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

[martinworswick]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Harbourmaster in the Danish port where I am told me yesterday that they have had a 30% increase in the number of visiting pleasure vessels so far year on year.

Finnish friends have told me that they see the same thing in Finland.

So a couple of months ago when we started this thread, we wondered whether there would be any sailing this summer. Now we know the answer to this question -- a ton of it.

Only problem for cruising is the borders are still closed, even among Nordic countries The EU has recommended opening them, but it's not clear what's going to happen now. The Danish prime minister has promised a decision by 1 June, which is still more than a week away.

So I don't know about the rest of you, but my cruising plans are still in complete limbo. At the moment although local boats are having a ball, my UK flagged vessel should stay in port -- under advice of the harbourmaster. I would like to cruise the West coast of Norway this summer, but still no idea whether it will be possible. If not I guess it will be maybe the Swedish West and South coasts, where I can cruise regardless of what happens with the borders, but only with Europeans on board, as non-Europeans are still not allowed in.

Interesting times.

There's always greenland or the faroes if you have to stay in danish waters...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by martinworswick

There's always greenland or the faroes if you have to stay in danish waters...

The Inuit people I made friends with in Ittoqqoortomiit would not agree that Greenland is Danish waters Notwithstanding the fact that there is no Greenlandic Coast Guard


Nor I think would the Faroese, who are definitely not in the EU and are making a killing with Russian fishing ships . . .


But to be honest, although Greenland is a bridge too far for this summer (maybe next?), the Faroes are distinctly in my cross-hairs. If the Shetlands won't take me, the Faroes are just a couple days sailing more . . . I miss those islands . . .

[Montanan]

New England Journal of Medicine
Remdesivir for the Treatment of Covid-19 — Preliminary Report

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.105...07764?query=RP

RESULTS
A total of 1063 patients underwent randomization. The data and safety monitoring board recommended early unblinding of the results on the basis of findings from an analysis that showed shortened time to recovery in the remdesivir group. Preliminary results from the 1059 patients (538 assigned to remdesivir and 521 to placebo) with data available after randomization indicated that those who received remdesivir had a median recovery time of 11 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 9 to 12), as compared with 15 days (95% CI, 13 to 19) in those who received placebo (rate ratio for recovery, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.55; P<0.001). The Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality by 14 days were 7.1% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo (hazard ratio for death, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.47 to 1.04). Serious adverse events were reported for 114 of the 541 patients in the remdesivir group who underwent randomization (21.1%) and 141 of the 522 patients in the placebo group who underwent randomization (27.0%).

CONCLUSIONS
Remdesivir was superior to placebo in shortening the time to recovery in adults hospitalized with Covid-19 and evidence of lower respiratory tract infection.

[barnakiel]

Well, according to here:


https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/


that statement about Sweden overtaking the whole world and becoming the covid pet of the day


San Marino 1238 per million (placed 1st)

...
...
Sweden 396 per million (placed 8th from the top now)


I think there is no educated journalism left. All best jobs have been taken by daughters and sons of the rich. They own the media and their kids play journalists.


I tried reading AP but they are so dry. The brain, once tastes sugar, struggles to tolerate bland. My bad.


b.

[barnakiel]

And re "no covid on the oceans".


You know, them politicians make laws generic. They will not make special cases for a 1% of a 1% of the population.


Sailing is an irrelevant pastime of a minute portion of the privileged population. Even cruising, with its more pronounced impact on some economies (but only if we think of charters as part of cuising) will get some allowances, and only where it matters (Med and the West Indies come to mind).


Then again, you must see every boat going say from Grenada to Lucia as a potential threat. Just like any islander arriving on a ferry. You know, gravity, it is for all.


b.

[tp12]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Well, according to here:


https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/


that statement about Sweden overtaking the whole world and becoming the covid pet of the day


San Marino 1238 per million (placed 1st)

...
...
Sweden 396 per million (placed 8th from the top now)


I think there is no educated journalism left. All best jobs have been taken by daughters and sons of the rich. They own the media and their kids play journalists.


I tried reading AP but they are so dry. The brain, once tastes sugar, struggles to tolerate bland. My bad.


b.

It pays to read the articles as you're not quoting apples with apples. The following text will help you:


"Sweden has now overtaken the UK, Italy and Belgium to have the highest coronavirus per capita death rate in the world, throwing its decision to avoid a strict lockdown into further doubt.

According to figures collated by the Our World in Data website, Sweden had 6.08 deaths per million inhabitants per day on a rolling seven-day average between May 13 and May 20.


This is the highest in the world, above the UK, Belgium and the US, which have 5.57, 4.28 and 4.11 respectively.


However, Sweden has only had the highest death rate over the past week, with Belgium, Spain, Italy, the UK and France, still ahead over the entire course of the pandemic."

[tp12]

This was another quote from the article:

"It comes after study found that just 7.3 per cent of people in Stockholm developed Covid-19 antibodies by late April, which could fuel concern that avoiding a lockdown may bring little herd immunity."


I'm quoting this article, by the way - https://www.yahoo.com/news/sweden-be...133234368.html


There's even more interesting comments in there from a Swedish virologist who is part of a 22 scientist/researcher group who have challenged Sweden's strategy from the start. If anyone has any quotes from that group or articles with responses from them since Anders Tegnell admitted he didn't expect such a high death rate I'd be interested in reading it.

[barnakiel]

Ok. I see.


Once again pseudojuornalists at their best.


Sven is taller now than Carlos, because Sven is standing on a tall chair ;-)



We lost the press to such trickery in the name of clicks. And nobody objects.


I remember once reading a book (wrtten long ago). There was this phrase there 'ignorance is bliss'. How fresh.



I actually stopped thinking they do it on purpose. I now think they are simply as ignorant and poorly educated as the general public.


b.

[tp12]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Ok. I see.


Once again pseudojuornalists at their best.


Sven is taller now than Carlos, because Sven is standing on a tall chair ;-)



We lost the press to such trickery in the name of clicks. And nobody objects.


I remember once reading a book (wrtten long ago). There was this phrase there 'ignorance is bliss'. How fresh.



I actually stopped thinking they do it on purpose. I now think they are simply as ignorant and poorly educated as the general public.


b.

It's a useful metric to understand whether rates are increasing or decreasing to compare to other countries, regardless of population size, and informs a broader analysis. This is how the article used it so it was appropriate. There's no 'pseudojournalism' happening here and your analogy is a misrepresentation of the metric.

Additionally, Sweden has now moved up to 8th on the deaths per million of population global leaderboard. Even on a gross scale, that should see Sweden well down the list given they're the 91st largest country by population (worldometers), they're 16th for total deaths.

[Barbaria]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Do you see foreign boats? Are people OK with foreign sailors visiting?


Just because it is legally allowed, I would not presume that it's OK. People take the advisories very seriously -- something which I have lot of respect for -- and I wouldn't want to be in violation.

We are currently on Öland and sailing south. During our trip we have met Germans, Finnish, Norwegian and Danish boats. I do not think Norway will open for other than EU boats this season. We have only had positive feedback from places we have been to.

However the season has just started and we are mostly alone.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by tp12

It's a useful metric to understand whether rates are increasing or decreasing to compare to other countries, regardless of population size, and informs a broader analysis. This is how the article used it so it was appropriate. There's no 'pseudojournalism' happening here and your analogy is a misrepresentation of the metric.

Additionally, Sweden has now moved up to 8th on the deaths per million of population global leaderboard. Even on a gross scale, that should see Sweden well down the list given they're the 91st largest country by population (worldometers), they're 16th for total deaths.

It's not a useful measure to know whether the policies are working or not.


So Sweden has much less deaths per capita than UK or France. Does that prove that hard lockdown produces WORSE results than soft one? Of course not.


Furthermore it is way too early to draw conclusions -- this is not a football game. I know it is tempting for some people, paralyzed with fear, to want to congratulate themselves on the success of "bold measures", but you can't. We have another year and a half at least to go before this is all over. No one knows whether lockdowns are really useful or not. In Norway, which looking at it with football game mentality, has done really well, there is now serious doubt about whether even the soft lockdown in Norway was the right policy:


https://www.thelocal.no/20200522/nor...n-health-chief


"The head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health believes Norway could have brought the coronavirus pandemic under control without a lockdown, and called for the country to avoid such far-reaching measures if hit by a second wave.


"Camille Stoltenberg, the agency's Director General, told state broadcaster NRK that the agency's analysis now suggested less restrictive measures would have been sufficient.

"'Our assessment now....is that we could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts by not locking down, but by instead keeping open but with infection control measures,'she said."


Note that what she refers to as "lockdown" is not lockdown at all, as understood in most of the world. The Norwegians did NOT close most businesses, did not stop construction sites, did not order people to stay home. Their policies were pretty similar to Sweden's, but it is not clear whether even those policies are counterproductive. It is idiotic to talk about "league tables" and "leader boards".


Now we see that in the U.S., states which have lifted their lockdowns are not experiencing a significant increase in cases. Same thing in Austria. This surprises everyone, but it is really good news. It seems to mean that change in behavior with or without legal compulsion, has a big effect on how the virus spreads. So we are now past the peak of the first wave everywhere. Not any single European country has r0 of more than 1, which means the pandemic is subsiding everywhere. This may also mean that the lockdowns were not necessary in the first place. We don't know. There is not any clear correlation between infection rates and hardness of the lockdowns. The lowest infection rates in Europe are in the Nordic countries, except in Sweden, which is about average for Western Europe, and the Nordic countries had the softest measures in Europe.



Sweden is about average among Western European countries in all respects, and total deaths so far are only about 2x the deaths from a bad flu year, and are 10x or 20x less than what the Imperial College study predicted. It is early days and a lot more people will die both in Sweden and in other countries. It is stupid to harp on Sweden, which anyway did not have such different policies as neighboring countries. The only reason to harp on Sweden is some desperate psychological need to justify the policies in one's own country as the ONLY correct ones -- maybe the same syndrome as makes people rally around their "leaders" in times of crisis, feeling good because of the "bold actions" of the leaders. It's a childish reaction of an afraid population which wants to believe that the "leaders" are omniscient and will take care of them in the crisis. It intensely bothers this kind of person that some country appears to be taking a different approach, than the one which "obviously" "must be right". Well, no one knows yet what the correct policies are, and furthermore, no one knows what those policies cost, and whether it was worth it. This story will be unfolding for a long time still.



Everyone everywhere is surprised at the low infection rate these last couple of weeks. What it means, and what to do with that, we have to figure out. We have to be ready for the second and third waves of the pandemic, ready to deal with them in a rational and efficient and SUSTAINABLE manner. We are at the beginning of the biggest global financial collapse in a century or more -- we have to deal with that as well, as that has immense implications in terms of health and deaths as well. These are not simple questions, and to understand it better it is not useful to read the yahoos on Yahoo or boulevard papers.



Another thing I like about what the Norwegian health chief said -- characteristic of this part of the world, people are not afraid to doubt and question in public, even their own decisions. Important sign of a healthy society. In many other places, the "leaders" have to appear always right at all costs, and God forbid should they express and doubt about one of their own policies, or to be surprised about something, lest they be skewered for it politically. We need more of this Nordic-style mentality in the world. This crisis is a great test of the health of different societies and it's nice to be here in this region where people aren't freaking out. Where people -- by and large -- discuss these things intelligently and with an open mind, not competing with each other over idiotic "league tables" and "leader boards".

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Barbaria

We are currently on Öland and sailing south. During our trip we have met Germans, Finnish, Norwegian and Danish boats. I do not think Norway will open for other than EU boats this season. We have only had positive feedback from places we have been to.

However the season has just started and we are mostly alone.

Beautiful! Please keep those reports coming. Last October we were in Kalmar for a week for repairs (bum cutless bearing), during the harvest festival time, and I rented a car and we drove all over Öland from top to bottom, exploring it thoroughly and enjoying the various harvest festival events. No social distancing!



Yesterday a Swedish boat appeared in our harbour here in Denmark, although Denmark is closed to foreign boats. I meant to ask the skipper how he managed it. Perhaps he has been in Danish waters this whole time.


I am hoping very much that Norway will be open to me. We are UK flagged, so "sort of" an EU boat. What makes you think Norway will be closed?


Plan A for me so far is Norway starting with Oslofjord and working around into the North Sea as far as maybe Bergen. Then perhaps across to Shetlands if it's open. We will start 1 July or perhaps on Midsummer.


Plan B would be to cruise Denmark and Germany.



Plan C would be to cruise Denmark and the West Coast of Sweden.


I wish the hell they would announce what the border policies will be, already, so people can make plans.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

It's not a useful measure to know whether the policies are working or not.


So Sweden has much less deaths per capita than UK or France. Does that prove that hard lockdown produces WORSE results than soft one? Of course not.


Furthermore it is way too early to draw conclusions -- this is not a football game. I know it is tempting for some people, paralyzed with fear, to want to congratulate themselves on the success of "bold measures", but you can't. We have another year and a half at least to go before this is all over. No one knows whether lockdowns are really useful or not. In Norway, which looking at it with football game mentality, has done really well, there is now serious doubt about whether even the soft lockdown in Norway was the right policy:


https://www.thelocal.no/20200522/nor...n-health-chief


"The head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health believes Norway could have brought the coronavirus pandemic under control without a lockdown, and called for the country to avoid such far-reaching measures if hit by a second wave.


"Camille Stoltenberg, the agency's Director General, told state broadcaster NRK that the agency's analysis now suggested less restrictive measures would have been sufficient.

"'Our assessment now....is that we could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts by not locking down, but by instead keeping open but with infection control measures,'she said."


Note that what she refers to as "lockdown" is not lockdown at all, as understood in most of the world. The Norwegians did NOT close most businesses, did not stop construction sites, did not order people to stay home. Their policies were pretty similar to Sweden's, but it is not clear whether even those policies are counterproductive. It is idiotic to talk about "league tables" and "leader boards".


Now we see that in the U.S., states which have lifted their lockdowns are not experiencing a significant increase in cases. Same thing in Austria. This surprises everyone, but it is really good news. It seems to mean that change in behavior with or without legal compulsion, has a big effect on how the virus spreads. So we are now past the peak of the first wave everywhere. Not any single European country has r0 of more than 1, which means the pandemic is subsiding everywhere. This may also mean that the lockdowns were not necessary in the first place. We don't know. There is not any clear correlation between infection rates and hardness of the lockdowns. The lowest infection rates in Europe are in the Nordic countries, except in Sweden, which is about average for Western Europe, and the Nordic countries had the softest measures in Europe.



Sweden is about average among Western European countries in all respects, and total deaths so far are only about 2x the deaths from a bad flu year, and are 10x or 20x less than what the Imperial College study predicted. It is early days and a lot more people will die both in Sweden and in other countries. It is stupid to harp on Sweden, which anyway did not have such different policies as neighboring countries. The only reason to harp on Sweden is some desperate psychological need to justify the policies in one's own country as the ONLY correct ones -- maybe the same syndrome as makes people rally around their "leaders" in times of crisis, feeling good because of the "bold actions" of the leaders. It's a childish reaction of an afraid population which wants to believe that the "leaders" are omniscient and will take care of them in the crisis. It intensely bothers this kind of person that some country appears to be taking a different approach, than the one which "obviously" "must be right". Well, no one knows yet what the correct policies are, and furthermore, no one knows what those policies cost, and whether it was worth it. This story will be unfolding for a long time still.



Everyone everywhere is surprised at the low infection rate these last couple of weeks. What it means, and what to do with that, we have to figure out. We have to be ready for the second and third waves of the pandemic, ready to deal with them in a rational and efficient and SUSTAINABLE manner. We are at the beginning of the biggest global financial collapse in a century or more -- we have to deal with that as well, as that has immense implications in terms of health and deaths as well. These are not simple questions, and to understand it better it is not useful to read the yahoos on Yahoo or boulevard papers.



Another thing I like about what the Norwegian health chief said -- characteristic of this part of the world, people are not afraid to doubt and question in public, even their own decisions. Important sign of a healthy society. In many other places, the "leaders" have to appear always right at all costs, and God forbid should they express and doubt about one of their own policies, or to be surprised about something, lest they be skewered for it politically. We need more of this Nordic-style mentality in the world. This crisis is a great test of the health of different societies and it's nice to be here in this region where people aren't freaking out. Where people -- by and large -- discuss these things intelligently and with an open mind, not competing with each other over idiotic "league tables" and "leader boards".

Where Sweden failed most was protecting nursing homes and home services. There were no protective measures to talk about taken during the first months of the pandemic. The other point they failed was tracking the exposed. I hope they have improved now? In both of these Norway and Finland did much better job. Dunno but reckon in Denmark these points were excecuted well too?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Where Sweden failed most was protecting nursing homes and home services. There were no protective measures to talk about taken during the first months of the pandemic. The other point they failed was tracking the exposed. I hope they have improved now? In both of these Norway and Finland did much better job. Dunno but reckon in Denmark these points were excecuted well too?

Well, they did take measures but they failed. There were different problems, language barriers, misexecuted plans. But another problem is that Sweden has huge more centralized care homes than those in other Nordic countries which are exponentially (literally) harder to protect. Some of my friends in Denmark are medical specialists, they do not reckon that anything so much worse was done in Swedish care homes, than here. No country, in there view did a good job with care homes; some were luckier than others. There is a huge amount of policy review and self-criticism going on now about this, and not only in Sweden.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, they did take measures but they failed. There were different problems, language barriers, misexecuted plans. But another problem is that Sweden has huge more centralized care homes than those in other Nordic countries which are exponentially (literally) harder to protect. Some of my friends in Denmark are medical specialists, they do not reckon that anything so much worse was done in Swedish care homes, than here. No country, in there view did a good job with care homes; some were luckier than others. There is a huge amount of policy review and self-criticism going on now about this, and not only in Sweden.

The measures were orders without means to excecute them. Masks were prioritized for hospitals and there were none left for the rest. Sick leave was unavailable for most home service workers. It's easy to write up what should be done but not doing anything to enable that. Again hope they took this lesson to heart.

Here's what my friend and a biologist, Janne Seppänen from Jyvaskyla University wrote up about the causes of failed responses from health authorities, which is IMHO quite accurate for most western countries. It was written in finnish but this google translate should be pretty good, anyway understandable:

"Reflection on how expertise can cause Bayesian blindness.

Finnish academic armchair epidemiologists, that is, people who, because of their work, have privileged access, vocabulary, and basic analytical ability to read research in most (natural) disciplines so that they understand anything from anywhere, but hardly any epidemiology or virology studies or their own research, saw and told in ancient times in March) many things right in a corona pandemic. Such as Tuomas Aivelo (evolutionary biologist), Tuuli Lappalainen (geneticist), and maybe a little me (nobody).

At the same time, many of the most experienced experts with access to even better sources of information, guaranteed more understanding and knowledge and studies and experience and networks, were repeatedly completely wrong in assessing infection rates, morbidity, mortality, pathways, etc. A few of them still hold on to them. begins to be crushing.

Why so?

Because, as open-minded amateurs — but as amateurs with the researcher’s professionalism — armchair epidemiologists who read new studies weighed them with less anticipation of the truth. When one does not know in advance what the actual outcome “can in no way” be, one only has to look at the data, methods, conclusions, background of the authors of each study, and think about how much one can believe in that chain. If the links in the chain seem credible, the end result at the end of the chain is also credible. What the end result itself is doesn’t affect the credibility very much.

An expert, a leader in his field, a holder of solid experience, on the other hand, has had a strong preconceived notion of what the truths in his field can look like over the years. The distribution of possible outcomes at the head of the expert is much narrower. This is usually a good thing: therefore, an expert usually needs less time and energy and data to draw a conclusion and is still more often closer to the truth than even an talented amateur. The expert immediately identifies an argument that is so far removed from the distribution of possible truths that the underlying assumptions, data, methods, or some other thing are most likely to be incorrect. And if you’re in a hurry and under pressure, you may feel like you shouldn’t spend time and energy picking up that mistake, just skipping the whole argument.

But this only works when the phenomenon follows from the same processes from which anticipation has been acquired through years of brain work. Now it was not the flu or HIV or Ebola, but something new.

The expert should somehow learn to see the impact of his or her own expertise on anticipation, and to recognize a situation where an incredible number is perhaps incredible because a priori is from some other situation, and not because the data or model would be wrong. I don't know if that's possible. Therefore, the peer review of important issues should always always involve an expert in another field with a broader a priori."