highupinthesky

The majority of Danes who got back from afterski parties in Austria and Italy were on buses, which spread them over the whole country within 24 hours. This was during the weekend of March 7-8 before Austria and Italy were listed as potential hot spots and at a time where the authorities refused to test people without symptoms unless they were from a hot spot, and in some cases even if they had symptoms, they wouldn't be tested unless they had been in a hot spot. This pandemic is changing SO FAST.

fassy

Well, some people don't take the measures seriously. Like in Germany, a lot of people now rush out into the parks, and crowed the street cafes and cofee bars to spend quality with the family enjoying the first spring sun rays. No office to go, kids are not in school. It is like a gift from heaven!

And as long as the government won't enforce a curfew with police and military, that won't change. Since we are living in times of absolute hedonism fueled with an unhealthy sense of egoism and entitlement.

Funny enough, here in rural south Sweden... you won't even notice something is happening in the world if you do not read the news. No panic, no shop runs, nothing closed. People are behaving their typical stoic Swedish way. All good! Lagom!

highupinthesky

With the knowledge we now have about the spread in Austria, I really don't understand why night clubs, afterski bars etc. hasn't been shutdown long ago. Nightclubs and similar were closed in DK last week. This week restaurants (except takeaway) and small bars were added to the list.

GUWonder

Behavior has changed in Sweden in some parts, but I just can’t fathom what Sweden is thinking by not coordinating and following more in step with Denmark and Norway. Yes, I get it that Stockholm rules the roost and so Norway and Denmark may even be less familiar to this group than the US, Spain and Thailand and the UK, but Stockholm is ground zero for the spread — especially in the more upper crust parts of Stockholm.

nacho

Sweden doesn't dare to take the economic consequences of shutting down, that's why they are still telling us to send our kids to school. Even though gymnasiums are closed, one of them is having an entrance test next week - basically there will be a lot of 14 - 16 years old kids gathered in one place.

fassy

I don't think so. I think the main reason is typical Swedish as I know it from working in big Swedish companies. You have a horde of upper and middle management which came into their position of years of navigating the political waters without taking any risk by leaning too much on the one side or too far to the other. They just slowly creep up the ladder, often enough without any expertise or achievements which qualify them for the next higher position. But they say “yes” to everything, being afraid a “No” would ruin their chances for the next promotion… which I would guess is pretty much point on. In the last big tech company I worked in Sweden, they did a organizational restructuring every 3 to 6 months, and you saw the same names of bland “yes”-sayers bubbling up the hierarchy while top performances and experts stayed in their places. Since… someone actually had to do the job, right?

And then you have a few hand-full of very string willed, stubborn and bossy characters which just say “this is my opinion, this is what we do” and nobody dares to question how they came to hat decision or if it really makes sense… because, see above. Types like Anders Tagnell. Actually some of the senior Management at SK behaved the same way in my opinion.

Anders IS the chief epidemiologist, his opinion is a fact. PERIOD. And he thinks, just let everybody get the virus and try to keep it away from the elderly is a solution. Without even considering that MAYBE people are not immune after getting through the virus one or that even an exposure and getting sick MAY have long-lasting damage to the lungs, liver or kidneys which could cripple the health of a whole generation (actually more like 2 or 3 gens).

GUWonder

“Survival of the fittest” arrogance on this virus situation is rather too prevalent in Sweden amongst those who find themselves to be healthy/healthier than “the others” and feel like “I’ve made it”. It’s sort of bizarre to find this arrogance from people who have cold symptoms or have sick and very old relatives, yet I find no shortage of that behind-closed-doors arrogance from such people too, an arrogance which can’t be entirely hidden all the time.

“The Swedish way” will mean, among other things, that SAS will struggle because of this even after Denmark and Norway may seem to have gotten control of the spread.

nacho

Well said. The mentality of "I'm doing my job", "if there is no problem what is the problem".

I think the leader in the government uses Anders as a scapegoat. He is crazy, instead of having an academic discussion about his decision he sees it as a challenge:

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/dr-...der-klarer-det

I know you don't like buffet

highupinthesky

When all this is over, there will be a huge discussion about which actions helped delay the spread of the virus, and I bet you a lot of the root causes will be missed. DK has a lot more cases per mill. citizens than SE at the moment. This might be down to Danes loving to go to Austria and Italy for afterski, while Swedes goes to the northern Sweden instead. The DK authorities were too slow in realizing the potential threat of the afterski bars and nightclubs, so when people returned with the virus they were not put in quarantine and had time to spread the virus in DK. As SE citizens primarily stayed in SE they don't have the same amount of patient zero's and therefore it looks like SE is about a week behind DK at the moment. Time will tell, whether SE will catchup

fassy

Well, I‘my far from panicking but expect that the government takes the issue serious. But follow the recommendation from a guy which is totally bananas... I saw his comment the other day that it is not possible to encourage home office work since that would be a problem with the equality... since done people cannot work from home but everybody has the same right to stay healthy. As a result, he recommended all should go to work as usual?

The most interesting part is, that the Swedes just accept such a disastrous management.

GUWonder

Sweden — like some other countries (which are sometimes using test kit availability as a justification) — has tried to frustrate test-taking for this virus, so a good proxy measure of spread and the related damage will be to see how difficult it is to get admitted into the hospital for “less urgent” care and for “elective (for now) surgical procedures” and what happens with deaths.

fassy

Yes, good point. If you do not screen for the virus, no wonder the numbers in Sweden are down and the reported number of new infections is really low.

Fredrik74

Lots of people don't.

Unless the number of infected goes up dramatically I predict that Swedes will also soon start to pretend the virus doesn't exist. I already see these tendencies among the middle class. Many have huge issues with their own sense of entitlement and if one think it's bad normally just wait...

Fredrik74

I didn't see this at first. You wrote about the same thing I've seen.

highupinthesky

The Danes aren't taking it seriously either. For two days, it's now been illegal to be more than 10 people in a public place. The police can issue a fine of 1.500DKK if you break this temp. law. Today the police held a press conference, where they said they will now start issuing fines as way to many people are still meeting up in parks etc. and don't spread out when the police ask them too.

Not sure if it's a sign, but right now I can look at the Swedish coast from my window. Here in DK it's sunshine, blue sky and not a cloud. Over Sweden, starting at the Swedish coast, it's cloudy with dark clouds.