vanillabean

Come to think of it, have they or you been to Nome by the Bering Sea? I fondly remember the park across from the Pingo bakery having a sculpture of the three lucky Swedes, one was Norwegian actually, a trio of miners credited with the gold discovery that launched the Nome rush. You know what they say, There’s no place like Nome!

RedChili

The number of infected in France is skyrocketing. Yesterday, Thursday, saw a 7-day average of 5,783 according to worldometers, but according to NRK, today, Friday, saw another 8,975.

This is in spite of the fact that French people are some of the "best" mask users in Europe. According to Wikipedia, on 9 August 83% of the French population wore a mask in public, which is second only to Spain with 90%. Scandinavia's figures for the same day were Sweden 6%, Norway 5% and Denmark 4%. (Interesting that more people used a face mask in Sweden than in Norway and Denmark.)

The below graph shows the development after 9 August, when the 7-day average was only 1,607:


Conclusion: Face masks are counterproductive.

CPH-Flyer

The problem in France could seem to be that people in large numbers are ignoring the rules. A friend lin Nice send pictures of restaurants and cafes after Nice had been declared a red zone again. No distancing at tables, full crowds, street performers. Almost no masks, even on the waiters. So I am not surprised that France is spiking again. It is probably not caused by masks, it is caused by the lack of common sense.
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CPH-Flyer

The Swedish level of testing is still trailing. I argued at a point that Korea was over testing to find the cases that they had, therr might be a case for the same argument in Denmark, but the difference between Denmark and Sweden is quite staggering.

vanillabean

Denmark is concerned. Maybe we should test less!

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2020-...tallene-vender

CPH-Flyer

Denmark is concerned, though I have yet to see any arguing for less testing. Apart from me bring up an old point of mine

My argument back then, which could be applied now, was that that performing 500K tests to find 5000 cases was a lot of resources. The numbers now for Denmark are 2.6M tests to identify 17K cases. The difference is that they are spread out over far more time. But at the moment there is over 4000 tests per 100K inhabitants per week to identify 12 cases per 100K per week. The question posed, is that the right level of resources used for the level of infection going on?

RedChili

While I personally haven't been to France recently, my impression from what I've read is that mask use is far more common in France than in most other European countries.

The other things that you're talking about is quite natural for two reasons: 1) People have lived completely unnatural lives for the past five months. Right now, all over Europe people are fed up with the restrictions, and they're starting to ignore them. This is something that Giesecke warned about in the very beginning of the lockdown. 2) People who wear masks stop using common sense and stop practicing social distancing. This is something that Tegnell warned about and gave as a reason why he wouldn't recommend face mask use for Sweden.


There's no point in testing huge numbers just to get nice statistics. It's better to test the people that would really need it: symptomatic people, those that have been in close contact with positive patients, travelers, etc.

CPH-Flyer

That was my impression I'd France as well, until I saw the pictures. You might as well have been there in normal times. Of course pictures are just a brief snapshot.

Unusual lives indeed for a long while, and will be unusual for a while still to come. The level of unusualness going forward is driven by people themselves. And at the point of returning to reasonable levels of usual, people have chosen to throw all caution away. I doubt that is driven by wearing masks, I think it is driven by a feeling of "Covid-19 is over, numbers are down, all is good, we can behave normally again"

But it is very interesting why countries like Spain and France are seeing huge surges again. Where as other countries are seeing much smaller spikes.

It is a balance, and certainly it is good to have the capacity to do it. But people need to be educated on when to get tested, just because you can does not mean you should.

CPH-Flyer

I found this quote from a German virologist on CNN, there is an awful lot of truth to it.

"Virologists say there is no glory in prevention; if prevention is successful, people don't see the danger," Thorsten Quandt, a professor at University of Münster who has been researching right-wing conspiracies in the pandemic, told CNN. "The irony is the less you can feel it, and more successful you are with pandemic measures, the more people say we should stop [those measures]."

fransknorge

You are aware the number of test is counted by "number of samples", while most countries count by number of "people" or number of "tests". This would translate into a significantly number of people (one person is sampled 2-4 times typically) or number of tests (pooled testing, one test contains 4-50 samples). So 80 000 samples is seriously low.
Then the non proven hunch about herd immunity is contradicted in your link:
Far from herd immunity.

The current decrease is linked to low level of testing regimen and possible other factors. We currently have the same scenario in Germany.
EUROMOMO still finds a bit of excess mortality in Sweden currently.

fransknorge

Looking at this picture does not make any sense, for obvious reasons. Anyone who looks at this and say the current increase is the same as in March-April has no understanding of the pandemic management.
Your conclusion is a fallacy based on nothing, not taking into account the management of airflow into locked spaces, the responses to the airborne transmission, the testing regimen, the movement of population and so on.
Tegnell recommendation about distance are two months late on the current science.
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3223

CPH-Flyer

Seems to be big news on SVT,, that the cluster f...k of epidemic handling in the US now has a higher fatality rate than Sweden.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/u...oda-i-covid-19

RedChili

I'm not sure if you're aware how testing is currently being done in Sweden. Most people that are tested have booked their own appointment for a test and have some reason for expecting a positive outcome. And people don't book appointments for several tests.

Also, although 80,000 is a low number compared to the entire population, I see no value in testing hundreds of thousands of people randomly.

There are three ways that people can achieve immunity for covid-19. One is through antibodies. The other is through t-cells. The third is through contact with previous types of coronaviruses. Because of this, there was an Oxford team recently that concluded that herd immunity for covid-19 can be reached if only 20%, and possibly only 10%, have antibodies. Nobody really knows for sure, but when you look at what's happening in Sweden today, it really looks like this is the case.

While I don't trust the Euromomo numbers (I find far more accurate numbers from SCB), it appears that this is wrong. In the Euromomo map, Sweden has been white from week 27 to week 34. Week 35 shows a "low excess," but week 35 only finished six days ago, so any numbers from that week are not reliable. That's one reason why I wouldn't trust Euromomo as they show a map which cannot be reliable.

fransknorge

Of course people are tested several times, to ensure they are negative after treatment/quarantine/isolation.
And of course there is obvious value in testing people randomly, how do you know the true scale of the pandemic and the actual situation otherwise ? You clearly make my point that the Swedish case numbers are not representative of the reality if they test only people who expect a positive outcome.


The T-Cell immunity is not proven yet and we now know re-infection can occurs, in some case with a fight from the immune system meaning the second infection is wiped out effectively but in other cases with a severe symptomatic disease:

Twitter

Twitter

The third case (Cross-immunity from other CoV was so hyped the author of the original paper had to clarify, destroying the 10-20% you are citing:

Twitter

So no, looking at Sweden and based on what we know, nobody can say Sweden has herd immunity. It may or it may not, we do not know. And what we currently know indicates it does not.


The line is flirting with the normal range and the trend is increasing.

vanillabean

It would appear residing in some areas of Denmark such as Region Sjælland for ten days fulfills the ten day quarantine requirement upon entry into Norway?

https://um.dk/da/rejse-og-ophold/rej...dninger/norge/

That excludes the Copenhagen airport. And if you drive through Sweden, staying overnight apparently puts you right back into the Norway quarantine.

https://norskrejsebureau.dk/om-os/corona-situationen

I wonder if the Copenhagen Oslo ferry is a safe bet!

Is there an easier way for Swedes to enjoy Norway?