Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Apparently, immune cells ‘remember’ COVID for at least half a year.
The immune system remembers how to make antibodies, that can fend off the new coronavirus, for at least six months, after the initial infection.

“Evolution of antibody immunity to SARS-CoV-2" ~ by Christian Gaebler et al
Preprints:
Abstract ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03207-w
Full, but not typeset ➥ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...67391.full.pdf

Which means that the coronavirus, and the human response to it, are much like other viral infections -- surprise surprise. My doctor told me a year ago that although the science hasn't been done to prove it, he would "eat his hat" if I would not be immune for at least a year (unfortunately for me, that year is now up).

Fauci said in the spring that it was very unlikely that immunity would last less than a year.

Yet in the absence of definite proof to the contrary, a lot of people were freaked out worrying that there would be no or only very short immunity. Too much fear and not enough cool thought, I think, characterizes our collective response to this crisis.


By now we know for sure that this is NOT going to exterminate mankind. Any virus not capable of wiping us out, WILL go away eventually, like all pandemics in history have. Hang on!

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

.....Yet in the absence of definite proof to the contrary, a lot of people were freaked out worrying that there would be no or only very short immunity. Too much fear and not enough cool thought, I think, characterizes our collective response to this crisis.

I blame the media for much of this. I guess sensational stories sell news, so a balanced view is less newsworthy. Anecdotal tales of reinfections were also flung about on social media such as Facebook and even here on CF.

Up until fairly recently there were nothing more than about a dozen reported PCR confirmed second infections worldwide from millions of people infected, yet stories persistently circulated on how immunity was short lived.

In addition, the media pounced on every young person affected. It made headlines in Australia. Yet this is a disease that affects the healthy young minimally, even to the extent of being frequently asymptomatic.

We were repeatedly presented with images of lines of coffins and freshly dug out graves. We don’t get this for the 50-60 million who usually die yearly.

Unwarranted fear is not a driver of good responses.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I blame the media for much of this. I guess sensational stories sell news, so a balanced view is less newsworthy. Anecdotal tales of reinfections were also flung about on social media such as Facebook and even here on CF.

Up until fairly recently there were nothing more than about a dozen reported PCR confirmed second infections worldwide from millions of people infected, yet stories persistently circulated on how immunity was short lived.

In addition, the media pounced on every young person affected. It made headlines in Australia. Yet this is a disease that affects the healthy young minimally, even to the extent of being frequently asymptomatic.

We were repeatedly presented with images of lines of coffins and freshly dug out graves. We don’t get this for the 50-60 million who usually die yearly.

Unwarranted fear is not a driver of good responses.

Germans would say "Das kannst du laut sagen" -- "That you can say loudly".

I guess it's a whole complex of responses -- media sells distorted and sensationalized stories, people freak out, and like freaking out, because it simplifies their own thinking -- no need for any nuance or balance, no need for thought at all -- pure fight or flight reaction, which probably feels good to some people.

I think it's also why some of the dicsussion on here has been so vehement, bordering on hysterical.

I'm glad to be in Finland today, where the atmosphere is different -- people are calm, trust the health authorities, don't lynch people not wearing masks, don't shout at each other or engage in protests. The press reports in a completely different way here. Schools, restaurants and even bars are open; just theatres closed. Practically all the measures are honor system. The Nordic countries are an oasis in this horrible pandemic world we are living in.

Just wish they would roll out the vaccine faster. Finland has so far one of the slowest vaccination programs in Europe, and this is bad considering the very low level of natural immunity in the population, which has not suffered any significant wave of the pandemic so far. I'm not old or sick enough for any priority, so I won't be vaccinated here before autumn, it looks like, and as an international traveler on a weekly basis, I desperately need the vaccine in order to be able to do my job.

Looks like I will get vaccinated in Florida, maybe in February. I qualify as a Florida resident since my father lives there; I'm a "seasonal resident" if my father writes a note that I live with him winters. I'm under 65 years of age, but my Finnish doctor will write a note that I've already had a bad case of COVID more than a year ago and am at heightened risk if I have another, and I found a place in St. Petersburg, Florida, who say they consider accepting such a note. So I'm on the list there and will hop on a plane if my number comes up. Stay there a month so I can get the second dose. Not a bad way to spend February.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I blame the media for much of this. I guess sensational stories sell news, so a balanced view is less newsworthy. Anecdotal tales of reinfections were also flung about on social media such as Facebook and even here on CF.

Up until fairly recently there were nothing more than about a dozen reported PCR confirmed second infections worldwide from millions of people infected, yet stories persistently circulated on how immunity was short lived.

In addition, the media pounced on every young person affected. It made headlines in Australia. Yet this is a disease that affects the healthy young minimally, even to the extent of being frequently asymptomatic.

We were repeatedly presented with images of lines of coffins and freshly dug out graves. We don’t get this for the 50-60 million who usually die yearly.

Unwarranted fear is not a driver of good responses.

Its not just the Media, Governments, Organisations (WHO et al) and Scientists/Universities have all dished out their fair share of fear and over exuberant predictions.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

......I guess it's a whole complex of responses -- media sells distorted and sensationalized stories, people freak out, and like freaking out, because it simplifies their own thinking -- no need for any nuance or balance, no need for thought at all -- pure fight or flight reaction, which probably feels good to some people.

I think it's also why some of the dicsussion on here has been so vehement, bordering on hysterical.

Although there have been many protests regarding the lockdown, some peaceful and in small numbers (not that you would know from images of police in full riot gear in Australia) some violent, from survey results it seems an overwhelming proportion of people in both Australia and the UK are in favour of the stay-at-home lockdowns that have been imposed.

To me it seems that it is fear that has driven this response. Nowadays people largely want to be protected (except for some like Boatie ) and strong action from governments is favourable, as it serves this purpose. In turn this must contribute to restrictions governments have decided to apply.

I think that in years to come, along with intensive medical and economic analysis, there will be lengthy discussions on not just the social impact of the pandemic, but also regarding this issue.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by UFO

Its not just the Media, Governments, Organisations (WHO et al) and Scientists/Universities have all dished out their fair share of fear and over exuberant predictions.

I disagree about WHO, who have been a voice of reason all along, and who have made particularly valuable statements about the larger public health dimension of the crisis, including effect on world hunger, effect on children from pandemic measures, etc. Don't necessarily agree with EVERYTHING they say, but WHO is definitely trying to look at the big picture, and have not been mongering fear.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Although there have been many protests regarding the lockdown, some peaceful and in small numbers (not that you would know from images of police in full riot gear in Australia) some violent, from survey results it seems an overwhelming proportion of people in both Australia and the UK are in favour of the stay-at-home lockdowns that have been imposed.

To me it seems that it is fear that has driven this response. Nowadays people largely want to be protected (except for some like Boatie ) and strong action from governments is favourable, as it serves this purpose. In turn this must contribute to restrictions governments have decided to apply.

I think that in years to come, along with intensive medical and economic analysis, there will be lengthy discussions on not just the social impact of the pandemic, but also regarding this issue.

I have written about this.



A fearful population desires to see a "strong hand" and "bold action". This is profitable to politicians, who might even cynically stoke that fear in order to enhance their own political positions.



It is not the most noble side of human nature, to desire to be subjected to a strong hand.


This is the same ugly complexes of impulses which allow politicians to talk people into wars, which are often beneficial to politicians, but rarely if ever beneficial to people.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I disagree about WHO, who have been a voice of reason all along, and who have made particularly valuable statements about the larger public health dimension of the crisis, including effect on world hunger, effect on children from pandemic measures, etc. Don't necessarily agree with EVERYTHING they say, but WHO is definitely trying to look at the big picture, and have not been mongering fear.

This has been my impression too.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...ronavirus-2019

The WHO were slow to call this outbreak a pandemic, not announcing it as such until mid March. I read that it was done so as not to strain relations between the US and China, but I don’t know the validity of this.

Their recommendations have been to follow basic preventative measures and to avoid lockdowns except as an extreme measure.

I have felt they have been very vague at times regarding precisely what measures countries should be taking, not that they have been “dishing out fear” unreasonably.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

. . . I have felt they have been very vague at times regarding precisely what measures countries should be taking, not that they have been “dishing out fear” unreasonably.

Which is entirely appropriate. Pandemic measures should be be part of a pandemic PLAN, which has to be developed to suit every country's peculiarities and cannot be made up overnight (if you expect anything good to come out of them), and certainly not from halfway around the world. WHO's advice has always been for countries to invest time and money into doing this planning ahead of time. Naturally they would be reluctant to get in the middle of it when countries are freaking out and making up stuff off the hip. So what WHO did was instead to provide gentle guidance about the public health cost of the harshest measures. It seems to me that they have done a really good job, other than, perhaps, not raising the alarm early enough as the pandemic was spinning up.


I read somewhere that the pandemic planning in the U.S. was rated the best in the world, a level better than in the Nordic countries. I guess it got tossed out the window in the course of the general freak-out.



The Nordic countries on the contrary followed their plans. I think it's one reason why the whole process has been much more orderly here, with much more consistent policies being applied. Order and consistency are certainly things you want in such a crisis.



The Finns stand out in particular for their stockpiling physical, strategic reserves of PPE and other supplies needed to fight such a crisis. Quite different from the rest of the world which relied on just in time supply, which broke down in March and April. There have been boxes of N95 masks piled up on tables in every supermarket here throughout, and for the reasonable price of less than €9 per box of 10. Compare and contrast to Canada, where you're not allowed to get on a plane with an N95 mask, because they don't want you taking them away from health care workers.



The Swedes stand out in particular for their ability to DOUBLE intensive care capacity in a matter of a few weeks, which they did, so that even being quite hard hit in the Spring, they never got close to overwhelming hospitals, although Sweden normally has one of the lowest levels of hospital capacity per capita in Europe. This is the result of proper planning ahead, and sticking with the plan in the event of crisis. All the social distancing and other measures in Sweden (like in the other Nordic countries) were not made up on the spot; they were planned years ahead, and were implemented just as planned.



Many other countries, by contrast, just made it up as they went along. That is certainly the case in the U.S., were state-level politicians were making all the decisions based on varying degrees of advice from health authorities, and implementing measures, the cost of which, of efficacy of which, no one understood.



I would be really curious to know how much of the measures in Australia were actually planned ahead -- sealing up the country? Lockdowns? How was that policy formulated? I suspect there may have been a plan for all of that, unlike the situation in the U.S., but it would be interesting to know.

[GordMay]

On January 30/20
The Director-General declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), WHO's highest level of alarm.

On March 11/20
WHO made the assessment that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic.

Timeline: WHO's COVID-19 response ➥ https://www.who.int/emergencies/dise...ctive-timeline

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

....I would be really curious to know how much of the measures in Australia were actually planned ahead -- sealing up the country? Lockdowns? How was that policy formulated? I suspect there may have been a plan for all of that, unlike the situation in the U.S., but it would be interesting to know.

From what I observed, I doubt very much of what occurred was planned ahead.

The initial response was that measures needed to be taken to “flatten the curve”, in other words not to reduce the number infected, but to spread them out so that hospitals were not overwhelmed, and as a result lives lost that could otherwise have been saved. When several states rapidly shut borders and managed to reduce community transmission down to zero, some other states followed suit and this somehow became the new strategy for them.

The phrase “we are following medical advice” was constantly repeated when it came to lockdowns, but premiers refused to answer exactly what backed this advice. It seemed to be simply a case of doing what was necessary to save every possible life (as any doctor would naturally say was the priority) rather than looking at the big picture. The impact of measures taken did not seem to be considered when this “medical advice” was taken.

Quarantine measures implemented between states varied. One glaring difference was that poorly trained private security guards were employed in some hotels. There was no thought initially to limiting workers having multiple jobs in various quarantine hotels and care homes, let alone other locations. So many measures instituted occurred “after the horse had bolted”.

Every state premier has basically done his/her own thing, and under the declared states of emergency they have extraordinary powers. Nothing that has occurred indicates that there was a national plan that was ever followed.

[Dockhead]

Good news from Sweden; total new cases over the last 14 days (the measure the EU health officials use) have now fallen below 500 per 100k as of Week 3, to 479, taking Sweden out of the high risk category. That's down dramatically from 669 as of Week 2. This should be reflected in the graphs tomorrow. Hospitalizations and intensive care patients are also down considerably.

https://www.thelocal.se/20210126/alm...8oBC_oa_k3rBSA

Numbers are also looking very good in Denmark.

I think we are now definitely past the worst of it now. And what is better is that since we never had any lockdowns, we don't have to relax measures, so we're not lurching between economic ruin and mass pandemic death, like for example New York. Now if we could just vaccinate faster. Sweden is a bit ahead of us at 2 doses per 100 people. For some reason Finland is one of the slowest countries in Europe.


One negative thing about the situation in Northern Europe, which I guess is probably not unique in Europe, is that because of the new mutant strains, borders are closed harder than before. Sweden has closed borders to Denmark and Norway, and Denmark has closed up so tight that I can't get to my boat. Greater border restrictions are in effect in Finland, too, but not as strict as Denmark and Sweden.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

...
Every state premier has basically done his/her own thing, and under the declared states of emergency they have extraordinary powers.

Same as the US.

From a shot perspective, the Federal government overseas the shipment of vaccines to the states and then the state is sending the shots out to counties, cities, towns and some businesses to actually jab people. There has been some kerfuffle at my state level but I think that has been because of the enormity of the logistics of passing out medicine across 100 counties. Totally to be expected and it really has not been an issue so far.

What has been a SNAFU is that some lower government agencies have no plan, or no obvious plan on how to implement a process to get shots out to people. What have these government bureaucrats been doing for months?

Thankfully, my county has done an excellent job but other agencies are completely clueless.

On the other hand, the state governor has made some bone headed decisions, some of which are flat out illegal, and there is a process he should be following with invocation of emergency powers that he is not following at all. Completely illegal what he is doing but from the press one hears nothing but crickets. If the governor was in a different party there would be calls for impeachment.

At least he did not order people with the virus be sent into nursing homes like New York Cuomo did, and which in the spring, resulted in a large percentage of the dead in that state. Nothing but crickets on what he did. Supposedly three other state governors did the same thing but I have not seen an analysis on those states.

Local governments have also published some very strict regulations. Flip side is, if you actually READ these Riot Acts, there is no enforcement to violating these pronouncements for the most part. There has been some fines for businesses that have violated openings and such but those have been few and far between. This is very unlike places like Ireland where the Garda have the power to fine violators and they are doing so.

We have had protests against the lock down in the state capital which I have noticed has happened in Ireland, I think Northern Ireland, and the Netherlands.

The Spanish Flu had three big waves with the first in March 1918, followed by one in the fall, and the last in the winter spring of 1919. It kinda looks like the present unpleasantness is following the same pattern, though I wonder if the lock down is going to make the pandemic last longer OR will the vaccines, as Deputy Fife would say, "Nip it. Nip it. Nip it in the bud." So to speak. I hope so.

Later,
Dan

[Dockhead]

Whilst we're talking about the Baltic Sea region, it's impossible not to think about Arthur Ransome, and his legendary ketch Racundra, which he had built in Riga during 1921-22. The story of Ransome's first cruise in her -- from Riga, to Helsinki, and back -- is a classic of sailing literature, one of the fundamental sources. If any of you has not read it, then run, don't walk, to your nearest book torrent site.

In 1925, Ransome sold Racundra to none other than Adlard Coles.

Riga, like Helsinki, and the rest of the Eastern Baltic, was just shortly out of the Russian Empire. Ransome was not coincidentally in that part of the world -- as a foreign correspondent, he covered the Bol'shevik revolution from Moscow, befriended Lenin and Trotsky, and married Trotsky's personal secretary.

That's the flavor of this part of the world, and it's a joy to sail in the footprints of such as Arthur Ransome.

[laird]

This time last year I was in Manila , the hotel I had to stay at took my temperature before I was allowed in , the staff at the airport were wearing masks ,at the time it was very much an Asian problem, I returned to Heathrow and there were no anti covid measures in place , wind the clock on and today we have the news that the UK has passed 100k deaths , the real figure from covid is thought to be more like 130k

I've just returned from an emergency call out , we are even using portacabins in car parks to dish out the vaccine, there was a problem with the water supply to the temporary "office"

The UK is leading the way in Europe for vaccination, it does however feel a bit like closing the gate after the horse has bolted