Meanwhile, in Sweden...

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I was pandering to the MSM and their obsession with the 2nd wave, I suppose what I was saying is are we better placed to naturally fight off any more attacks quickly
 
I cannot believe this thread is still going - it has surely been a disaster - not so bad as UK and USA but a disaster all the same.
Deaths from COVID 19

Denmark - 610

Norway – 254

Finland – 328

South Korea - 293

New Zealand – 22

Hong Kong – 11

Vietnam – 0!!

Sweden - 5,619

Hong Kong - is in 3rd wave but because of their successful track and trace they reckon they will be able to relax lockdown restrictions in about a week. You can look on your phone there and see where the current cases are geographically within the city state.
They will no doubt get more outbreaks brought from outside - but because of their successful corona virus infrastructure they can bounce back much more quickly and with confidence. The same will be said for South Korea and New Zealand - why did we not copy their successes and even work with South Korea to bring their very successful track and trace to UK?
 
Actually, not a disaster in Sweden Rob. About 4000 over 80s have died prematurely, but most were in end of life care. That was a failing, that they died maybe 6 months early, but that can happen with any communicable disease, like flu for instance, when people get to that age. If it ain't covid, it'll be c-diff or urine infection, dementia etc. The countries with low numbers of deaths might well have them down the line, unless an effective vaccine is rolled out very soon. Greece did well to keep numbers low, but they desperately need tourism and already they are seeing an increase in cases.The same will likely happen in Norway/Finalnd etc as they open up. It's summer now, so most people will have robust immune systems, but this winter it might be trickier. Finland, for instance, needs the Santa tourists in Lapland.
I should also add that not all countries are being as rigorous with their reporting of deaths.
 
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More about data gathering and anomalies. Primarily about the UK but also Sweden mentioned. As the guy says, comparing different countries is really very difficult because of difference in data collection and also age demographic. As always, a fascinating interview.
 
Scientists in Skane, southern Sweden were planning to do research on plasma from recovered covid patients, to see if it helped sufferers, but they have been thwarted, as there are now too few people being treated for covid 19 in the region for the research to go ahead. I guess this could have fallen into the good news thread.
 
They more or less have herd immunity, which is why the infection detection rate is falling rapidly

The pandemic in Sweden has taken almost precisely the course that Johan Giesecke predicted in that first Unherd interview. And other countries are now facing exactly what he predicted, that coming out of lockdown would be difficult.

No, it's not "more or less". It's more like "they don't have herd immunity" based on the widely estimated fatality rates, their own testing results, along with any other nations virus and antibody testing results.

Sweden's numbers are falling because the R rate is falling or is less than 1, because of the awareness, social distancing, masks, washing hands or whatever else they are asked to be doing (and they're doing what they're asked), not forced to be doing. T

Herd immunity needs like 60% at least, so seeing as Sweden has 10.25m people, it would need 6.15m infections for 60%.
Based on 5,500 deaths the only way Sweden could have the minimum 60% herd immunity is if the death rate is 0.09% (like the 0.1% that guy quotes)

Now lets get down to why I think he's talking balls:

In the UK we think the fatality rate is 10 x that amount, at 0.9%, so based on those numbers Sweden has had about 610k infections, which is about 6% immunity, not 60%, which sounds a lot more likely.

Based on Sweden's 750k tests, they have had 78k confirmed cases (at the time of the test, assuming not antibody tests also), which is about 10%, and nowhere near 60%, unless their tests don't work and read false negative?
If they do work, that's 1 in 10, having a positive test, so lets start with the most immunity they could have is about 10%, seeing as most of those testing positive were probably those that were already in hospital. This makes the probability of those sick/ in hospital testing positive much higher (showing major symptoms/ dying), which means the probability of the public on the street testing positive a lot lower, this brings down the herd immunity percentage.
So rough example numbers:
That might be 40k positives out of 100k tests on suspected cases in hospital
That leaves 40k positives from 650k tests, which is about 6% immunity of the public. This coincidentally marries up almost exactly with a 0.9% fatality rate (UK prediction) based on 5,500 deaths from 650k infections.

You might say that is only testing for a current infection, not a previous infection, but it's still going to be relatively accurate as to get to "herd immunity 60%" figures then that would mean that tons of people got infected in March, April, May and then it just disappeared, which we all know can't happen, as people would still be being infected and there would be a much higher current positive test rate.

From the antibody test results on New York they had estimated that they had more than ten times the number of cases that got reported/ positive tests initially, and almost double the reported covid deaths, so this came in at 23,430 deaths from about 1.7m infections. So a 1.4% fatality rate.

That guy you quoted thinks it's 0.1% fatality rate, which is about 10% of the UK's estimate or 7% of the New York study's 1.4%. No idea what he's basing that 0.1% figure on, but nobody else is doing that and Sweden's test figures nowhere near reflect this.

In the UK we've had 65,000 excess deaths, which would mean pretty much every single person in the UK has had it, based on 0.1% fatality rate, or 45m people based on the 45k deaths the UK uses. Yet we only have had 300k positive tests from 13.8m carried out (2.2% positives).
We currently test 70k per day, and get 700 cases (about 1% infection rate, but obviously a lot of those will already be in hospital).

Going for herd immunity early and risking death by infection is also kind of pointless if there's the possibility of a vaccine or better treatment available, which it's certainly looking like there is, and this was always going to be the case with the entire world fighting it. Effectively Sweden accepted defeat, when going 1-0 down at home after 5 minutes, and said lets just call it a 3-0 loss huh? Every other country went on the defensive for a bit and is now getting back in the game, Norway, Finland and Denmark equalised almost instantly. The USA keeps scoring own goals.

Yes, for other nations confirmed infections might go up slightly when lockdowns get lifted/ have been lifted, but equally it might just be because there's more testing and tracing available, less gets through the net. Even the places that are increasing are nothing like the exponential growth seen in March/ April. There's drugs available now which can treat this far better and half the world is working on vaccine at a pace that has never been seen before.

The best course of action looks to be pretty much what Asia said on day 1:
Lockdown early before the problem starts and maintain the lockdown until you have one, two or all of these:
1) Sufficient testing, tracking and tracing capability
2) A vaccine
3) Treatment which reduces the infection/ death rate to a point where it's insignificant (not creating excess deaths)

You can also do it with herd immunity, but nobody has proven that yet.

The UK is testing 100k people for antibodies over the next month (my lass has been asked to do one), so we will find out soon enough.
 
Your problem with the 65,000 excess deaths is you are assuming they are all covid-19 causes.
 
Your problem with the 65,000 excess deaths is you are assuming they are all covid-19 causes.

What else are you attributing 20,000 excess deaths to?

I appreciate correlation isn't perfect science, but the excess deaths did appear to go up significantly while virus attributed deaths rose, and reduced to minus 0 when the virus attributed deaths reduced significantly?
 
No idea. Nobody knows yet do they?
What else are you attributing 20,000 excess deaths to?

I appreciate correlation isn't perfect science, but the excess deaths did appear to go up significantly while virus attributed deaths rose, and reduced to minus 0 when the virus attributed deaths reduced significantly?
 
I think given the pattern of deaths, risk groups and populations involved I think it would not be unreasonable to speculate it was virus related.

There is an argument to say over the course of the year we were running below excess and there has been a correction of deaths, however in such a concentrated period of time, when a virus that the excess deaths population are more susceptible to is running through the population I think it is fair to link to two.

I think it would be quite far fetched to suggest it was unrelated, or indeed link it to access to healthcare etc, when there is no continuation of trend, while the shielded population remain in somewhat of a lockdown.
 
No, it's not "more or less". It's more like "they don't have herd immunity" based on the widely estimated fatality rates, their own testing results, along with any other nations virus and antibody testing results.

Sweden's numbers are falling because the R rate is falling or is less than 1, because of the awareness, social distancing, masks, washing hands or whatever else they are asked to be doing (and they're doing what they're asked), not forced to be doing. T

Herd immunity needs like 60% at least, so seeing as Sweden has 10.25m people, it would need 6.15m infections for 60%.
Based on 5,500 deaths the only way Sweden could have the minimum 60% herd immunity is if the death rate is 0.09% (like the 0.1% that guy quotes)

Now lets get down to why I think he's talking balls:

In the UK we think the fatality rate is 10 x that amount, at 0.9%, so based on those numbers Sweden has had about 610k infections, which is about 6% immunity, not 60%, which sounds a lot more likely.

Based on Sweden's 750k tests, they have had 78k confirmed cases (at the time of the test, assuming not antibody tests also), which is about 10%, and nowhere near 60%, unless their tests don't work and read false negative?
If they do work, that's 1 in 10, having a positive test, so lets start with the most immunity they could have is about 10%, seeing as most of those testing positive were probably those that were already in hospital. This makes the probability of those sick/ in hospital testing positive much higher (showing major symptoms/ dying), which means the probability of the public on the street testing positive a lot lower, this brings down the herd immunity percentage.
So rough example numbers:
That might be 40k positives out of 100k tests on suspected cases in hospital
That leaves 40k positives from 650k tests, which is about 6% immunity of the public. This coincidentally marries up almost exactly with a 0.9% fatality rate (UK prediction) based on 5,500 deaths from 650k infections.

You might say that is only testing for a current infection, not a previous infection, but it's still going to be relatively accurate as to get to "herd immunity 60%" figures then that would mean that tons of people got infected in March, April, May and then it just disappeared, which we all know can't happen, as people would still be being infected and there would be a much higher current positive test rate.

From the antibody test results on New York they had estimated that they had more than ten times the number of cases that got reported/ positive tests initially, and almost double the reported covid deaths, so this came in at 23,430 deaths from about 1.7m infections. So a 1.4% fatality rate.

That guy you quoted thinks it's 0.1% fatality rate, which is about 10% of the UK's estimate or 7% of the New York study's 1.4%. No idea what he's basing that 0.1% figure on, but nobody else is doing that and Sweden's test figures nowhere near reflect this.

In the UK we've had 65,000 excess deaths, which would mean pretty much every single person in the UK has had it, based on 0.1% fatality rate, or 45m people based on the 45k deaths the UK uses. Yet we only have had 300k positive tests from 13.8m carried out (2.2% positives).
We currently test 70k per day, and get 700 cases (about 1% infection rate, but obviously a lot of those will already be in hospital).

Going for herd immunity early and risking death by infection is also kind of pointless if there's the possibility of a vaccine or better treatment available, which it's certainly looking like there is, and this was always going to be the case with the entire world fighting it. Effectively Sweden accepted defeat, when going 1-0 down at home after 5 minutes, and said lets just call it a 3-0 loss huh? Every other country went on the defensive for a bit and is now getting back in the game, Norway, Finland and Denmark equalised almost instantly. The USA keeps scoring own goals.

Yes, for other nations confirmed infections might go up slightly when lockdowns get lifted/ have been lifted, but equally it might just be because there's more testing and tracing available, less gets through the net. Even the places that are increasing are nothing like the exponential growth seen in March/ April. There's drugs available now which can treat this far better and half the world is working on vaccine at a pace that has never been seen before.

The best course of action looks to be pretty much what Asia said on day 1:
Lockdown early before the problem starts and maintain the lockdown until you have one, two or all of these:
1) Sufficient testing, tracking and tracing capability
2) A vaccine
3) Treatment which reduces the infection/ death rate to a point where it's insignificant (not creating excess deaths)

You can also do it with herd immunity, but nobody has proven that yet.

The UK is testing 100k people for antibodies over the next month (my lass has been asked to do one), so we will find out soon enough.

Tell you what. Of all the people on here bandying figures aboutand talking about Sweden, you are the least well informed and most clueless. Keep posting this ill-researched stuff, and I'll presume that you are trolling me. Your posts in June stating that Sweden had a 7 day rolling average of 50 deaths when they hadn't had a single day with 50 deaths in weeks says all I need to know about your expertise with numbers.

The herd immunity goes way beyond positive antibody tests. Those with covid specific T cell response are 3 times the number of those those with antibodies. There are also some pople whose body fights off infection at the muccous membrane level. Herd immunity is about the lack of available hosts for the virus who are vulnerable to it. That's why Stockholm has scarcely any cases and why the daily deaths curve there was the same as it has been everywhere that the virus has spread rapidly through the community.... steep rise to a peak followed by a gradual decline to just isolated cases. Add to that the fact that the medics gradually deiscovered the best treatments.

Anyway, I'll go back to ignoring you. Don't troll me on this thread.
 
Tell you what. Of all the people on here bandying figures aboutand talking about Sweden, you are the least well informed and most clueless. Keep posting this ill-researched stuff, and I'll presume that you are trolling me. Your posts in June stating that Sweden had a 7 day rolling average of 50 deaths when they hadn't had a single day with 50 deaths in weeks says all I need to know about your expertise with numbers.

The herd immunity goes way beyond positive antibody tests. Those with covid specific T cell response are 3 times the number of those those with antibodies. There are also some pople whose body fights off infection at the muccous membrane level. Herd immunity is about the lack of available hosts for the virus who are vulnerable to it. That's why Stockholm has scarcely any cases and why the daily deaths curve there was the same as it has been everywhere that the virus has spread rapidly through the community.... steep rise to a peak followed by a gradual decline to just isolated cases. Add to that the fact that the medics gradually deiscovered the best treatments.

Anyway, I'll go back to ignoring you. Don't troll me on this thread.

Awww, stop crying. Just because I won't sing along to your Swedish tune, that even the majority of Swedes now say is defective.

I'm not trolling just proving you wrong, and each time I do you try and climb on some high horse without answering any questions, yet the horse has "DELUSIONAL" written all over it. You sound like Trump, and dodge questions like Boris at PMQ's.

Show some proof/ stats to back up your bull$hit then? How is it 0.1% fatality rate, does anyone else in the world corroborate this, does the WHO?

Parts of Stockholm might have up to 20% HI, but all this means is other areas have less, even you should realise that.

Sweden has been testing (although in low volume), to get the HI they need they would have had a lot more positive tests, and even more deaths. Luckily they haven't had that.

In June I've based the 50 deaths a day on the 7 day rolling average on this chart (from Worldometers), from the week before when it was around 50, the total adds up to 5667 and has always added up to the total deaths figure the the Swedish government publish (although they seem to change what dates the deaths get attributed to).

1595521604081.png
You said three weeks ago that Covid-19 was all but over in Sweden? Yet they're averaging about 200 cases per day, from 12k tests, so a 1.6% positive rate.
The UK is on about 700 cases per day from 70,000 tests, about 1% positive rate. I don't see many on here in the UK saying it's over?

Back then Sweden was on 5,400 deaths, they're now on 5667. That's up 267 in 20 days, so about 13 a day, works out the same as the UK deaths per million.

Is it still over in Sweden, or is it over but with more infections and deaths?
1595522093101.png
Admin edit: they are up to 80,000 tests per day, they haven't been at 12,000 tests for many weeks.
 
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Not really a good answer that is it.

There's one pretty obvious answer, it's called a pandemic. Your beloved Sweden's excess deaths marry up almost exactly to their Covid-19 deaths.
If you are so sure I'm sure the WHO and Public Health England would love to hear your thoughts.

😉

Spoiler alert too, this country is no longer in a pandemic.
 
If you are so sure I'm sure the WHO and Public Health England would love to hear your thoughts.

😉

Spoiler alert too, this country is no longer in a pandemic.

Which country? Sweden? Or the UK?

If you are referring to the UK then we have a greatly decreased number of cases and deaths because of the measures which were put in place (e.g. distancing) not because the virus . This is very simple and agreed on by most scientists on both sides of the "lockdown" / "best approach" (e.g. Tegnell and Sridhar are very much polar opposites in their favoured approach to dealing with the virus but both agree on the role "distancing" plays in slowing the spread of the virus).

Look at the number of US states which introduced restrictions, began to release them, and are now seeing a rise in cases. There are very clear reasons for this, it is basic stuff.

The UK, like much of Europe, has for months had restrictions in place which have meant the number of contacts between people has been dramatically decreased and thus the virus cannot spread as easily and cases come down.

"Herd immunity" I hear people say, along with "T-cells". Well, herd immunity would be another reason that cases would drop. Are we there yet? No one knows but we will begin to find out as and when society returns to 'normal' functions. I also hear people saying shops and pubs are open and we are seeing no rise in cases. The levels of mixing and interactions of people is still no where near 'normal' levels and only when it is and we see no rise in cases can we consider there may herd immunity. There was never going to be a significant rise in cases from a few thousand people at a beach or an outdoor protest yet those on one side of the debate wanted to push the idea that this would begin a "2nd wave" while those on the other side used the absence of an increase in cases as support for their argument that there wouldn't be a "2nd wave". Both positions born out of dogma without recourse to logical thinking. Completely ridiculous.

Dr John Campbell has a YouTube channel which is very informative and approaches things from a scientific perspective. I was hoping that the UnHerd interviews would do the same when I started watching those a few months ago but sadly they seemed to have been dominated with guests on one side of the debate. Anyway, Dr Campbell's latest video (see link below) covers a recent publication in Nature which looks at T-cells and immunity. Without going into the details there is one very important quote:

"understanding pre-existing T-cell immunity in the general population is of paramount importance for the management of the current Covid-19 pandemic"

Absolutely! Current studies while important and investigating our fundamental understanding say nothing about the applicability to the situation amongst the general population. I have no idea how easy it is to test for this in the general population compared with antibody testing (which can be complex for various reasons) but that is likely the only way to get some idea about how much of the population is still susceptible to the virus.

Borolad: "Those with covid specific T cell response are 3 times the number of those those with antibodies".

I'd be interested in seeing a link to that study if you have it, it is a very interesting area and it would be great if there were far fewer susceptible individuals than we think. That would mean we'd be able to get back to normal faster/more easily. I'd not have to work stupid hours, I'd be able to get along to football training, and I'd be able to meet more friends/workmates down the pub. Sadly, I still don't see data/evidence that suggests we're near herd immunity in the UK. W

Spain are seeing a rise in cases (early days but the trend is clear) as they relax restrictions and while I hope this is due to increased testing (I cannot comment on testing levels there) Occam's razor might suggest that it is due to the relaxing of restrictions leading to more contacts between people. This in turn is leading to the virus spreading again. And that can only happen if there is not herd immunity.


Dr John Campbell video:

 
Which country? Sweden? Or the UK?

If you are referring to the UK then we have a greatly decreased number of cases and deaths because of the measures which were put in place (e.g. distancing) not because the virus . This is very simple and agreed on by most scientists on both sides of the "lockdown" / "best approach" (e.g. Tegnell and Sridhar are very much polar opposites in their favoured approach to dealing with the virus but both agree on the role "distancing" plays in slowing the spread of the virus).

Look at the number of US states which introduced restrictions, began to release them, and are now seeing a rise in cases. There are very clear reasons for this, it is basic stuff.

The UK, like much of Europe, has for months had restrictions in place which have meant the number of contacts between people has been dramatically decreased and thus the virus cannot spread as easily and cases come down.

"Herd immunity" I hear people say, along with "T-cells". Well, herd immunity would be another reason that cases would drop. Are we there yet? No one knows but we will begin to find out as and when society returns to 'normal' functions. I also hear people saying shops and pubs are open and we are seeing no rise in cases. The levels of mixing and interactions of people is still no where near 'normal' levels and only when it is and we see no rise in cases can we consider there may herd immunity. There was never going to be a significant rise in cases from a few thousand people at a beach or an outdoor protest yet those on one side of the debate wanted to push the idea that this would begin a "2nd wave" while those on the other side used the absence of an increase in cases as support for their argument that there wouldn't be a "2nd wave". Both positions born out of dogma without recourse to logical thinking. Completely ridiculous.

Dr John Campbell has a YouTube channel which is very informative and approaches things from a scientific perspective. I was hoping that the UnHerd interviews would do the same when I started watching those a few months ago but sadly they seemed to have been dominated with guests on one side of the debate. Anyway, Dr Campbell's latest video (see link below) covers a recent publication in Nature which looks at T-cells and immunity. Without going into the details there is one very important quote:

"understanding pre-existing T-cell immunity in the general population is of paramount importance for the management of the current Covid-19 pandemic"

Absolutely! Current studies while important and investigating our fundamental understanding say nothing about the applicability to the situation amongst the general population. I have no idea how easy it is to test for this in the general population compared with antibody testing (which can be complex for various reasons) but that is likely the only way to get some idea about how much of the population is still susceptible to the virus.

Borolad: "Those with covid specific T cell response are 3 times the number of those those with antibodies".

I'd be interested in seeing a link to that study if you have it, it is a very interesting area and it would be great if there were far fewer susceptible individuals than we think. That would mean we'd be able to get back to normal faster/more easily. I'd not have to work stupid hours, I'd be able to get along to football training, and I'd be able to meet more friends/workmates down the pub. Sadly, I still don't see data/evidence that suggests we're near herd immunity in the UK. W

Spain are seeing a rise in cases (early days but the trend is clear) as they relax restrictions and while I hope this is due to increased testing (I cannot comment on testing levels there) Occam's razor might suggest that it is due to the relaxing of restrictions leading to more contacts between people. This in turn is leading to the virus spreading again. And that can only happen if there is not herd immunity.


Dr John Campbell video:


No link to hand but it was discovered when analysing blood donor samples. The Karolinska institute also found 2 to 3 times as many people with T cell response than had antibodies. Generally the T cell response is found in those that had a mild or asymptomatic infection.
 
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