Originally Posted by nacho

Someone showed from a newspaper saying that Sweden has 5.9 ventilator per 100k population. A friend said Germany has 1 ventilator per 2000 people = 50 per 100k population and the government wants to bring it down to 1:1600 people.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

You’re singing to the choir on this, amigo.

I tried to get some people to abandon their Swedish ski plans this month because it was unnecessarily risky and irresponsible in various ways, and yet they insisted on going — even this weekend — because of the sentiment that Sweden doesn’t get hit by disasters, that what they do is good enough (with everything else being overkill), and there is no ban against it. And now I’m being positioned as the bad guy for: “ruining the trips”; “making people feel bad” for telling them the consequences of even asymptomatic spread; and doing what “no Swedish person would do to ‘us/you’”; and being told “See,, it’s fine to travel for ski vacations here, you should come now too.” And this even after being told what happened to death counts in Italy, Spain and even NY this weekend and them being aware of the cases and deaths in Sweden.

I can already predict the responses that will come when outbreaks of this take place and take lives in the areas where they live and work.: “survival of the fittest” and “they were going to die anyway”.

Originally Posted by ksu

Süddeutsche Zeitung today describes Åre as the next Ischgl, i.e. where the next big cluster of Covid-19-infection will come, due to insufficient separation precautions.

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama...biet-1.4853632

Originally Posted by ksu

When even Norwegians, who are seen as less conform, even more outdoorsy and more "Hell might care" than our Swedish brothers, accept very strict restrictions, the Swedish lack of awareness is very surprising. The after-ski-scene in Åre has been a source of amazed, disapporoving merriment in some Norwegian media this week-end. True, some cabin-owners here ("hytteeiere") have been vocal against the ban on going to one's own cabin (as not to overload local health care in small rural communities), but even their argument have been that it is better to be in a isolated cabin than in the crowded city to avoid contagion.

The difference in response and public perception between the two countries is surprising.

Originally Posted by highupinthesky

Tokyo will make both Ischgl and Åre a walk in the park, if they don't decide to postpone the OL soon.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

Many of the economically powerful countries will boycott the Tokyo Olympics if they are held this year.

Originally Posted by fassy

Well, the IOC president seems to be also one of those very arrogant, snobbish and stubborn guys who just want to stick to their agenda. Whatever it takes.

Anyhow, as GUWonder said, if they just push it through, it will be a very sad Olympics which almost no audience and most of the major countries missing out on, Canada made their move started the ball rolling. Also most athletes are severely behind training and will not be able to catch up until summer. Especially not with all the lockdowns going on.

Originally Posted by fassy

So I guess, Postponing to at least 2021 seems more and more likely. Which in my book is a cancellation and new planing and not just postponing. Even though they might stick to TYO.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

Denmark and Norway have already informed the IOC that they want the games postponed at the least.

I am expecting the US will be doing so soon if we haven’t already.

Once the US is out too for this summer, the Tokyo Olympics will almost certainly not be happening this summer.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

I am not so sure it’s surprising. Norway was subject to WW2 in a different way than Sweden; and there is a sort of cultural and historical arrogance in Sweden that doesn’t exist in the same way and to the same extent in Norway. Norwegians willingness to dress up in old folk costumes signifying the community connection also speaks volumes about the differences.

The stubborn skiers in Sweden — not all of whom are from Sweden — would say things like:

“it’s safer skiing in the less populated areas in the Swedish mountains than being in Stockholm/Copenhagen/Oslo/Gothenburg/Malmo/Karlstad/city or town of your choice”; and
“it’s healthy to be outdoors in the mountains”

and then go on their merry way to the slopes.

This was the dynamic in Finland too, but Finland is exposed to lower numbers of people who can do that than is the case in Sweden; and Finland’s ski resorts aren’t as deeply connected to the Germanic and Romance language ski places and their skiers as is the case in the big Swedish resorts.

Originally Posted by highupinthesky

The DK prime minister just said during a press conference that you should not go on ski vacation in SE. She didn't mention Austria or Italy.
The other message on the press conference was that all current restrictions which were supposed to end by March 30, will be extended to April 13.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

This weekend, there were still Danes making their way to ski in Sweden. It was quite amazing to find out that there were quite the number of older Danes too rushing to make it to and from the ski resort bound trains in Sweden.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

This is sort of the consequence of a long and persistent focus on “efficiency” and cost-cutting in ways. It’s going to show up in ways in the US too, where medical industry consolidation and a drive to eliminate beds (by making things more ambulatory or ambulatory more quickly) has in ways reduced care capacity for this in some ways to below the capacity that was there some decades back.

Prepare for the possibility of exhibition centers and big hotels and schools to be converted into hospice centers as there may be a massive amount of triage taking place in more and more places for those who will be more or less sentenced to death because of lack of capacity of one sort or another.

Originally Posted by Fredrik74

Yes,
but unfortunately both sides here are culpable because. Most Swedes are of the opinion that disasters can't happen here. We've a system in place....

Just consider the housing bubble that's still going strong after all these years where intelligent people fully expect prices to rise more than inflation every year.

Älvsjömässan is already being prepared. In addition there are a couple of containers placed on hospital grounds in Huddinge. They're there to be prepared to store something...

Originally Posted by highupinthesky

In DK the health authorities send out a request to private hospitals, universities, military, pet doctors etc. etc. etc and ask how many ventilators they have and how many the public healthcare sector can borrow if needed. The result is there is 3-4 times the number of ventilators available outside the public healthcare sector, but it doesn't really help as there are not enough nurses trained in handling ventilators, and there are not enough protective clothing to be able to run all those ventilators in a secure way.