose to.
Herd immunity is Darwinian policy that is inhumane. If we compare the mortality rate of Denmark to Sweden, we see that Sweden’s mortality rate is over four times higher. That statistic is no endorsement for a public health policy. What is worse is that even with all the loss, Sweden is nowhere near herd immunity. The only good thing to say about the Swedish health care system is that they have universal system, and their government is not trying to take away health care from millions of its citizens. Trump and the Republicans are trying to cut health services from millions of Americans protected by the ACA in the middle of a pandemic.
They’re not trying to take away health care…but it does seem they’re trying to lessen demand. Culling the herd is no longer limited to reindeer in Lapland!
Herd immunity is typically the goal of a vaccination campaign.
In other words, it assumes there is a vaccine to significantly boost the number of people who are immune (or at least resistant) to a virus well beyond those who acquire immunity as a result of getting sick with a virus.
It was never intended to be achieved without a vaccine by just letting people get infected and letting the disease run its course.
The folks who are calling for herd immunity don’t understand this basic — albeit critical — point.
To make matters even worse, the Swedish experiment was undertaken without even knowing whether getting the sarscov2 virus provides lasting (or even short term) immunity.
Banking on herd immunity without even knowing whether such a thing exists for this virus is the height of stupidity in my opinion.
If a wealthy think tank wants to “transform K-12 education in the time of covid 19” shouldn’t the wealthy think tank invite at least one person who values and supports the public schools that 90% of students attend, instead of excluding public school advocates and inviting only voucher and charter promoters?
How did it happen that ed reformers hold entire high-level planning discussions about public schools without anyone who attended, attends, works in or supports a public school present?
Ridiculous, right? Yet it’s a daily thing in the echo chamber. They interview each other.
So AGREE with you, Chiara.
“How did it happen that ed reformers hold entire high-level planning discussions about public schools without anyone who attended, attends, works in or supports a public school present?”
Good question.
Just the term “THINK TANK” makes me ILL.
When I saw Ducan’s name, i puked.
I am really shocked that Sweden took such a knuckle-headed approach to the pandemic since they are so progressive and sane on most other social issues (oh wait, they goofed on education, too, with privatization). Sweden has universal health care, free university education and:
“Barnbidrag”: Monetary support for children up to 16 (support also available for older students)
“Föräldrapenning”: Benefits to be able to be home from work to take care of their children for up to 480 days per child. It also includes special benefits to care about sick and disabled children.
“Bostadsbidrag”: Housing allowances for anyone who otherwise can’t afford housing.
“Sjukpenning”, “Sjukersättning”, “Aktivitetsersättning” and “Handikappersättning”: Benefits if you are ill or disabled and can’t work.
“Arbetslöshetsersättning”: Benefits for unemployed (time limited to 300 days, five days a week, which means 60 weeks)
“Ålderspension”, “Garantipension”: Benefits for those who have retired.
“Försörjningsstöd”: Benefits for anyone (and their children) who otherwise can’t get a reasonable standard of living. This is given out purely on a need-basis and handled by each municipality’s social service. Above from wikipedia.
Nobody’s perfect, they did goof big time on the plague
Joe, as you pointed out, Sweden erred big time by privatizing their schools, opening up even to for-profit schools. No gains, increased stratification.
Perhaps their problem is like ours: ignoring science on scientific matters.
All the the other things seem to be related note the to subjective decisions about what sort of society you want.
Decisions about education may be partly subjective, but there is also an objective component. And epidemiology obviously has a large objective component, which requires , among other things , dealing with uncertainty and risk.
Science has very well developed methods for dealing with the latter, methods that have largely been ignored in the US and Sweden.
On the plus side, just one Covid-related death in Sweden this week.
Sweden’s population is 12% the size of Germany’s (3% of the US). According to the latest Johns Hopkins statistics, Sweden had 5,930 COVID-related deaths this year. Germany had 9,928. Comparing Swedish apples to German apples, the German death count would be approaching 80,000 if they had adopted the Swedish approach. On the plus side, comparing Swedish apples to US apples, they’d still be slightly under 200,000 deaths.
Good to know we’re still dumbero uno
And another plus: Sweden already killed off a lot of their old and sick so now they are good to go another round.
Rushin’ to Swedish roulette?
It came a little later, but like the rest of Europe, Sweden is now experiencing a second wave of the virus
Following is from WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-tries-to-isolate-covid-19-cases-without-a-lockdown-as-infections-surge-11602004646
“Sweden, almost alone in Europe in rejecting a broad lockdown this spring, has introduced new guidelines to curb a surge in coronavirus infections but is sticking to its largely voluntary approach.
The Nordic country, which only had minor restrictions throughout its epidemic, had until recently been spared by the second wave of Covid-19 cases currently sweeping Europe. Authorities’ hopes that this was the result of collective immunity built as the disease spread rapidly through communities earlier in the year were dashed in recent days when a surge in new cases put Stockholm on track to reach last spring’s infection record.
While Mr. Tegnell [Sweden’s chief epidemiologist] said that Sweden wasn’t registering a rise in hospitalizations, he said that herd immunity had not materialized. Herd immunity is the stage of an epidemic when enough people have become immune to the pathogen either through falling ill or receiving a vaccine to stop it from spreading through society.
“For Covid, it’s been difficult to measure the immunity…it’s been a mystery to me. We probably have some kind of level of immunity in Sweden,” he said. “For Covid-19, (herd immunity) is still a foggy concept, how important it is and how it really works over time.”
// End of quotes
Immunity to covid is a mystery to the fellow who was responsible for the tack that Sweden took, and yet he banked on it working.
Makes perfect sense.
Like Scott Atlas, Tegnell also does not believe in mask wearing.
How do people like Atlas and Tegnell end up in top medical positions?
Tegnell seems as bad as Trump in the science denial department.
But of course, Tegnell is an actual scientist (or at least supposed to be)
As in Us. In sweden the doctors who speak out against the idiotic policies face a backlash.
‘It’s been so, so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash
But there is a major difference. In the US. It’s the doctors within the government that face censure.
In Sweden, it’s also doctors outside government (eg, in academia) who face a backlash from their colleagues who seemingly will defend Tegnell and his ignorant policies to their last breath .
I think it is likely too early to evaluate any countries performance, especially against what was possible in that country. Countries with high levels of trust in government and science will simply do better than countries where significant parts of the population do not trust the authorities or science.
In about 10 to 20 years we might know which countries have faired better, which worse. I look forward to the research that will be done.
Funny, I feel the same way about evaluating teachers and schools. We will know in about 10-15 years how good they were.
TE obviously does not understand irony.
The “performance” of Sweden’s chief epidemiologist (Tegnell) , which has had OBVIOUS deadly consequences, was based on ignoring what he did not know and denying what he did.
Just as you do on a regular basis.
Then again, I seriously doubt you are even smart enough to realize the irony in your statement.
And ten to twenty years are certainly not required to judge the “performance” of Sweden’s population , with little mask wearing, little social distancing, socializing, eating out and pretty much behaving as if nothing were up in the face of a highly infectious and deadly virus.
Their “performance” has been dreadful. If the people of Sweden have high levels of trust in science, they sure have a strange way of showing it.
But go ahead, TE, don’t beat around the bush like you usually do.
Tell us what you really believe this time: that masks don’t work, that business as usual is fine and that pursuing herd immunity without a vaccine is a grand idea (even though you, like Tegnell have no idea whether herd immunity is even possible for the sarscov2 virus)
Economists obviously have no ethical problem doing “experiments”* on millions of people, regardless of whether they have any scientific basis and even (particularly?) when there is suffering and death involved.
Which are not real scientific experiments because they never follow standard scientific practice (with control group, etc)
Not relevant to Sweden specifically, but I’ll just leave this here:
Quoting scientists rather than economists is a marked improvement.
Yes, but I now, understandably, have my doubts about the veracity of the CDC.
The Boston Globe: “After another jump in Boston’s coronavirus positivity rate, the city’s public school district said it has canceled in-person instruction…”
FYI, Boston shut its schools down because the test-positivity rate citywide triggered an automatic shutdown, not because of outbreaks at schools.
It’s good to remain skeptical, especially of nonsensical claims of positivity rates that are well below what can legitimately be concluded from the most accurate tests available.
https://dianeravitch.net/2020/10/19/good-news-new-york-citys-public-schools-are-surprisingly-safe/#comment-3126089
But scientists are definitely far more reliable than economists (especially stupid cranks who assure pregnant mothers that a glass of wine a day won’t harm their baby).
Stupid cranks like Teachingeconomist keeps plugging.
As I indicated, if a “positivity rate” is reported with no error/uncertainty, it’s essentially meaningless.
Reporting a bare positivity rate like 0.17% with no attached uncertainty/error indicates that the accuracy of the result is far greater than it actually is. It’s nonsense.
Even if the positivity rate calculated from test positives alone is only 0.17%, the RT-PCR test has a false negative rate of 2% (at best) and up to 29% and the resulting uncertainty completely dominates the result.
If one is using that information to decide whether to keep schools open, then one has to assume the worst case: that ALL of the negatives that can possibly be false negatives ARE false negatives ,(ie, real infections)
While it is possible to have less actual infections even than the 2% false negatives would indicate (and even possible to have zero infections), one has no way of knowing this from the test and if one can not know, one must assume the worst.
Any scientific result worth a damn ALWAYS includes an estimated error (normally indicated with “result +- error”) In the case of positivity rate, it can never go below zero, of course, so in the case of the NYCity schools, it would be written as
0.17% + %error
In this case, given the false native rate , reporting the positivity with the error would make it obvious that the most meaningful part by far was the error.
Most “significant part”
Not incidentally, some might say “Yes, but if you consider the uncertainty of the test , that means you can never assume that a calculated positivity rate below the uncertainty is correct”
And they would be right to say that.
Incidentally, to be perfectly precise, the report of the positivity in the above case should have an asymetric error
Something like 0.17% – 0.17% OR
0.17% + (%error from false negative rate)
That way zero infections (a possibility) would be included.
But since the claimed rate in this case is already so small and, more importantly, one is really only concerned with the worst case, it’s really not a significant issue to write it as I did above
0.17% + %error
FYI, retiredbutmissthekids
FLERP was the one who posted the bare “positives” (and positivity rate) from the NYCity Ed department that had absolutely no associated error/uncertainty.
https://dianeravitch.net/2020/10/19/good-news-new-york-citys-public-schools-are-surprisingly-safe/#comment-3125806
But I don’t really fault him because most people who don’t have a science background don’t understand what uncertainty/error is about or even that it matters.
But if he keeps posting the bullshit “positives” and/or “positivity rates” with no attached uncertainty/error, I will fault him.
The following web page for students might help people like FLERP! understand uncertainty (though I doubt it would help someone like TE, who does not seem to even WANT to understand)
“in science… everything is uncertain”
“No measurement can be completely accurate. There will always be some error.”
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/scientists-say-uncertainty
The U.S. is a disaster, and still no plan from our GREAT leader on how to level the number of infections. Trump says it will go away. I hope he goes away and has a long un-peaceful stay in a government lockup facility that takes away his iPhone.
NYT:
At least 828 new coronavirus deaths and 75,064 new cases were reported in the United States on Oct. 22. Over the past week, there have been an average of 62,168 cases per day, an increase of 32 percent from the average two weeks earlier.
As of Friday afternoon, more than 8,498,200 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 223,400 have died, according to a New York Times database.
Looks like the party is finally over in Sweden.
With daily infections back at the levels they were at back at their earlier height in June, someone with a clue is finally calling the shots. I predict
Sweden Clamps Down on Nightclubs After Packed Parties Risk Spread
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-22/sweden-clamps-down-on-nightclubs-amid-increase-in-covid-cases
I’m sure Teachingeconomist must be disappointed that the failed “experiment” is coming to a close, the poor dear.
SomeDAM Poet: The article on Bloomberg is against a pay wall. Try this…I think its the same article from a different site.
There is a chart comparing Sweden with Denmark, Norway and Finland. Finland and Norway are much lower in infections than Sweden.
……………………………………………..
Sweden Clamps Down on Nightclubs After Packed Parties Risk Spread
The country had hoped that higher levels of infections would give some protection against a second wave, but recent numbers show a steady increase in the number of cases.
http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/BB1aidxn?ocid=se
Swedes are about as dumb as this video, which concluded the Swedish “experiment” had succeeded, just before the second surge hit!
With its lazy fair policies and latest covid surge, Sweden has become a pariah country that others are now avoiding quite literally like the plague.
I wonder how THAT is going to affect their economy.
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/norway-urges-its-citizens-to-avoid-travel-to-whole-sweden-now/
“Since October 24, all persons seeking to enter Norway from Kalmar must first comply with ten days mandatory quarantine rules imposed by local authorities.
“Based on the National Institute of Public Health’s weekly assessment of the infection situation for the coronavirus, the government has decided that the Kalmar region in Sweden will go from yellow to red on the infection map for Europe, which means that the whole of Sweden will be red,” the statement reads.