The numbers are many multiples of what is being reported.
I live in the (presumed) social democratic paradise of Sweden where the "government" has just decided to stop testing anyone who is not already in a hospital and belongs to a risk group, i.e. anyone under ~65 years of age without any co-morbidities [1 - Swedish]. The "state epidemiologist" Anders Tegnell has other wisdom to spread to the world like the fact that a call for as many companies to have as many employees as possible working from home is "problematic" because it ends up exposing some people to more risk of infection than others and thus offset the principle of "fairness" in society [2 - Swedish]. In other words, if we can not lower the risk of exposure for everyone we should not lower the risk for anyone. He is also against school closures because children can not get infected - oh, they can? OK, because children don't get very ill - but they'll still spread the infection to those who can get very ill? OK, because some children don't have it all that nice at home so it would not be fair to them to close the schools. Again, if we can not make it better for everyone it is preferable to not do anything at all.
Sweden is now coming under heavy criticism from other countries, China being one of them [3 - Swedish] when they state "Sweden has capitulated in front of the virus and stands to become a danger to other countries". This is probably part of an ongoing spat between Sweden and China where Sweden earlier criticised China's actions against a Chinese-Swedish citizen but there is no denying that the Swedish "government" has shown a lack of foresight and proactive strategies. There is a dearth of supplies, Sweden has the lowest number of hospital beds per capita in the OECD which is odd for the country with the highest taxes in the world, the health care system can not cope with the normal case load let alone with an influx of Corona-related patients.
[1] https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/samhalle/a/70GQRV/nya-str...
[2] https://nyheteridag.se/tegnell-ojamlikt-att-spotifys-anstall...
[3] https://www.svd.se/kina-riktar-skarp-coronakritik-mot-sverig...
But that is precisely why the ones who can, office workers, should stay home. For them! We are in this together.
This guy should absolutely resign, apparently when asked to do so here is his response (link 2)
> No. It is clear that if someone who is considered more competent than I am at dealing with this will come to accept that situation. But I think this is really fun. It sounds a bit strange, but it's a big challenge, a fantastic challenge with this kind of work.
Guy sounds like an absolute moron.
The reason why not everyone is offered testing is because healthcare is very accessible and free in Sweden (like it is in Denmark, Norway, and Germany too) meaning that you can't offer it to everyone who wants it. Because if you did, you would have to pointlessly test a million hypochondriacs with symptoms that have nothing to do with corona just for the sake of it.
For one view on how well countries handle the epidemic, look at the fatality rate. US: 49/2195 = 2.2%, Germany: 5/3062 = 0.16%, Sweden: 2/867 = 0.23%, Norway: 1/996 = 0.10%, Frane: 79/3667 = 2.2%.
I am all for single-payer health insurance, either through the state or through a private-public system like the Netherlands uses. I just don't see how the current Swedish system can be seen as a good solution given the high costs and low productivity it is characterised by.
Those fatality rates you quote are based on the assumption that the reported case incidence is correct which is very likely not the case. Assuming that the number of SARS2-related deaths is correct this number is probably the best way to make an estimate of the actual case incidence in developed countries with a functioning (not overloaded) health care system - this does not go for e.g. Italy where they're now doing reverse triage, i.e. they decide who gets treatment based on a desire to maximize throughput instead of treating those who have the highest need first as is done in a non-overloaded situation.
By the way, I'm not a Swede. I am a Dutchman living in Sweden with a Swedish-French wife and two Dutch-Swedish-French children.
That would be a fair position if you could tell us how you would do it better. Preferably your proposals should be based on research. I imagine being an epidemologist and constantly having people questioning your expertise is not dissimilar to being a software developer and having people constantly doing the same to you. Frustrating, in other words.
> Your statement on Swedish health care being "very accessible and free" is easily countered by the fact that the waiting times are notoriously long and getting longer while the amount of provincial tax money spent per capita is more than double the amount spent by neighbouring Finland which manages to avoid some of these problems.
Corona testing would be executed by primary caregivers for which waiting times are short. See https://www.vantetider.se/ The stats say that 80% of patients have to wait less than three days for a doctor's appointment.
Tax rates are a very broad discussion and in my opinion not relevant here.
> Those long waiting times have led to a large increase in the number of people who take out private health insurance to make sure they can actually get the treatment they need instead of having to wait for half a year or more.
6% of the population has a private health insurance. Such insurance can reduce waiting times to specialist care but not primary care.
> Those fatality rates you quote are based on the assumption that the reported case incidence is correct which is very likely not the case.
True. My point is that, all else being equal, the better the healthcare the lower the mortality rate should be. E.g Germany has 3062 cases but only 5 fatalities meaning that the disease is probably somewhat contained. The US has 2345 cases and 50 fatalities meaning the opposite.
> By the way, I'm not a Swede. I am a Dutchman living in Sweden with a Swedish-French wife and two Dutch-Swedish-French children.
I apologize for jumping to conclusions.
While I have much to fault the overly bureaucratic and top-heavy WHO for I do agree to their current stance on the handling of the pandemic. This stance is based on research and is supported by many in the field. It is also followed by a large number of countries in Europe except for a few, Sweden being one of those. I linked to one of Dr. John Campbell's (who is one of the more reasonable voices on this subject) videos on this subject a few posts above this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etlyvt9n_QE
> Corona testing would be executed by primary caregivers
It shouldn't. It should be done outside of the normal healthcare centres ("vårdcentraler") to reduce the risk of infection. Look at the way it is done in South Korea where mobile testing facilities are used for an idea on how to handle this. There should be no need for an appointment, the test should be "drive-through" or "walk-through".
> 6% of the population has a private health insurance. Such insurance can reduce waiting times to specialist care but not primary care.
The waiting times are mostly an issue for specialist care. Given that a large part of the role of the primary care provider is to refer people to specialist care this reduction in waiting times is very relevant.
This approach sounds very similar to the UK approach, overseen by Whitty[0] and Vallance[1], and agreed with by Neal[2] and Ferguson[3] (and I assume more but I haven't looked very hard). I don't think all these guys are morons. Well, I hope they're not.
[0] Chris Whitty, UK Chief Medical Officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Whitty
[1] Patrick Vallance, UK Chief Science Officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Vallance
[2] Keith Neal, Professor Emeritus - Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases, Univ of Nottingham https://uk.linkedin.com/in/keith-neal-1818b391
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/nottingh... (there was a better quote on the BBC but I can't find it now)
[3] Neil Ferguson, https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/neil.ferguson Haven't got a link but I heard him speak on UK Radio 4's Today programme this morning.
The UK allowed the Cheltenham festival [1] to take place this last week as well, attracting 250.000 visitors.
The mere fact that the UK arrived at the same conclusions as Sweden does not make those conclusions any more valid or wise.
I was (quite vociferously) of your opinion till Boris Johnson's press conference on Thursday. I changed my mind during it listening to Whitty and Vallance explain their strategy. I now think it makes sense.
Dr. John Campbell goes into the contradiction between the approach used in e.g. Sweden and the UK vs. that advocated by the WHO. He is with the WHO on this point, as am I. In a few months time we'll know which approach worked best.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402
Edit: Ah. The list of signatories is worth reviewing.
Regardless I do feel like that idiot needs to resign and that Sweden needs to take this more seriously. Though I guess that’ll happen out of necessity in a week anyway.
This is not US-only. Here in Austria there are very strict rules on whom to test, and age is a big factor as well as having symptoms or not. Local authorities do decide on a case-by-case basis, and getting a test if you are not showing symptoms is really hard.
But on the other hand by taking these measures they try to not overwhelm the testing-labs, as they struggle to keep up with the demand for tests and want to keep the reporting-time as low as possible. A couple of days ago test results came back the next day, now (Saturday) they seem to slip to 3 days or more.
So restricting who get's a test and who doesn't seems like a good idea to begin with.
Regardless of what's causing your symptoms.
If you're having increased trouble breathing, you should see a hospital.