[The Sabbaticus]

Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:

- UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
- The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
- This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
- The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
- The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
- The paper was very much too pessimistic
- Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
- The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
- The results will eventually be similar for all countries
- Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
- The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
- At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

Note: haven't listened to it yet.

Also, the Dutch prime minister is a goddamn weathervane. :')

[late]

Our Rightys just love that guy.

As I keep having to say, everybody is guessing. There are far too many unknowns for a policy to be more than an educated guess.

One thing you may not have noticed, is that it looks like Sweden is going to do massive testing. If you do enough testing, you can get ahead of the disease, which is prob what they intend to do.

Which makes me wonder why we aren't doing it.

[XogGyux]

"The people that are frail and old will die first, when that group of people are sort of thined out we will get less deaths"

I mean, that bizarre. That could be an excuse for renal disease.
Oh, patient is ESRD, lets not dialyze them, at the beginning there might be a spike of deaths due to renal failure but once they die first and the group of people are thined out, we will get less deaths.

- UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based

That is not totally accurate. It is true that the highest standard of evidence when it comes to health sciences, the double blinded randomized trial (or even better, meta-analysis) is not something that we have done, nor we can do to find out if social distancing (or other lockdown-type policies) are effective and if so by what magnitude. That being said, evidence does exist. We are not in the dark ages in which people did not know how diseases are transmitted.
We also know the approximate distance that droplets (which is the primary mean of transportation of respiratory viruses) can travel and the approximate time that they remain suspended. There is an interconnection between airborne and droplet but this is quite complicated and frankly I am not an expert in this so I would not go into more details.
We know, the farther we are from someone that has symptoms, the safer. The 6ft is just an arbitrary number that someone thought was doable while minimizing the risk of some particles (presumably the ones produced by speaking, if an uncovered cough is coming your way, you better be far farther than 6 feet, and if its a sneeze you probably want to be like 200feet away, ideally not in the same room and with no air-duct communication.
Some of this shit is not feasible. Remember, these are not meant to be guidelines for 100% protection but rather to slow down the spread.

- The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only

That might**** be the best strategy for them. Remember, we are comparing different health systems and with different social structures. If in some of these European countries with strong social support the restaurant server fall ill, this person calls in sick, she or he still gets paycheck and health insurance, etc. When this happens here, that server needs the $$ otherwise she goes homeless. So when you have someone that has all the incentives to work even though they SHOULD NOT! you have a problem. The server might be young, healthy and only have the sniffles for a day or two and then feel better. But all the people he/she served, the diabetics, the immunocompromised children, the elderly... all of those are at risk.
Not to mention, that frankly some of these European countries have very pragmatic views to end-of-life care. It is unlikely that they will have many 92 year olds in the ventilator for 2 weeks or more. This is not the practice in the US where people with much less understanding of health and a higher prevalence of religious views tend to keep people in vents much longer. This puts a drain in resources (not just vents, but medications, devices, human capital, etc.)
I am not saying that you cannot get cues from other systems, I am saying that when you do, you should be careful to the conclusions you draw.

- This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”

Perhaps so. We don't really know what degree of immunity catching the virus does. There have been reports of poor antibody response by those that have recovered and reports of re-infection. Again, this is a new virus and we know very little about it. Proceed with caution.

- The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better

Thats his opinion. Something happened in the UK to drive that turn.
Frankly, we might never know which approach was better. The way to find this out is with randomized blinded studies and we clearly cannot do this. The existing variables between countries and health system structures as well as societies understanding of health are so vast that we definitely cannot really compare strategies. To put it mildly we are experimenting as we go.

- The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown

I don't think that is accurate. At the very least he does not have the data to make such claims. In the US there are about 50M people over 65 years of age. There are less than 1 million infected people in the US, for the "flattening" of the curve to have a meaningful impact from those at risk just dying off, we would have had to have far more infections to see that effect. And this is not including those with "frail" health such as those immunocompromised and with multiple comorbidities.

- The results will eventually be similar for all countries

Again, the details matter. The deaths of COVID, unless we find any therapeutic agent, are indeed likely going to be similar amongst countries with similar level of health-care system development. However that does not take into account that if the rate of infection is not controlled, you might have massive surges like the ones in Italy and New york in which the systems become overwhelmed.

- Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.

That is not supported by the data that we have.

- The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%

Actually the data points towards a mortality rate in the ballpark of 5% for most places around the world. If they have less, well, they are lucky I guess.
For instance, there have been more than 10k deaths in NYC so far. NYC has a population of 8m. When you do do the math you do get about 0.1% death rate, but the implications of that would mean that every single human in NY is already infected which is highly unlikely, specially when they are still seeing new cases. That also does not take into account the people that are going to continue to die (aka, a large percentage of all that are currently connected to a ventilator will eventually die to the disease as the mortality rate among the subset that develop ARDS/severe pneumonia is in the 30%+ range.
So yeah, this sort of speculation does not seem accurate.

- At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

That is speculative at best, flat out wrong at worse.
Besides, if that is the hypothesis, we should be rushing to have widespread serology. Don't get me wrong, it would be a huge relief for me and most of the people if we find out that a large percentage of the population has been infected in the past, are doing fine and presumably has some degree of inmmunity.
Contrary to popular believe, nobody like lockdowns.

[foxdemon]

A recovered patient’s experience is the effects of the disease linger. There needs to be more study of the recovery process.


https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/immunity-still-really-low-covid-19-survivors-warning/ar-BB12Yu15


By now we shouldn’t be talking about the Wuhan virus in terms of an old people’s disease. It is a disease that affects everyone.

[Julian658]

https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY



Note: haven't listened to it yet.

Also, the Dutch prime minister is a goddamn weathervane. :')

I was pondering: What would happen if the old and frail did not die? Can anyone imagine that world? It sounds awful, I know.

[maz]

I was pondering: What would happen if the old and frail did not die? Can anyone imagine that world? It sounds awful, I know.

Why can't the old, frail and otherwise vulnerable just be forced, or given the freedom to stay home instead of forcing everyone including the healthy people to stay home?

[Donna]

Critics question Swedish approach as coronavirus death toll reaches 1,000
Scientists question light-touch tactics as other Nordic countries record lower death rates

Sweden has passed the grim milestone of 1,200 coronavirus deaths, far exceeding the tolls of its nearest neighbours, but suggested it may be nearing the outbreak’s peak as scientists continue to question the government’s light-touch approach.

The Public Health Agency announced a death toll of 1,203 people from Covid-19 on Wednesday, a rate of 118 per million inhabitants, compared with 55 in Denmark and just 13 in Finland, both of which imposed strict early lockdowns to curb the virus’s spread.

Sweden’s per-million tally is also significantly higher than the 42 recorded in Germany – but remains lower than the UK’s rate of 182 (as of Tuesday) and far below Italy’s 349 and Spain’s 399.

Anders Wallensten, the deputy chief epidemiologist, said the number of new Covid-19 cases was starting to decline and he was “cautiously positive” Sweden was approaching the peak. Officials said the health system was coping.

Polling suggests many Swedes continue to support the government’s strategy, which has entailed urging citizens to take personal responsibility for following physical distancing guidelines rather than strictly enforcing mandatory rules.


While authorities have closed senior high schools and banned gatherings of more than 50 people, they have asked – rather than ordered – people to avoid non-essential travel, work from home and stay indoors if they are over 70 or are feeling ill.

Statistics show roughly half the Swedish workforce is now working from home, public transport usage has fallen by 50% in Stockholm and the capital’s streets are about 70% less busy than usual – but Swedes are still able to shop, go to restaurants, get haircuts and send children under 16 to class even if a family member is ill.

The government’s refusal to close primary and junior high schools – and authorities’ insistence that only children who are themselves ill may stay at home – has caused some families and teachers particular concern, staff and parent groups have said.

Healthy students who have been kept out of school by anxious parents have been threatened with referral to social services, while concerned families and school staff have written open letters describing the government’s policy as “unacceptable” and arguing that it is “risking the lives of children, relatives and staff”.

In one letter published last week in Aftonbladet newspaper, more than 900 teachers and school staff said it was impossible for schools and daycare facilities to observe physical distancing recommendations, adding that “in many cases” children with infected family members had obeyed instructions to attend school, meaning “we are not able to protect children and educators in at-risk groups”.

Anders Tegnell, the country’s chief epidemiologist, has described the Swedish approach as an attempt to ensure “a slow spread of infection and that the health services are not overwhelmed”, arguing that it is important for a part of the population to acquire immunity.

Tegnell has denied trying to build rapid “herd immunity” to the virus, a strategy originally considered by the UK and the Netherlands before soaring projected death rates prompted those countries to change course.

Some experts have speculated that Sweden’s approach to managing the spread of the virus may also be influenced by its demographic profile – more than 50% of households are single-person – and relatively low population density of about 25 people per square kilometre, compared with, for example, 205 in Italy and 259 in the UK.

Although the longer-term impact is obviously unknown, Sweden’s strategy is not expected to preserve the country’s economy this year any more than those of countries imposing stricter lockdowns: Magdalena Andersson, the finance minister, said on Wednesday GDP could shrink by 10% this year and unemployment rise to 13.5%.

The strategy has also come under fire from some of the country’s scientists. A group of 22 doctors, virologists and researchers on Tuesday criticised the health agency in an op-ed published by Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

“The approach must be changed radically and quickly,” the group wrote. “As the virus spreads, it is necessary to increase social distance. Close schools and restaurants. Everyone who works with the elderly must wear adequate protective equipment. Quarantine the whole family if one member is ill or tests positive. Elected representatives must intervene, there is no other choice.”

Tegnell rejected the criticism and disputed the figures on which it was based. He previously said Sweden and its neighbours were on “different places on the curve”, and that Sweden had “unfortunately had a large spread of contagion in care homes for the elderly, something you have not seen in the other Nordic countries”.

The chief epidemiologist has repeatedly stressed that the world is in uncharted territory with the coronavirus, arguing that while Sweden might have more infections in the short term, it will not face the risk of a huge infection increase that many other countries might face once their strict lockdowns are lifted.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... aches-1000

[Suchard]

Leaving it up to individuals to decide whether to disregard a lockdown will effectively put an end to social distancing and expose the general population to the infectious virus.

[Patrickov]

Leaving it up to individuals to decide whether to disregard a lockdown will effectively put an end to social distancing and expose the general population to the infectious virus.

Not really. We Hongkongers commit social distancing far more robustly than whatever the government tried to tell us to (or lack thereof, although the experts surely did their job).

It all comes down to awareness. Admittedly the West have been too efficiently administered that epidemics like these are far too rare for the general public to take alert. Even our lesson were SARS in 2003, rather than MERS which were much more recent.

In some sense this epidemic is similar to the Grenfell disaster -- a 3rd world incident surprising a 1st world society. It's just that the scale being much larger this time.

[Sivad]

Latin America to see sharp increase in hunger, poverty: FAO
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKCN22A1WV

Africa faces 'hunger pandemic' as coronavirus destroys jobs and fuels poverty
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKCN22629V

Global hunger could double due to COVID-19 blow: U.N.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN22313U


The Pandemic’s Hidden Human Trafficking Crisis
The coronavirus has created more people vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers—and revealed the world’s unpreparedness to protect them.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/30/co ... ng-crisis/

The lockdowns around the world have a brutal impact on the human-trafficking world as sex-trafficking victims are struggling to care for their basic needs, numbers of cybersex-trafficked children are rising and human-trafficking rescue missions are stopped. Furthermore, the lingering pain of hunger endangers even more people to fall into the arms of traffickers.
https://fordhamobserver.com/45788/opini ... g-victims/

[Sivad]

Coronanvirus is a fake people problem and fake cowardly asshole people have destroyed billions of lives just to prolong their fake cowardly consumerist worthless asshole existences for a few more ignorant months. This is like the most ignorant shit the fakest generation has ever pulled. I hope these deplorable fake fucks all rot in hell.

[Code Rood]

A lockdown is absurd. And it's clearly not about keeping us safe. The elite is always looking for ways to expand power and control, and making people's lives as miserable as possible.

[Suchard]

A lockdown is absurd. And it's clearly not about keeping us safe. The elite is always looking for ways to expand power and control, and making people's lives as miserable as possible. That's how they operate. I shouldn't even be saying this stuff, but apparently a lot of people still don't see things for what they are.

Virologists disagree with you.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/virologist-christian-drosten-germany-coronavirus-expert-interview

[Sivad]

I understand that they're always looking for ways to expand power and control, and making people's lives as miserable as possible; because that's how they operate if you don't keep an eye on their BS.

Yeah, it's not just the economic devastation, there's also the civil liberties issue to consider and none of these fucking idiots are even thinking about that. When you do actually think about it you realize that even in a civically functional society with healthy institutions the policies and precedents that are being set right now are so dangerous that they wouldn't be rationally justified even if the virus was ten times as virulent. But in a dysfunctional failed democracy like ours where every institution has been captured by malignant interests and every office and agency is infested with networks of agents of those malignancies, supporting any of this shit is beyond asinine. You gotta be dead from the neck up not to be acutely alarmed at what's happening here.