Sweden watch!

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Ooops...allah!

Uppsala? Largest student town in Sweden

[BlodwynPig]

Uppsala? Largest student town in Sweden

That was the Swedish curve. Uppsala is pretty cool, has a biogas bus.

[BlodwynPig]

LOOKS LIKE THEY'VE FUCKED IT

Massive rise today

[bgmnts]

Not even pure Swedish gawjus genes can withstand covid.

[Abnormal Palm]

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as-elderly-pay-price-for-coronavirus-strategy?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true

Going to be very interesting what happens here over the next fortnight. They've gone full head in the sand.

[Annie Labuntur]

The evidence from Stockholm, which has so far pursued a rational, proportionate, limited policy, still suggests that Sweden will emerge from this less damaged by far than we will.

Not my words Michael, the words of Peter Hitchens. In his MoS column today.

[Abnormal Palm]

They've lowered the age cut-off for ICU before their hand is forced, and are therefore prioritising empty beds for hypothetical younger patients over treating the most vulnerable.

There's no implied criticism there, just a bare acknowledgement of their strategy.

[Inspector Norse]

They've lowered the age cut-off for ICU before their hand is forced, and are therefore prioritising empty beds for hypothetical younger patients over treating the most vulnerable.

No they haven't and no they aren't. In fact the health authorities have been investigating hospitals where this has been reported.

There are guidelines in place for how patients should be prioritised in the event that intensive care becomes overwhelmed - I would imagine the same is true of every country - but intensive care has not yet been overwhelmed and the number of patients has been steady for a couple of weeks.

[chveik]

it seems like there is a lot of misinformation going around about Sweden. strange, I guess people need to convince themselves that at least their government is doing 'better', whatever that means

[Abnormal Palm]

I was reading plenty of discussion of elsewhere with what looked like comprehensive supporting evidence, but I am hoping that it's misinformation.

[Inspector Norse]

From SVT on Friday:

Larm om att patienter prioriteras bort – IVO gör tillsyn på Karolinska
Vårdpersonal i Stockholm larmar om att patienter i behov av intensivvård prioriteras bort – trots att det finns lediga platser. Nu inleder IVO en tillsyn på Karolinska universitetssjukhuset.
Inspektionen för vård och omsorg, IVO, har fått flera tips kopplade till prioriteringar av coronapatienter inom intensivvården i region Stockholm. Bland annat gällande Karolinska universitetssjukhuset.

– Några tips handlar om prioriteringen av njursjuka till intensivvård. Utifrån de indikationerna väljer vi att starta upp en tillsyn på Karolinska universitetssjukhuset. Vi kommer nu att granska verksamheten, säger Linda Almqvist, chefsjurist på IVO.

Prioriterar olika
Men tipsen, som av IVO beskrivs som allvarliga, handlar inte bara om Karolinska. Flera av dem vittnar om att sjukhusen i regionen prioriterar olika när det kommer till vem som får intensivvård.

"Vi har vid upprepade tillfällen upplevt att de patienter som bedöms kunna behöva respiratorvård under lång tid (t.ex. ett par veckor), nekas intensivvård med argumentet att en yngre patient med bättre prognos kan komma att behöva platsen om några dagar, när intensivvårdsplatserna i regionen tar slut", står det i ett av tipsen som SVT har tagit del av.

Möte med regionen
Med anledning av uppgifterna som kommit in till IVO kallade de chefläkare i regionen till ett möte i förra veckan.

Efter mötet skickades ett mejl, undertecknat av chefläkaren Johan Bratt, ut till sjukhusen där det bland annat stod: "I ett läge när vi har mer än 70 lediga IVA platser i regionen är det viktigt att kriterierna för intensivvård inte blir för snäva".

På fredagen hade IVO och regionens chefläkare Johan Bratt och Elda Sparrelid ett uppföljande möte.

– Vi har fått en kvittens på att chefläkarna har förtydligat vad som gäller kring Socialstyrelsens prioriteringsriktlinjer. Det vill säga att de inte behöver tillämpas eftersom det finns tillgång till IVA-platser i nuläget, säger Linda Almqvist på IVO.

Karolinska välkomnar tillsynen
Karolinska Universitetssjukhusets chefläkare Filippa Nyberg skriver i ett mejl till SVT att sjukhuset välkomnar tillsynen, men att de inte mottagit något meddelande om tillsyn från IVO och att hon därför inte kan lämna några specifika kommentarer. 

Filippa Nyberg skriver också att "Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset ger vård baserad på medicinska bedömningar, oavsett patientgrupp" och att "det är medicinska prioriteringar och framförallt den individuella patientens prognos att överleva intensivvård som avgör beslut för behandling i detta för intensivvården extraordinära läge".

Stick it through TalkToTransformer Google Translate and you'll get the gist.

[Abnormal Palm]

It just says MANIFESTEN 62

[Abnormal Palm]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-deaths-lockdown-social-distancing-denmark-finland-norway-a9470771.html

Seems worse in the short term than neighbours and most comparable, but still better than the UK, Spain and Italy - all of which are virtually third world.

[Inspector Norse]

What that graph doesn't show is that Sweden was among the first European countries to have a confirmed case, a good month before Denmark, Norway or Poland. Those countries had a whole month to see what was happening elsewhere and prepare their strategy and their health services.
Only Finland on that graph had any confirmations around the same time and they are weird.

Here's another graph showing other European countries that got the virus in that first wave between 24 Jan-4 Feb:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-covid-19?country=BEL+DEU+ITA+NLD+RUS+SWE+GBR+FRA+ESP+FIN

Now, Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the UK all have considerably higher populations than Sweden, but all with the exception of Germany have proportionally higher death rates, as does Belgium. And the death rate in the Netherlands is also slightly higher when you look at the population size. One key may be the low population density in Sweden which has meant that the only serious spread has been within the cities.

Russia is also on the graph but anyone who believes any statistics they come out with is a pranny.

[Dewt]

None of those plot deaths against soppiness

A lot can explained by which country has more "soppy buggers"

[Inspector Norse]

It's obviously too early to make any kind of real judgment because the information and statistics and research are all so variable. Things could change drastically in a fortnight and we could see the lockdown having a real effect or we could - this is a key factor in Sweden's approach - see countries that start coming out of lockdown getting hit by a second wave of infections.

I have my own doubts about the strategy in Sweden, specifically how much people are actually following the recommendations: I know that I am doing my best with working from home, restricting social contact and travel etc, but I can't honestly say that everyone I know is doing the same. I've been saying for a while that while I do have confidence in Anders Tegnell and his team, what I think the government need to do is start saying CAN'T rather than SHOULDN'T and make the recommendations enforcable. Only key workers on public transport, no outings for the elderly, no workplace meetings that can't be done digitally, etc.

[Abnormal Palm]

Thanks for that.

To clarify, I'm not criticising, just interested in the approach given that we may well pivot in the UK once economic demands make the strategy more politically favourable and tenable.

Effectively, the UK government has already allowed the care system to protect ICU capacity and to spare front line NHS staff from the scenes seen in Italy and Wuhan. There will be an inquiry, even if it takes years.

[BlodwynPig]

RussiaUK is also on the graph but anyone who believes any statistics they come out with is a pranny.