What is this about non-intervention?
The Swedes had a whole range of interventions.
I can list them if necessary.
Anders Tegnell underestimated the percentage of the Stockholm population that would be immune by the end of May if he said 40%.
It's in the region of 95 - 98%.
This is comprised of those with innate immunity (nearly all children and most healthy adults). Included in those with innate immunity is those with genetic immunity.
Then there are those who have a robust t-cell response to viral attack, which kicks the virus out rapidly without the production of antibodies. Perhaps half the adult population. This group will be largely or completely without symptoms, though would likely test positive if PCR tested.
Then you have those with symptoms. These will produce antibodies, which would show up in serological testing. 90% of those with symptoms will recover without medical intervention.
Which leaves a small group who are susceptible to life-threatening severe viral infection.
The very old (with immunosenescence), those with co-morbidities that also weaken the immune system, those who are obese (particularly if they stay indoors a lot!), and those who live in deprived areas with high density housing.
Something like 40% of Sweden's deaths have been in care homes for the elderly. Because like nearly everywhere else, they failed to adopt the correct strategies to prevent care home infections, or to mitigate their consequences.
Why compare Sweden with the other Nordic countries? Geographical proximity has no bearing on relative CFR's.
Why not compare Sweden with other European countries such as the UK, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, which all have higher deaths per million of population. All of which had lockdowns.
What is this about a second wave of the pandemic being expected in the Autumn? Expected by whom?
It is certainly possible that the countries with the strictest lockdowns will experience a significant (but likely moderate) 2nd wave after easing of lockdowns, precisely because those lockdowns artificially suppressed virus transmission. But that is just a very small part of the price of paralysing lockdowns.
There is minimal to no possibility of Sweden experiencing a second wave of deaths in the Autumn (mark this so you can quote me if I'm wrong, which I won't be!).
They will have a steady wave of new infections which will gradually permeate the rest of the country in the next 3 months or so. Most of these will be entirely symptomless. Deaths in Sweden will continue to steadily decline over the same period.
By the end of the year, Covid deaths in Sweden will have very largely ceased.
The various contact tracing schemes now being adopted in various countries will be completely counter-productive in any country where the virus genie is out of the bottle. In the UK, where perhaps 20-50% of the population have been exposed to the virus, exactly what is contact tracing supposed to achieve?
The UK has recruited an army of 20,000 contact tracers who will sit in call centres doing I don't know what!
Sending well and healthy people back into isolation is simply crazy.
S Korea did adopt rigorous contact tracing early enough for it to have noticeable benefit. But it's unclear whether continued contact tracing is sustainable even in S Korea. The recent example of one infective man visiting a number of gay nightclubs in one night resulted in 40,000 subsequent tests! It was hailed as a success, but actually just showed to me that such contact tracing is completely unfeasible in any country where infections past or present run at more than a few percent.
These apps will be introduced and then quietly dropped a couple of months later, when it is realised that they have a paralysing effect akin to the original lockdowns, for zero accrued benefit.
Secondary pandemic deaths are not easy to quantify. But in countries such as the UK, which simply stopped cancer and cardiology testing and treatment, you can expect unnecessary excess deaths in these illnesses to at least match Covid deaths.
And these deaths will be in a younger age demographic.
Economic decimation and the resulting long-term unemployment and new poverty, such as we will see in much of Europe and the US will lead to a huge toll of poverty related disease, deaths, and suicides.
Perhaps 5 - 20 times deaths from the virus in the next decade.
And countries / states with entire economic lockdowns will obviously fare worse.
I believe the US has lost 40m jobs since the beginning of the epidemic, with 20% unemployment now widely expected.
And when you look at life years lost, and taking into account the median age of Covid deaths, and the median age of collateral deaths due to the economic disaster, I would imagine that the impact of the latter will be at least 30 times the former. Probably much more.
Germany is a good case example of population wide disease progression. And a very good example of a low death toll due to properly resourced medical facility, and the competent exercise of authority. Less than one fifth of per capita fatality compared to a country like the UK. For Germany, the virus very definitely caused the same or less deaths than a typical flu season.
They have had approximately 8,500 deaths to date with a population of 83 million. Same virus as everywhere else...
And now their weekly death rate has dropped by about 80%, with very low deaths recorded in the last few days.
Small shops re-opened a month ago and all shops are now able to re-open, at the same time as pragmatic social distancing measures being retained.
Direct outcomes of the virus around the world will become more apparent in the next few months.
Indirect outcomes will become more apparent in the the next few years.
