GUWonder

The “go cheap” thing has been (if anything) persistent for a long time and not much interrupted over the years in Sweden.

The policy of Sweden’s low income workers (also) being incentivized to work when initially sick — and not really able to afford to use sick leave from the start when sick — has consequences in a pandemic, especially for those working in jobs where you can’t work from your own (relatively spacious) home and those exposed to such.

A lot of the children-oriented, amusement places in Sweden seem to be closed currently, but it appears that other such places are open. It will be interesting to see what goes on with people from across Sweden visiting Stockholm this month. There are apparently lots of people looking to go to Skansen this month. And even as it’s mostly outdoors stuff and there is usually a lot of space to keep a distance, crowds still can form in places and there will be bottlenecks that make for higher risks than staying around home instead.

Sweden as a pariah state due to coronavirus response now headlines a NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/w...il&login=email

nacho

Apparently a Covid-19 positive Swede broke quarantine rules in Greece:

https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/20...lation-athens/

CPH-Flyer

I hope that similarly to the UK or Australia, breaking the quarantine rules has consequences. The GBP 1,000 fine for breaking quarantine rules seems quite appropriate. I think it is even more expensive in Singapore.

People enter a country under certain rules, and then just ignores them.

GUWonder

Of the segment of the general public out and about with a face mask (on their face or around the neck) in Sweden (for non-work purposes) and that aren’t coming from a foreign country or airport/flight, most seem to have been of either African ethnic background, of East Asian ethnic background, or a tiny fraction of the elderly living independently(mostly). And even for those population segments, mask wearing is uncommon.

Maybe the upside of the EU “we will have a summer tourism season” is that masks become a more common sight for Swedes, and thereby acceptance of mask use by others in Sweden may improve somewhat (even as it won’t be much because of that).

nacho

Someone wrote that in Estonia the fine is 5000 EUR.

Yeah that's why a friend of someone in a Corona group on FB saying the group she is in is for "brown people". It doesn't help when the government is blaming immigrants and poor people for the infections and deaths at elderly homes. And a Caucasian wore sunglasses and mask was told to go back to China in Sweden (happened not long ago - it was after Sweden reached 5000 deaths). I shared the local's article and I have multiple friends who replied that they were harassed. Not exactly something you expect to happen in a "humanitarian superpower".

Fredrik74

Where I am it's not as obvious. I've seen Chinese/Japanese not wearing masks and I've seen people with other backgrounds wear masks. The number of people using them is really small.

I had another question. The official argument is that we've increased testing and that's why the infection rate is going up but shouldn't it start dropping soon? I get that there could be a wish from many with suspected symptoms not previously allowed to test but shouldn't those have been processed by now? I've also heard that we test more than other countries from several people . Does anyone know if there's a good source for that stat?

CPH-Flyer

Worldometer is a pretty decent source, they have Sweden at about 51 K test per million inhabitabts, 1K above Azerbaijan. And number 52 in the world. The US is at 113K tests per million.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The numbers for Sweden does seem to have peaked, though the last 2-3 days on this chart may still be updated. There was no reporting on Sunday. Sweden seems to have stopped daily updates on the numbers. Saturday and Sunday reporting is spotty, but it gets added retroactively Monday/Tuesday.

Fredrik74

Thanks,

yes it looks like perhaps it's going down but I'll wait until I've seen that the weekend has been accounted for and probably a few more days just because. Then we'll see how fast it goes down.

nacho

The curve ought to go down at some point of time in Sweden when the virus has killed all it wants to kill

FHM is sending mixed signals: on one hand they think the situation is getting better, on the other hand Tegnell said on the news not long ago saying be prepared to work from home in Autumn.

Wallensten is back with a fake tan (you can see his original skin colour just below his forehead).

GUWonder

The “brown people” heavy areas in Malmo seem to have extremely low rates of mask use; and the higher rates of mask use in those areas seem to be a result of people who are of sub-Saharan or East African origin and of the very elderly, rolling-walker type folk that no one would assume to be of immigrant origins.

Given we are in peak Swedish summer vacation period, I suspect that the shared Swedish numbers are less reliable than usual for a variety of reasons. The measure to focus on is the percentage of the tested who have a positive for infection. What’s that number for Sweden now and how is it trending?

FWIW, I see and hear more people coughing this week in Skane than during last month.

About the herd-immunity approach that Sweden continues to pursue in ways, it seems to be a failure on so many levels. Even in a place like Stockholm, NYC or badly hit parts of Spain and Italy, it seems to be turning out that most people haven’t been exposed to this virus to such extent that natural herd immunity could even have a chance to mean anything practical for more vulnerable segments of the population.

And it’s going to turn out that when you get enough infected people, even a number of the presumed “healthy” and young are going to get hit hard by this virus and some will succumb to it or be considered “recovered” but still suffering problems because of it for some time and perhaps then some.

CPH-Flyer

I just saw that about 1600 new cases was reported since Friday, so rather than coming down after a peak it may be more of a plateau.

GUWonder

That plateau is for number of tests that were positive.

Another telling chart would be the percentage of the day’s tests that were positive. That may not have have plateaued.

nacho

Wow, maybe Covid-19 is striking Skane now?

GUWonder

I think it would be useful to know and track what percentage of the daily tests for Malmo area residents are found to be positive.

The weather suddenly shifting between rain and sun and the drop in temperatures and what that means for Swedish social habits is going to play out in some interesting ways when it comes to this virus.

Denmark doesn’t like to see coughing Swedes.

CPH-Flyer

That is true, we are not getting that part of the equation.