Hezu

Although Finland indeed maintains reserves of medical supplies for crisis situations, there has already been talk that 1) some of the protective equipment stockpiled is unusable as it is too old (eg. masks with broken elastic bands) 2) whether the amount of equipment stored is sufficient, especially since the decision to start distributing equipment from these crisis reserves came fairly soon after the epidemic emerged.

nacho

Yeah, the government thinks every kid has an abusive home without food and the street is full of pedophiles - that's one of the many reasons to keep schools open. Oxie is kind of a not so wealthy part of Malmo, so I guess they keep the classes open.

Parking tickets form a big revenue in Malmo, you also see local governments have less revenue from red light tickets. Whether you choose to pay it is another story......

477 deaths in Sweden and a baby is in ICU on ventilator.

FlyingMoose

While I'm a STRONG believer in personal liberty, there is an incredibly vague delineation between what is legal and not legal in Sweden and there is far from an obvious redline against this way of apparent thinking that Löfven decided exists in Sweden. More so since most European liberties are illegal in Sweden and not left to the adult to decide. So please be responsible and don't give other people COVID-19 but please let the government continue to control and tax all other aspects of your life.

It is also unfortunately blatantly obvious for anyone having lived in Sweden for 3 weeks that Swedes aren't responsible at all and the observant spectator can see this left and right. People being mad at the government because they have to pay a contribution to a repatriation flight from the other side of the world because they lack any sense of financial discipline and accumulate savings before setting out for a globetrotting adventure. Left and right people are getting in trouble because they naively trust in the Swedish system and have no financial buffer to help them through short periods of hard times. The completely biased Swedish news doesn't help and what the country needs most, also outside of COVID-19 is objective news reporting.

What we're seeing is the typical Swedish lack of strong leadership from a PM that shouldn't be in charge in the first place. He wasn't going to get re-elected but it seems he's on a mission to ensure that won't happen period. No left winged leader is going to implement rules with negative economic consequences which will require the government to cut back on the social system benefits, especially not social democrats who would alienate their voters. Nobody will have forgotten about COVID-19 and the changes that will need to get implemented by 2022 and his only play is to hope "this will all not be that bad" and we all know how well that worked out for the rest of Europe.

FlyingMoose

Speeding checks and enforcement is operating at normal levels as well because unlike in the rest of Europe, during a pandemic that is a priority in Sweden.

GUWonder

Wait, weren't we sort of told that kids are basically immune from this virus and complications from being exposed to it? Thankfully, not everyone bought that line. I wonder where the "survival of the fittest", "herd immunity" brigade is when it comes to infants and toddlers? Actually, I don't.

I was told that the Oxie swim class students on weekends are often not from Oxie and come in from elsewhere in Malmo or from parts of Vellinge. Just like a lot of the Vellinge swim class attendees after (what passes for Swedish adult) work hours aren't from Vellinge and come in there from the western or southern parts of Malmo. Welcome to the country having more kids than there is easy capacity to handle kids without packing them in to the brim or making parents/guardians and stand-ins jump through hoops for kids.

Oxie co-op housing prices will probably take a bath in this environment, and those free-standing houses in a different part of Oxie are going to probably see price declines sooner than later. Given the general inclination of people in the country to not save a whole bunch regardless of where they are on the socio-economic spectrum, all home areas -- except maybe the lowest end of the rental market -- are likely to get nailed hard if the banks aren't made to be extremely "generous" to financially-stretched home-owners of most all sorts.

nacho

The government thinks kids don't have virus and teachers are immune to the kids.

I'm curious how many foreigners are coming to Sweden after the mess - I know a lot of them prefer renting than buying (apart from not qualifying for a mortgage, I still haven't figured out why). Places like Oxie are definitely suffering the most when prices drop.

RedChili

Only one WC ... that would explain the mad rush for toilet paper ...

GUWonder

When you think the housing market is overpriced and you’re possibly not intending to stay longer term, renting can be a way to avoid the risk of losing bigger chunks of capital. And even housing cooperatives
can end up having their finances compromised by circumstances beyond the control of an individual coop shareholder ..... more so at a time of major job loses.

GUWonder

“Vardcentral” not water closet/toilet.

nacho

The thing is I know a lot who have been here for over 5 years and are still renting a place to live. It makes no sense to me to dump 20k+ rent into a big blue sea every month and on top of that you need to pay utilities etc. These people I know are not particularly well-off or anything. I just have a hard time believing that it makes sense financially to do - unless you can get rent subsidy from the government (also a lot of these people have their own company).

GUWonder

A lot of people in Sweden don’t have much in the way of savings, so without the money for a downpayment, they will remain stuck in the rental market.

Government-contribution toward housing costs in Sweden may be more generous to people renting rather than owning if/when households fall on hard times?

Even in not so hard times, in Stockholm especially, there would be couples who claimed to be living apart in separate rental apartments so as to illegally maximize housing support payments and use one of the two rental units as a property to informally sublease/re-rent to generate income. I expect that the hard times coming from the coronavirus situation in Sweden will lead to more such scams taking place in the country without much substantial government action being taken against such scammers. Hard times for more people often come with more fraud attempts.

nacho

I kind of expect the no down payment thing, and I guess the housing subsidy is the key - as owner of a house you get nothing from the government.

The scam has been on for years - some people are still registered in Sweden even though they moved back to their home countries years ago.

GUWonder

Yes, but there are a lot of people doing housing support payment scams who had no place to hunker down during this time except in Sweden and have had no obvious foreign antecedents for quite some time (and probably then some). When more people are financially stretched due to this virus situation in Sweden, people that struggle with downsizing their costs and are desperate to maintain the accustomed to lifestyle, may be somewhat more inclined to engage in this kind of fraud that has been typical for decades in the country. Fraud of some sorts has already risen due to this situation: such as people preying on the elderly afraid to go for groceries but who aren’t set up for or can’t afford online grocery shopping and delivery or are just more gullible/vulnerable to scammers.

nacho

It doesn't help when the police is not doing anything either.

FlyingMoose

The police is to busy writing speeding tickets and doing alcohol checks because the system needs money.