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

[GordMay]

Sweden’s light-touch approach to the COVID-19 lockdown has gathered interest from around the world, and controversy within the country’s scientific and medical community.
"Science" magazine assesses the approach spearheaded by top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, speaks to scientists and physicians who are critical of the plan and explores the current state of play in the country.

‘It’s been so, so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash ~ by Gretchen Vogel
➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...7501c-45020405

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Sweden’s light-touch approach to the COVID-19 lockdown has gathered interest from around the world, and controversy within the country’s scientific and medical community.
"Science" magazine assesses the approach spearheaded by top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, speaks to scientists and physicians who are critical of the plan and explores the current state of play in the country.

‘It’s been so, so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash ~ by Gretchen Vogel
➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...7501c-45020405

Except now, without further explanation, Swedish response to Covid19 is closing what other Nordic countries have. Thou also in the other Nordic countries the response is a somewhat lighter compared to spring time.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Sweden’s light-touch approach to the COVID-19 lockdown has gathered interest from around the world, and controversy within the country’s scientific and medical community.
"Science" magazine assesses the approach spearheaded by top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, speaks to scientists and physicians who are critical of the plan and explores the current state of play in the country.

‘It’s been so, so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash ~ by Gretchen Vogel
➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...7501c-45020405

There is controversy in every country, about the pandemic measures. That is only natural since there was so little information upon which to do decision-making in the spring when it started.

But this is a very small minority view in Sweden, or indeed in Europe. The opinion in Europe is overwhelmingly that Sweden has done a fantastic job, probably best of any country. Just about everyone here really admires the courage and cool thinking which went into the Swedish approach, which more and more looks good, as time goes by. And importantly -- the Swedish approach is pretty much EXACTLY the way nearly all European countries are dealing with second wave now, although the second wave is much bigger than the first. This is important.



As is the Nordic way, there has been a great deal of soul-searching about whether the measures taken were correct or not. The health authorities of all of the other Nordic countries have come out against one or another of even the mild measures taken in those countries. It is now universally considered to have been a mistake to have closed primary schools (Sweden closed universities and secondary schools, but alone among the Nordic countries, did not close primary schools, and it has been proven that there was no significant spread of the virus as a result of that). There was a scandal in Denmark because the government ignored the health authorities' advice and imposed stricter measures than what was recommended (but Danish measures were still very light compared to the rest of Europe). Norway and Finland have both said that too many businesses were closed (although it was really just hairdressers, yoga studios, etc.).


As I've written before -- Sweden is a risky subject, because the example of Swedish measures is unjustly used, or rather misused, on both sides of a pro-lockdown, anti-lockdown, fundamentally political and fundamentally anti-scientific debate. Avoid the noisy political-motivated debates on the subject -- you won't find any real truth on either side of it.

What anti-lockdown fanatics fail to see is that Sweden DID take a lot of measures. Just because most of them were voluntary, has not made them less effective. Cell phone data, data from public transport, traffic data prove that Swedes socially distanced much like other Nordic countries (none of which locked down). So Sweden is NOT indeed a case that proves that you just don't do anything.

Nor is the example of Sweden any proof that if you don't lock down, everyone is going to die. For one thing -- the Swedish measures were hardly different from those in Finland and Denmark, where, I say again -- there was also no lockdown. Death in Sweden was less per capita than the U.S. as a whole, although the U.S. endured brutal, job-killing lockdowns in many States, producing tens of millions of unemployed, and the Swedish death rate was 3x or 4x less than a number of U.S. states, and was around average for Western and Northern Europe. Death in Sweden was much higher than in the other Nordic countries, but you can't explain that with minor differences in the measures. Furthermore, Sweden has done really well since May, with one of the lowest infection rates in Europe since then, and deaths pretty much over in May. Lower than normal death rates since then may even in the end result in zero or near zero excess mortality for 2020 as a whole. The median age of the dead in Sweden was 84. It is becoming increasingly clear that relatively few people died in Sweden, who were not going to die anyway. I'm not saying there is anything good about that big spike of deaths in April -- certainly some big mistakes were made with care homes -- but you have to keep it in perspective.

Anyway around here, the admiration for the Swedes and their calm, courageous, science-driven approach, is almost universal. Here in Helsinki, I hear someone talking about it literally every day.

[Dockhead]

So this is quite interesting:


https://www.israelnationalnews.com/N...ws.aspx/288881


David Nabarro of the World Health Organization, in an interview with Andrew Neil, as reported in INN:



"'We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,' Dr. Nabarro said.
"'The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we'd rather not do it.'
"Dr. Nabarro went on to criticize the use of lockdowns, noting the extreme economic damage they cause, particularly to the most vulnerable sectors of a given population.
"'Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.'
"'Look what's happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.'
"Nabarro went on to call lockdowns and the accompanying economic damage a 'ghastly global catastrophe'.
"'This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe, actually. And so, we really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method. Develop better systems for doing it.'"

Doubling of world poverty is of course, by itself, much worse than the deaths of a few million people. Because that will bring deaths of tens of millions, plus destroying the lives of hundreds of millions. It's not worth it.



Sounds a bit like some of the conversations we've had on here, doesn't it?


This is coming just in time as we have a huge increase in the number of cases, all over Europe. It's a different world, from a couple of weeks ago. What will be next? God only knows -- we are in uncharted waters. Finland, of all places, is now having a big wave of new cases.


Finnish borders are again closed ; see; https://finlandtoday.fi/borders-clos...gen-countries/


As was the case earlier in the pandemic, a big exception is leisure sailors -- recreational boats from anywhere in Europe are welcome in Finland without restrictions. Quite a contrast to the Australian approach. Will be irrelevant soon, however, if the sea freezes.



The Finnish government is preparing a "wide-ranging set of restrictions", which will be announced next week. The mayors of a bunch of Finnish cities, including Helsinki, have already voiced sharp criticism of the idea of renewed restrictions. I doubt that lockdown will be part of the "wide-ranging restrictions", as Finland didn't do that even in the Spring, when most of Europe was locked down. And the head of Finland's health services, Mika Salminen, has always been a staunch proponent of the moderate, non-locked-down Nordic approach. So fingers crossed.

[Dockhead]

Ha, and in Finland even NON-European pleasure boats can arrive. So this is even less restrictive than it was previously:


https://www.raja.fi/current_issues/f...ber_2020_80737

[Dockhead]

Another quite stinging indictment of the anti-pandemic measures taken so far:

"As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection. "Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
"Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed."

https://gbdeclaration.org/#read

Main authors of the Declaration are:

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.

Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.

All this gives me some hope that we will be wiser this time around.

[GordMay]

How do we get out of lockdown ~ Dr. David Nabarro
➥ https://www.oneyoungworld.com/who-open-briefings

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

How do we get out of lockdown ~ Dr. David Nabarro
➥ https://www.oneyoungworld.com/who-open-briefings

17 April 2020.


Their thinking has really evolved since then. They've had time to think about the consequences of lockdown, I guess.

[Pete7]

Universities are taking a hammering in the UK at the moment as they have all started a new educational year mid September. 3rd hand stories of one group tested and found to be positive decided to hold a C19 party, after all they all ready have it. No thought to the students and staff nearby in Halls Another group of negative tested students also decided to have a big party in the Hall of residence despite the rule of 6 max indoors for England.

IOW showing 354 cases per 100,000 which is quite low for Hampshire. Probably due to the stretch of water from the mainland and no universities.

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/health/...-wight-2847897

Originally Posted by Dockhead

So the UK is really being swamped with cases -- I guess that ends my dream of taking my boat to Cowes for the winter.

Given the shambles of Brexit which will occur in January, I would be tempted to stay put in Europe. Poor Spring rains will mean veg and fruit are in short supply this year and higher prices on top of Brexit.

Pete

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Universities are taking a hammering in the UK at the moment as they have all started a new educational year mid September. 3rd hand stories of one group tested and found to be positive decided to hold a C19 party, after all they all ready have it. No thought to the students and staff nearby in Halls Another group of negative tested students also decided to have a big party in the Hall of residence despite the rule of 6 max indoors for England.

IOW showing 354 cases per 100,000 which is quite low for Hampshire. Probably due to the stretch of water from the mainland and no universities.

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/health/...-wight-2847897

Given the shambles of Brexit which will occur in January, I would be tempted to stay put in Europe. Poor Spring rains will mean veg and fruit are in short supply this year and higher prices on top of Brexit.

Pete

With Finnish borders shut, I've ruled out the UK, sadly.


I think we will overwinter in Gdansk. Two days sailing from Denmark.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

So, a lot can happen in a couple of weeks.

We're seeing the second wave virtually everywhere in Europe except perhaps Latvia. Even Sweden, which now has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, is seeing a substantial uptick in cases.

To save trouble crunching the numbers as I was doing before, now I'm just going to use the official EU 14-day stats, from here: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea

cum cases 14 days cum deaths per 100k 14 days

Denmark 125.2 0.3
Estonia 42.9 0.0
Sweden 42.7 0.2
Norway 29 0.2
Finland 20.1 0.1
Latvia 11.5 0.1

And for comparison:

Germany 30.9 0.1
France 231.9 1.3
Spain 329.2 3.3
UK 101.5 0.5

The death rates, even in Spain, are a fraction of what they were in the Spring, currently 107 per day on a 7 day average compared to nearly 1000 at the peak in the Spring.

. . .

Another couple weeks hence:


Denmark 125.2 > 99.6 [cases actually going DOWN in Denmark]
Estonia 42.9 > 50.2
Sweden 42.7 > 72.5 [a big increase, not quite doubling]
Norway 29 > 34.1
Finland 20.1 > 34.4 [so Finland has passed Norway]
Latvia 11.5 > 51.8 [huge rate of increase; from lowest in Europe to now more than Estonia or Finlad]

And for comparison:

Germany 30.9 > 45.2
France 231.9 > 293.1 [a big rate but moderate rate of increase]
Spain 329.2 > 308.1 [a big rate, but actually going down!]
UK 101.5 > 253.2 [big rate and big rate of increase]




Death rates, thank God, continue to be very low in Europe. Sweden carries on at 0 to 2 per day on a 7 day rolling average; today 1, which is 0.1 per million. Denmark is 2 per day which is about 0.4 per million. France is 68 per day or about 1 per million; compare to 975 daily deaths per day at the peak in April. Death rate in the UK has come up somewhat, to 72, but again, this is only about 1 per million and is way down from 941 per day at the peak in April.



More concerning is the death rate in the U.S., which is 710 per day or about 2.2 per million, 22x the death rate in Sweden. But the U.S. is too big to blend all the individual states. Some states are doing OK, some are having quite a hard time. The death rate in Mississippi, for example, is 13 a day or more than 4 per million.

[Wotname]

@Dockhead, thanks for continuing to post and update this thread. Your posts make it very easy for us downunders to get a CV19 snapshot of Europe.



We get a lot of US data here via the media and some numbers from the UK along with occasional Spanish and French figures but not much else.

Saves me going looking elsewhere

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Wotname

@Dockhead, thanks for continuing to post and update this thread. Your posts make it very easy for us downunders to get a CV19 snapshot of Europe.

We get a lot of US data here via the media and some numbers from the UK along with occasional Spanish and French figures but not much else.

Saves me going looking elsewhere

Cheers. I just wish I understood what it all means so I could comment meaningfully.

I just realized that the Danish numbers are a ray of hope for Northern Europe. They had a big outbreak and pretty big rise in cases, but now they've come right back down again without any significant restrictions being imposed. Please God let that be the pattern for the rest of this part of the world.

I was talking to my friends in Copenhagen yesterday and unlike people everywhere else in Europe, they were quite upbeat. Their second wave seems to be subsiding and it was no big deal -- did not greatly interfere with normal life, and hardly anyone died, although there were a lot of infections.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

. . . More concerning is the death rate in the U.S., which is 710 per day or about 2.2 per million, 22x the death rate in Sweden. But the U.S. is too big to blend all the individual states. Some states are doing OK, some are having quite a hard time. The death rate in Mississippi, for example, is 13 a day or more than 4 per million.

Or Montana! Yikes!


611 daily cases on 7 day rolling average, or 61 per 100k population, highest rate I've ever seen, higher than Israel. That's 3x the rate in France, 14x the rate in Sweden, almost 20x the rate in Germany.


Fortunately the death rate isn't all that high -- about 3 per million.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Or Montana! Yikes!


611 daily cases on 7 day rolling average, or 61 per 100k population, highest rate I've ever seen, higher than Israel. That's 3x the rate in France, 14x the rate in Sweden, almost 20x the rate in Germany.


Fortunately the death rate isn't all that high -- about 3 per million.

Montana isn’t as isolated as everyone believes. Of the total population of 1 million, the vast majority are in a few small areas, and most of those with a university presence.

Using my father as a representation of the population (which I also used to be) life as normal (restaurants/bars) has returned.