Thanks, Galen, is that the site which advertises "Mein Kampf" on-line ?

Gosh, I didn't realise there were so many conspiracies ......

Joe

Graham,

Re the Swedish data from Lomborg.

As I've said times here, it's way too early to make a call on the Swedish policy. They are clearly looking to take a short-term hit to gain a long-term advantage. That is, they are prepared to suffer higher infections, hospitalisations and deaths now in the expectation that, once a given level of infections have been reached all of those things will decline and stay low.

No one really knows the answer as to whether this is the right approach. But what we do, or should, know is that its too early to call it either way.

I feel that Sweden is getting so heavily criticised over its approach because too many people and governments are worried that they might just be right and that all this was for nothing. These people and governments are looking for herd impunity :) on the basis that if everyone does the same thing, no one can be shown to have done the wrong thing.

Sweden is now so far into this that there is no going back. (Britain tried to back-track and ended up falling between two stools). So we will get an answer on this eventually. The answer might not be pretty for a lot of people and governments.

Of course, the single biggest advantage of going the herd immunity approach is that, once there, no, or very little, government efforts need to be expending in controlling the virus. On the other hand, the eradication approach, which seems to be our policy, requires on-going efforts to maintain the eradication. That might be possible for a nation closed to the world but is hardly appropriate for a nation open to and relying on the outside for its economic well-being.

Dear mhaze,

This was the leading paragraph of the report Lomborg linked to in his tweet;

"The Public Health Authority has updated a mathematical model of the spread of covid-19 in Stockholm with new data, and corrected an error that existed in an earlier version. The calculations show that the peak of the spread of infection has passed. However, further precautions are required so that the curve does not face upwards."

Released on the 22nd of April. The correction involved;

“The report said that there were around 1,000 times as many people infected by the coronavirus in Sweden as the number of confirmed cases, a figure that was questioned by Swedish journalist Emanuel Karlsten at the press conference as it did not match up with the rest of the report's figures. There are currently over 15,000 confirmed cases of the virus in Sweden, and 1,000 times this figure would amount to more than the country's entire population.”
http://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/nyheter-och-press/nyhetsarkiv/2020/april/uppdaterad-modellering-av-spridningen-av-covid-19-i-stockholms-lan/

The updated report stated; “The Public Health Authority has updated a mathematical model of the spread of covid-19 in Stockholm with new data, and corrected an error that existed in an earlier version. The calculations show that the peak of the spread of infection has passed.”

Which was of course rubbish. An epidemiologist for the agency claimed to a newspaper;

““Already a bit more than a week ago, the peak was reached, at least according to this model, and we can expect fewer cases each day,” Anders Wallensten, deputy state epidemiologist at the agency, told reporters at a daily news briefing.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden/swedish-health-agency-says-virus-has-peaked-in-stockholm-no-easing-of-restrictions-yet-idUSKCN2232AI

Well it did seem to peak from the 15th through to the 17th with figures of 215, 221, 221 before dropping to 163 on the day of the report. It then skyrocketed with record figures of 289 and 286 on the 23rd and the 24th.

This doesn't quite get to Trump level of incompetence but there seems to be a hell of a lot of wishful thinking and attempted justification going on, much of it unsupported by the up to date data.

Dear mhaze,

Further, you claim; “I feel that Sweden is getting so heavily criticised over its approach because too many people and governments are worried that they might just be right and that all this was for nothing.”

Not really, but here is a thought. What if due to the massive effort into finding treatments and vaccines which will allow the world to properly get on to of this succeed and are brought online in a few months then those deaths in Sweden and the UK will rightly be deemed unnecessary. That would be scaring the hell out of the officials who determined the herd immunity approach was correct.

And;

“On the other hand, the eradication approach, which seems to be our policy, requires on-going efforts to maintain the eradication. That might be possible for a nation closed to the world but is hardly appropriate for a nation open to and relying on the outside for its economic well-being.”

Well if Australia's most important trading partner, who is also the main provider of fee paying students and tourists, has decided to attempt eradication then not doing the same and instead being a potential reservoir of reinfection of that country we seek to match that direction won't that be a good thing for our balance of trade?

Hi Steele,

I would have thought that it wasn't so much a peak but a plateau, say a week's figures of no-increase then definite decline, which statistical geniuses were after. A day here or there surely means very little ?

Australia seems to have taken the sensible, precautionary approach which minimises deaths at the cost of economic activity; while Sweden surprisingly has taken the Hollywood Action Movie (Eastwood/Chuck Norris/Will Smith) approach and bet everything on herd immunity - on one-off infection, on no RE-infection occurring, at the cost of, oh, perhaps a few thousand deaths here or there, but they would be all old people, so ......

On a population basis, Sweden is not far behind the US in gross incompetence with its fifty thousand deaths (as of 25.4.20). If their government had followed the Australian model, their number of fatalities would be well under one hundred, not eighteen thousand, (18,000) AND they would have been sliding down their curve.

A couple of queries: even if one can gain immunity by having this virus once, what damage - permanent damage - might it do to one's lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, etc. ? In fact, what if - big surprise ! - serious illness from this virus weakens the body's ability to resist re-infection, and perhaps at worse levels ?

And one doctor in NY was surprised to find a spike in the number of young people with the virus who had strokes at around the 6th or 7th day.

In SA last week, one positive case had returned 'several weeks ago' from overseas. She was in her twenties.

This virus has a lot of surprises for us yet.

Cheers,

Joe

Oops.

Not eighteen thousand deaths in Sweden (childish error: eighteen thousand cases; two thousand deaths) - so if Sweden had followed the Australian model, they would have had fewer than a hundred deaths, not two thousand. Sorry.

Joe