There's never a shortage of Lefties telling us that foreigners do things better than we do. The idea is nonsense, of course. Who would want to follow the Swedes in anything: just look at the Muslim problem they brought on themselves. Sweden is a pissant country, whose inhabitants have the habits and expectations of children.

Swedens topography lends itself to ease of mass grave digging, which should be helpful to a country of ostriches.

Dan.

As of this morning, we have had 20 deaths. Sweden - 180.

Sweden is a different country with a very different culture, much colder winters and where nudism and sun-baking is far more culturally accepted than here.

They also have sauna baths routinely followed by a naked roll in the snow. Are far more cohesive as a law-abiding society and are governed by Social Democracy's principles and social democrats. And have an outdoors winter skiing/summer sunbake culture.

These practices do a number of things. Allow extremity numbing coldness and temperature drops to wreak havoc on any viral load and boost natural immunity.

As a society that loves the outdoors and summer sun, possibly get more vitamin D, than many of us as we hunker down through hot summers in air-conditioned largely unventilated premises, cars etc.

Comparing them and us, is a chalk ad cheese or a comparison between apples and oranges.

They also have more bicycles and pay more tax for the better social amenities they enjoy. Don't have to be endlessly reminded like naughty children to wash hands and practise social distancing!

Haven't dismantled or destroyed cooperative capitalism the way we have here!

And if a beach is closed by public order, e.g., then it remains mostly empty as the law-abiding community self-police their less compliant, privileged patrons.

I fancy, they as a vastly more inclusive and cohesive society, who observe social rules, generally speaking. And therefore, will likely survive the coming depression in better shape than we with our rat eat rat robber barons at the helm/pulling the strings?

And where the political class are drawn from the wider populace and are not paid our obscene salaries?

The rest of us can take a pay cut? Sometimes by half or more? While the pampered privileged pollies think that they contribute with a year-long pay freeze? You'd swear blind that, we're all in this together, wouldn't you?
Alan B.

If I was over 60 with comorbities in Sweden I'd be completely isolating. At triage there will be choices to be made and oldies who have the bug haven't been responsible, to themselves, and will come last. Below 50 the morbidity rate is 0.2%. The health system has to be able to cope with a projected peak that does not include oldies, so the Swedes must know they have this capacity to be following their strategy. Herd immunity must be achieved with minimum deaths, and the Swedish experiment will be a guide on what to do, or not to do.

Herd immunity!? Wow! Like that we've achieved for HIV/aids, Ebola or Hendra. Go out and get you annual flu shot if only to understand that herd immunity as a concept applies to very.very little and even less so as his or that virus mutates! And they all do even those we control now with a virtual smorgasbord of antivirals.

The only way to herd immunity, I believe, is to vaccinate, test and vaccinate, until no symptomatic outcome is reported anywhere for at least a year!? Polio, smallpox?

You'd think at least one or two of those HIV/aids antivirals or a combination of several, would provide protection until the "vaccine' is developed. we never ever developed herd immunity to smallpox!

Some of us acquired immunity via serendipity! Even then could remain a host to the pathogen/any pathogen and spread it as far and wide as we did!

And this is how we also spread covid-19, I shouldn't be surprised. Be it cruise ships or caravans, the covid-19, cruise ships of the outback?
Alan B.

REPEAT of COMMENT posted YESTERDAY! How long will it take for some commonsense to return to the Posts section of OLO? Grrrr what a waste of authors and even the post participants/offenders time... life is short... be positive you 'idjits'.

Some days ago I pleaded/scolded post writers to focus on the article. (see https://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=20824#367056)I wrote the first on this one, and while complemented the style of article, I was bemused that he did not mention the 'elephant in the room', namely:-

I wrote 'MAIN message is we must learn a lot from this 'chai-na' led virus global crisis its time to rest the global clock both economically and politically.' i.e WE MUST NOT WASTE THIS COVID-19 DISASTER.China must be held to account and we must refom.

Essery wrote in (https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20824) on Tuesday,
Kampernick warned the fear of retun of Realpolitik (https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20812)
Waulcoupe warned of nuclear response https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20808

Thanks to them, different views/issues for what Essery fears will be a 'scary new world' that must replace the open border global village.

And what happens on this bland article, you all run of on tangents and don't address its failings, while ignoring comments on the wealth other more considered articles (eg three above). Are you all lazy, unable to think and only post on OLO to post trivia and propaganda?

Don't presume a vaccine. The SARS vaccine killed as much as it cured. This virus will bide its time waiting for any relaxation, and we won't just hibernate it away. We will have to rip the band-aid off at some point for normal life to resume, and the sooner we realise it the better.

"Don't presume a vaccine".

There is still no vaccine for the 2009 swine 'flu apparently.

Alan B: I don't think you understand what herd immunity is. Your post is rather confusing but you seem to think that people have expected us to develop herd immunity to Aids/HIV. Anyone who knows what standard herd immunity is knows that is NOT possible* and thus wouldn't ever expect it to happen.

The reason why it can't happen naturally with Aids/HIV is because someone with Aids is always infectious* until they die. But for standard herd immunity to work, it requires contagious viruses where people that survive and completely recover from it are no longer infectious and/or for viruses that have vaccines so that those vaccinated are no longer infectious.

The way herd works is that once certain (usually very high) percentage of the population can no longer spread the disease (because they already had it or they been vaccinated) then the virus will die out because on average infected people don't met/transfer the virus to enough people for it to continue to spread.

In your post you said "We never ever developed herd immunity to smallpox.". This is dead-wrong. Herd immunity (caused by mass vaccination) is EXCACTLY how smallox was eventually eliminated. We didn't have to vaccinate 100% of people, rather just enough for herd immunity to kick in. Using a simplistic model for the success of wide spread herd immunity for smallpox it requires that about 4 out of 5 people in the population are vaccinated. However we didn't even need this high a vaccination rate since epidemiologists established quite sophisticated localised herd immunity strategies to conqueror small-pox: google "ring vaccination" for more details.

*:unless they continually use modern miracle drugs for the rest of their lives- if these drugs were very widely used then theoretically even Aids could be defeated- but this is not traditionally what "herd immunity" means.

..foreigners do things better than we do.
ttbn,
They have fewer Lefties to contend with.

ttbn: "There is still no vaccine for the 2009 swine 'flu apparently."

Really? But in the real world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_vaccine

Hmm, I forgot, this is onlineopinion where facts simply don't matter.

Hurray for the Swedes!

It is best to give people the opportunity to make sacrifices out of the goodness of their heart. For success however, you need to exercise this goodness-muscle round the years, not at the last moment.

Three main factors determine the chances of developing this goodness-muscle:

1. The regime: under paternalistic/autocratic regimes, one can rarely develop this goodness-muscle because they are required to outwardly imitate goodness without internalising and owning it themselves.

2. The size of society: one will naturally be willing to make great sacrifices for their family and loved ones, but less-and-less as the group increases in size and becomes anonymous strangers.

3. Cultural homogeneity: rightly or wrongly, one is more willing to sacrifice for others who share common values, especially religious values.

So some countries are able to withstand a plague happily and without coercion while others have no chance. China is probably the worst case while Australia is somewhere in the middle. The Swedes may be better off.

The main vulnerability in Australia is its size. It was therefore important for the Australian states to close their borders, but it was then somewhat too late, now we need to divide into even smaller regions while closing the borders between them.

The big mistake we are now facing are the directives from Canberra. The central government imposes collective punishments for the acts of some fools in Sydney/Bondi over people who live 1000's of kilometers away who have not only done the right thing, but voluntarily and conscientiously went ahead of the curve way before governments decreed it.

This brings about a sense of helplessness, leading to complacency: my actions, my efforts to isolate, do not really matter - my local community and loved ones will not see restrictions lifted any time soon because our fate is tied to the actions of strangers that live far away whom we are unlikely to ever meet... so why bother?

Regimes should be warned: should people end up hating the government more than the virus, they will cooperate with the latter and help it to win!

thinkabit… simply spot on. well said and explained.

I like Sweden, odd people, beautifule landscapes. Used to make good quirky cars until GM dumped and trashed them CHai-na now makes them ( NEVS electric cars) for internal use.

Agree re this articles odd view... but don't forget... while SAAB make no longer make cars, Saab-Scania trucks roam the world AND the do make exceedingly good weapons of war..(Jets, tanks, Submarines. missiles....) For a neutral peace lovin country, unlike the rest of us, they can defend themselves with weapons from their own industry..We clever/lucky ozzies … we commisiion ridiculous, expensive, stupid specs for submarines from the French ( $80bikllion estimate, 1/4 of current Stimulus tab!