GUWonder

Sweden’s approach to testing is still a joke. It reminds me of the worst of what has gone on with testing in the US, but I’m not going to say more about this unless and until there are press articles that can be attributed to other sources in Sweden.

Belarus? Why wouldn’t I take a tinpot banana republic as a role model for keeping things going well during a pandemic?

RedChili

I don't trust the information from Belarus at all, but I'm puzzled by the fact that all Eastern European countries report relatively low death toll figures for covid-19:

Romania 51 per million
Slovenia 49
Estonia 46
Hungary 44
North Macedonia 44
Moldova 42
Bosnia 33
Czechia 26
Serbia 25
Croatia 22
Poland 21
Lithuania 18
Russia 14
Belarus 14
Montenegro 14
Bulgaria 13
Albania 11
Latvia 10
Ukraine 9
Slovakia 5

So, there are actually some EU countries with lower rates than Belarus, such as Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovakia. I certainly don't expect Latvia to hide the real numbers. Belarus figures are actually in the same range as their neighbors, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

GUWonder

The more insular a society or state is and the less transnational social freedom exists or is utilized in a way to create widespread exposure, the less likely a population is to be hit as hard and as soon. Make me a hermit on some well-stocked floating palace far from everybody more social, and I’m sure that the reported virus deaths for my mythical hermit palace on the sea would be very low for a very long time.

Which of those Eastern European “role-model” countries have strong and reliable testing regimes for this virus and a healthcare system and governments known for reliable reporting and acceptance of such when it comes to unwelcome news? Even trying to do a routine money-laundering investigation aimed at government figures in Poland, Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania isn’t easy and without its risks.

Fredrik74

I mean, Donald Trump says you're doing fine.

Fredrik74

Most of the Eastern European EU states have a large segment of their population working abroad and there's plenty of traffic. These countries instituted lockdowns and/or entry restrictions early however.

Certainly no talk about herd immunity there.

I don't know about Hungary and I don't really trust any news reports about them from either side so to speak. But for the others the above looks like an accurate description.

GUWonder

Sweden’s recent daily number updates for new virus deaths make Sweden look almost like a land that has gotten beyond this pandemic hitting hard. Let’s hope that is not a mirage due to weekends and related work habits.

There is plenty of such traffic ordinarily but the timing and location of the spread in Europe and the timing of VFR travel to Poland at least may mean something in this regard: “no talk of herd immunity there”.

The VFR Polish traffic from Scandinavia to Poland dried up big time during the February-May period. Not only did they seem not to want to leave and risk losing work or having trouble getting back, they also seem to have gotten the message that visiting old relatives back in Poland wasn’t a good idea and thus had less than the usual desire to leave Scandinavia back for Poland.

It seems like many of the Catholic Church facilities in Sweden offer Polish-language Sunday school. Are those more common around Stockholm than around other regions of Sweden far to the west and south of Stockholm? My sense was that they were less in demand in Stockholm than in municipalities where SD got more votes than the national average.

Fredrik74

At least for Stockholm it's looking better. Let's hope it won't be too bad in the provinces.

I received some advice from a doctor that is close to me who had no objections to some family travel happening soon. This is changed since Easter and this indicates to me that things are moving in the right direction. .

MSPeconomist

This is somewhat off topic, but your post reminded me of what might be an interesting (small) sample and case for comparison: Does anyone know about the situation on the luxury condo cruise ship? I think it's called something like Residence at Sea. Before the virus, IIRC they had been allowing movement on and off in the units that were rented out as guest rooms on particular segments, but the general experience seemed to be that the entire ship was generally very empty with no crowds in common dining rooms and recreational areas.

GUWonder

You mean The World? It was taken out of service:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...ronavirus/amp/

And it’s definitely not going to provide the hermit lifestyle of being all alone since the ship has lots of crew members ordinarily and others resident on board. I would have more success playing hermit on some islands a sub-2-hour boat ride away from central Stockholm than doing so on The World.

Speaking of cruise ships, Stockholm is going to be losing a lot of that business this summer. The drop in international travel demand even to Sweden and the economic downturn isn’t doing me any favors for getting some island accommodations in Sweden any more easily and cheaper than in prior years. Rather it seems like it is going to cost me more to get worse value than was the case a few years back.

bensyd

Worldometers and Wiki, but they don't have deaths by region. Thanks for the link, Frederick.

Just to understand, when they say "Stockholm" is that Stockholm city, metro, county etc? What is the population I should be using as the denominator?

Fredrik74

That is Stockholm county so around 2.2 million people.

CPH-Flyer

Quite sadly, it seems that it was another weekend delay in reporting, as it was 147 yesterday. I had really hoped we had seen the end of these kind of numbers but let's see what the next days will show.

GUWonder

Sweden’s per capita death rate from this virus is getting increasingly worse than the US’s per capita death rate. And Sweden’s was already quite a bit worse than the US’s. How much longer will that be the case?

Sweden’s per capita death rate from this virus has Sweden even worse than the Netherlands now. Of the EEA countries that aren’t micro-states of sort, only Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the UK are worse than Sweden in this regard. Let’s call June 15th as the season end for this and see where the final results are for this comparison then.

RedChili

The Netherlands doesn't count deaths in nursing homes in the official statistics, and they account for nearly half of all deaths. So the truth is that the Netherlands is almost twice as bad as Sweden.

CPH-Flyer

I think you might be confusing The UK and The Netherlands here; as the UK had this issue in their numbers for sure, and I have read articles about NL where they look at the effect of retirement homes/nursing homes on the overall statistics. So while The Netherlands may miss out on some, or have a less strict definition of what part of retirement home fatalities they include, they are certainly not entirely without that part of the cases in their numbers.