UKC

Those of you in Sweden or with contacts there, what's it like now virus-wise and with day to day life? The stats* show the death peak has passed, obviously due to the virus getting into care homes early on (44% fatality rate for 'closed' cases :-O ) and the percentage of live cases which are serious is low at 1%; however growth in cases is still exponential (albeit at a lower rate than previously) and the number of live cases is still growing unlike most other places in Europe.  Do people think they're past the peak and are starting to become complacent like in the UK, or are they feeling the opposite and realising that their weak restrictions don't have the virus under control and they will have to lockdown at some point?  How much headroom do they have before the healthcare system is overwhelmed? The increase in number of live cases per day is around 500, so 5 extra hospital beds needed each day in theory, with 233 in use today. Apparently there's 480(?) ICU beds in the country, giving a maximum of 49 days until capacity is reached (less if other patients are using them, more if there are extra beds available).

*According to Worldometers, on 29th April Sweden had 20302 cases in total, the nearest nation was Ireland at 20,253. Sweden now has 33,843 cases and Ireland 24,698.  1567 deaths for Sweden in that time, 416 deaths for Ireland. In the past week 59 people have died in Ireland, 331 in Sweden.  How many more deaths can the Swedes handle, knowing that there is no end in sight. Theoretically only about 30,000 of their 10 million population have been infected, so they've got loads more deaths to come.

Day to day life doesn't seem to have changed too much where I am. People are still keeping their distance in shops, although I mostly shop very early or late so I'm not sure what the middle of the day is like. I still don't see many people wearing masks, in fact it's noteworthy when I see one.

On video meetings I have noticed a few more colleagues being sat in their work offices, but I think that's mainly because people are keen to get back to lab work (I work at a university). The weather has really warmed up so plenty of people BBQing and socialising outside, and this includes groups of pensioners (a group of six of them arrive in my apartment garden every week to play boules). 

I'm afraid I've no idea about the healthcare things you mention but, to me, it seems that people are relaxing a little bit. There certainly doesn't seem to be any sense that we're heading to lockdown. In fact, the government recently relaxed the travel advice to say you could drive 1-2hrs from home (put I'm not sure how many people were sticking to this anyway - I know plenty of people who have driven off to their summer houses for weekends a while before this advice changed).

I do find it bizarre that our official advice still has stuff like this:
"If one person in a family is ill, does the whole family need to stay at home?
No, as long as siblings or other members of the family do not show symptoms of disease they can go to school, preschool or their workplace. In families where one or more people are ill, it is very important to be alert to any signs of illness."

I'd agree. Life is ticking along. Might be different in central Stockholm, but rurally folk are more concerned about tourists travelling around than local folk or measures. 

Like most of Europe Sweden hasn't seemed fully capable of protecting care homes. They are still the main hot bed. 

Schools.. yeah it's an odd one, with ill family members. With any normal sickness bug they usually say even siblings should be off for 48hrs too. However, over the last 2  to 3 months in our kids school, the odd kid has had the odd classic symptom of fever, or sore throat and had a week or so off. Some teachers have had the virus too. But it has not turned into some rampant hot bed because kids are the best at spreading germs like many say. 

Not long until 6th of June, less than 2 weeks of school left, then mid summer, July shut down.. so the dynamics, travel plans, gatherings will all change. More holiday interaction, but much less work place and zero school mixing. 

A quick look at the FT coronavirus tables would appear to show Swedens cases are levelling out and starting to fall, deaths are past the peak... Their curves in general seem to be following a similar trajectory to all of the "hard lockdown" countries and so does lead you to question whether the lockdowns that are working, or is the virus simply running out of people to infect? 

Sweden is clearly suffering more deaths now, but for Ireland etc will a harder lockdown now, mean a bigger resurgence post lockdown as there is less community immunity? So "saved lives" now = more deaths in a few months? You suggest 30k people in Sweden have had CV, some of their scientists think they are at 50% of population all ready, its something very hard to quantify in practice.

I think the rest of Europe seems pretty desperate for Sweden to "fail" to justify their own strategies irrespective of what is the right answer.

It feels rather like lots of rightwing commentators are desperate for Sweden to succeed in some way. My impression is that even in Stockholm not many people seem to have had the virus - no where close to herd immunity, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-...

Yet Sweden's numbers of deaths is about 13 times higher than Finland's next door, when it's population isn't even twice as a big.  

I think Sweden are doing ok, with peak coming a few weeks behind us in April and on downward trend now

 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-ave...

It's too easy to critise Sweden just now, but funny enough most countries in europe Europe seem to be copying Sweden in many ways now as they come out of lockdown.

We see by the Autumn and winter if Sweden or rest of Europe got it correct.

The previous post to yours pointed out that deaths per capita are 26 times higher than its neighbour, Finland.

And half the deaths per capita compared to Scotland where I live, so I don't think I am in a position to slag them off.    I think most people would take the Swedish scenario compared to th effect an extended lockdown has in Scotland had on peoples mental health and physical well being, not to mention excess deaths from other illness.  

By all accounts Sweden took some sensibles measures early with regards of social distancing, were in Scotland we let the virus rip out of control.  Both countries made obvious mistakes in care homes.

I think it's unfair to judge Sweden's performance at beginning of a panemdic, like I said above maybe things will look different in 6 months time.

Most countries in Europe are now at a Swedish level restrictions with shops, cafes open etc, so not much difference now, Sweden let the virus progress more hence slower downward curve, but Imagine they will see European levels of low rate of infection and deaths within the next month.

I think Sweden has showed the world an manageable and workable way to live with the virus without over running there health system, so I imagine if a vaccine is not forthcoming it will be a model the rest of the world will follow.

My best guess is any second wave in Sweden will be less severe than rest of Europe, and they will be able to cope with it as there are now without a lockdown while most the rest of Europe will go back into lockdown in the Autumn/winter, which will be much harder for people to endure over the long winter months.

My own point of view is Sweden should have lockdown at the start like there Scandinavian neighbours, but they are in a position now that seems to be working for them so no point of them deviating from that course now.

Other way around Eric, it would be about 6.5 times more than Finland, Finland being the smaller country by population - but it's still very stark a difference. I believe in comparison to Norway its even more stark.

Interestingly both Finland and Norway both seemed to have quite loose lockdowns - this is judging from the climbing and skimo pictures my friends in both Norway and Finland have been posting on social media through the spring. So I'm not sure that is enough to really explain the differences in outcomes.

Fair enough.

At the end of all this no doubt there will be an avalanche of research studies getting to the bottom of this. 

For the moment I have an open mind on what is important and what isn't. How early a country locked down seems very significant but also population density, whether it is a major transport hub, etc, etc...

Norway stopped all sports and closed all ski resorts in the 2nd week of March. I was at Sälen at the time and the option of popping over to Trysil disappeared. Sweden's ski areas eventually shut 1st week of April. After a flare up at Åre involving Stockholmers who had been to Italy and allegedly a group of paramedic work mates from Kalmar who really should have known better. All were forced to quarantine in their cabins for 2 weeks before going home. 

Maybe Norwegians ski more locally and don't go to Italy so much!? 

6th March was Vasaloppet. 15,000 skiers plus hangers on all at one end of the course, then the other etc.. at times the course is only 3 lanes wide, so everyone shares the same air. I was ill after skiing there, but that could be normal viruses from a hammered immune system etc. 

Sweden on the 13th March had 10000 folk in an arena in Stockholm for melodifestival final. 

I'm pretty sure that the first Norwegian infections were traced back to the Tirol, just like the first Icelandic, Irish, Finnish etc. It started off in lots of countries as a rather upper middle class disease, didn't seem to stay that way though sadly.

I know Norwegian mountain guides are working again but obviously have almost no foreign visitors. I was reading one on Instagram the other day saying he hoped more Norwegians would use them this year as I guess he wasn't expecting much business from abroad.

Size of household or workplace density - infections are mostly indoors so it doesn't matter if your neighbour is next door or a mile away (possibly) as neither can infect you from their home.

Early lockdown - that's the key, you get the same growth but truncate it greatly by moving the decline leftwards (earlier lockdown).

Confirmed here in this article from theconversation.com - risk to children is low; this is the concluding paragraph:

// Étant donné les recrudescences de violences conjugales et de maltraitance infantile observées depuis la mise en place du confinement, pour certains enfants le véritable risque, malheureusement, serait même plutôt de rester chez eux… //

Given the upsurge of family violence and ill-treatment of children observed since the lockdown was put in place, for certain children the real risk (ie. in comparison to covid-19), unfortunately, would be rather staying at home. 

...except they're not, their active caseload is growing and always has done, unlike most other European countries.  There is no downward curve for them.  Only countries that have locked down or had tough targeted restrictions have had downward curves.  Belgium & Poland seem to be about the only European countries whose active caseload has always grown in a similar fashion. This means their R value has always been greater than 1 - more people are being infected than 'recovering'*.  Their rate of rise might have been slower than other places, thus not requiring a hard lockdown to protect the healthcare system, but it's still rising.  If their R was 1 then the active caseload would be a flat line - each person infects one other during the time they have the virus. This is the so-called 'flattened curve' and what nations going for herd immunity want - a steady number of infections just below what the healthcare system can handle.

Places like Austria, Germany and France all show a hill in their active caseload demonstrating how more people were infected than 'recovered' to begin with, and now it's the other way round - more people 'recover' each day than are being infected.  This downward curve will eventually change once changes in lockdown restrictions cease and R stabilises at a certain value - the curve will either go back up (R>1), flatline (R=1), or continue down until there are no active cases at all (R<1).

Spain is exhibiting a second wave - they have the same hill as Austria, Germany and France, but the caseload is now starting to rise again in the past week or so.  This means their 'exit from lockdown' slackening of restrictions has allowed their infection rate to rise above the recovery rate.

*this includes dying.

A rising active caseload will continue rising until R changes, either by a change in restrictions/behaviour, or herd immunity.  The former is likely to come first and will occur as a second lockdown when the healthcare system is in danger of being overwhelmed if it's left too late, or increased restrictions if it isn't.

I think the R value for Sweden has been shown to be below 1 or at or around 1 for at least a month, and evidence speaks for itself with decrease in deaths and number of people currently in ICU.

Public health authorities in Norway have came out and said today that lockdown was probably not needed to suppress the virus as it was growing at a much slower rate than first thought with the R at 1.1 or 1.2 pre lockdown.

Lockdown was clearly needed for most countries, but most countries are now at near a Swedish level of eased restrictions with little sign of a second wave.

As a lay person looking on I am not sure how relevant active case loads seems to be, Sweden don't seem to be testing that much and like UK are probably only picking up on 10-20 percent of actually daily infections, so not sure how accurate that information is, surely looking at death rates, hospital inpatient and ICU numbers is more accurate reflection of where a county is in on the curve all be it with a 2-3 week delay.  Fair enough if you look at countries doing amazing levels of testing such as Saudia Arabia and Qatar than active case load might be more relevant

Death rates are lower than they were because they had carehomes hit early on.  Their deaths are a curve like everyone else's for that reason. They bottomed out about a week ago and are now going back up (as you would expect for a rising infection rate). Don't forget, deaths lag infections by 2-4 weeks too.   Active cases are important as that's what overwhelms healthcare. Depending on who gets infected you get a variation in serious/death rate as a percentage of overall cases. If all the active cases are in care homes you have a massive serious/death rate and the healthcare system gets overwhelmed with a relatively low overall infection rate; if they're all young, fit people a much higher overall infection rate is required to overwhelm the healthcare system.  However, the healthcare system capacity is so low compared to the infection level possible in the community it will be overwhelmed at some point if active caseload continues to rise.  As (like everywhere else) they've learnt to keep it out of care homes now, the percentage of active cases which are serious has fallen to 1% and has been like that for some time. Thus what we see now is the infection level in the general community with relatively few carehome cases. The deaths from the original "high death rate / low case volumes" combination has been replaced with those from the current "low death rate / high volumes" combination and will now continue to rise.

I am not sure how accurate this information is, off course death rates will decrease as a consequence of easing the burden on care homes, but that does not explain the decrease in ICU numbers and hospital inpatients, the data I have seen from Sweden suggest only 12 percent of infected people in care homes are taken to hospital, so a decrease in care home infections won't entirely explain the drop in Swedish hospital and ICU levels which is most likely due to the virus being supressed gradually of the last month or so, and regardless of active case loads, Swedish health care system is no where near being over loaded.

Where do you get your information on active cases from? Worldometer for example is largely discredited in academic circles, with most media outlets also avoiding it with regards to looking at the data it provides as it has been shown to be highly unreliable.  

It also depends where these sites get their data from. Daily death figures that most of the media mention are from Tegnells daily briefing. These are confirmed deaths after post mortem and testing. The individual concerned could have died two weeks earlier, thus been infected 5-6 weeks ago. There is a massive lag. You'll notice that Sweden's graphs using these figures peaks and troughs weekly. That's because on weekends they usually only announce a handful of deaths, often less than 10, because the facilities and staff processing the deaths, carrying post mortems etc aren't working. There are no presumptions that a death was or wasn't covid, so cause of death takes time.  Even in the new covid19 era family time off is sacred!! 

There was an interview in the Times last weekend with the Swedish equivalent to Chris Witty.

Basically he said that a countrys population needed to have " ice in their belly" and to understand that this was a new disease, there is no instant cure and ready made solution. Certainly there is a price to pay for lockdown policies.He said that the UK, Holland and Sweden had agreed to go on a similar course but that Holland and UK had lost their nerve.Alledgedly he is a bit of a star in Sweden.

No idea if all this is just spin.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-ave...

I am using worldometers, but am happy to look at other better sources if you know of any? John Hopkins University total and active case numbers are in direct agreement with worldometers, as is 'our world in data'. OWID's source is the ECDC.  I think for Sweden we can trust the data unless you know better?  We can infer active cases with enough accuracy for our needs if we know how many total cases there are today, and the number there were 2 weeks previously (the vast majority of cases have cleared the virus within 2 weeks of testing assuming they were tested at the start of symptoms).

Although only 12% go to hospital, compared to normal households (of which there are a high percentage of single person households) the case numbers are high - 40% of their cases were in care homes at the start of May. One person infecting a carehome creates 10's of cases whereas one person in a single-person household creates....1.

Do you know what the healthcare system capacity is now? I could only find a figure of 480 ICU beds. How many are in use?

Why would you trust the data of a discredited source?Uk data on worldometer often differs from that given during the daily press conference for example, same reason I wouldn't trust worldometer to indicate Spain is heading for a second wave.

Swedish ICU data is here 

https://www.icuregswe.org/en/data--results/covid-19-in-swedish-intensive-ca...

And from what I can find Sweden managed to triple or at least double it's ICU capacity and even at there peak ICU was only sitting at around 35percent of capacity.

I don't think Sweden is worried about there health care system being over run anytime soon.

Tegnell.. the front man. He's popular. But behind is a team of similar folk and others senior to him. A key figure is Johan Giesecke, who has a bit of experience being that from 2005 to 2014 he was the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

I see their 'closed cases' are no longer appearing on Worldometers. Not surprising given the 47% death rate they stated!  Does anyone know where to find the info on closed cases?  Their active case numbers have also dropped by a couple of thousand.

Deaths per capita they’re now on 8th place. 
 

Not that is a competition. 
 

The US, where a lot of people were quoting Sweden as a great example of how the feee free world should operate (while ignoring Sweden’s liberal outlook on life!), are at 12th. 
 

I think comparing countries is a bit odd. We all have different R figures. 
 

My brother-in-law lives on Sweden with is wife and 3 children. They don’t seem unduly worried. 

Ooops https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52903717

However, that's not really quite what he said or the context. He admitted they should have anticipated care homes were more vulnerable and done more initially. He also said with hindsight things would always be different if repeated.

Apart from analysing normal data as it's generated, the comments were made in the context that they've started a larger scale review. Partially as insurance because if it mutates or if there isn't a vaccine then next winter could be a repeat etc. Plus the fact that there will be lessons to learn. 

But overall, week on week deaths are still dropping. Kids finish for summer in a few days, most work places close down for July too. So the dynamics will no doubt shift. 

One of 17 countries in the world with over 1,000 new cases yesterday. More new cases than every European country except the UK. Should pass China in terms of number of dead within a week.

So yeah, everything is fine.

Sweden reported 77 dead today, putting the total ahead of China. Only the UK and Italy had more fatalities today in Europe.

That's the end of the carehome glut from the start of the infections, the death rate has been disproportionately high at the start.  New cases are increasing again hyper-exponentially (unless there's been a change in testing protocol).  I'd expect the death rate to continue to decrease for another 3-4 weeks then start picking up again.  It will be low though, only 1% of live cases are serious apparently.

Rolling 7 day average percentage increase per day in new cases, oldest first:-

1.96, 1.88, 1.75, 1.76, 1.71, 1.68, 1.61, 1.50, 1.56, 1.61, 1.54, 1.51, 1.53, 1.61, 1.66, 1.60, 1.64, 2.19, 2.31

For interest, these are the equivalent UK figures:-

1.53, 1.43, 1.35, 1.24, 1.17, 1.14, 0.98, 0.91, 0.84, 0.92, 0.94, 0.89, 0.82, 0.85, 0.82, 0.81, 0.67, 0.66, 0.65

Obviously the number of cases is higher in the UK due to the higher infected number, but it would appear that our R value is somewhat lower than Sweden's or we're in the tail end of infections working their way through households and running out of people to infect easily.  Datasource is Worldometers.

Interesting how a random website thinks it can produce r figures to 2 decimal places. 

I assume these are values calculated by Toerag using the website's data.  The data is good to a precision of perhaps 3-4 decimal places for the UK, but the accuracy is probably around 1 decimal place.  Presenting the numbers to do decimal places doesn't seem unreasonable for a web forum...

I'm just a little sceptical unless there is wide scale testing across all demographics and regions. There must be a few presumptions and estimates in there. I think it's likely higher than we think in many countries. 

I think on 20th of May the public health agency in Sweden announced that it would change strategy from only testing those in hospital and health care workers for the virus to rolling out testing to anyone in population with symptoms, so that may explain the upsurge in case numbers shown in your figures.

Not saying your claim is necessarily wrong, but the quoted statement says nothing about children’s covid risk being low - only that in some cases they also face other risks too. The risk of family violence is not directly and inversely related to the risk from coronavirus. 

To pick some example numbers to illustrate: let’s say a child had a 60% chance of dying from an infection, and a 80% chance of death through family violence. That does not make infection “low risk” to that individual. It just means they face another risk that is currently even more significant.  

Since you haven’t shared the source article we can’t check whether your claim is upheld in some other part of the article.

I know that there is evidence that children are indeed at lower risk, but your quote confirms nothing at all about this topic. 

You also have to factor in how many children are at risk of abuse from their family; probably not many at all.

Whereas all children are at risk from COVID-19.

Quite.  If children are also links in chains of infection, letting them mix their parents at risk at high risk of illness, long term consequences or death all of which loop back to the child’s welfare.

Children have high or highest rate of infection but the least symptoms. I don't know what less symptoms means for how infectious.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-children-in-england-more-likely-to-b...

Children having more infections is hardly news, is it; schools are cross infection central, and always have been.

What do you mean by at risk from Covid19? 

I think a week or two ago a programme on r4 was saying children have a viral load of roughly a quarter of adults, plus if they are not coughing and sneezing they are spreading it less. This is of course countered by the fact their hand hygiene might not be so good. 

Indeed. Many countries have broadened their local testing systems. Jönköping announced they'll be testing those with mild symptoms, not just those hospitalised or key workers. Folk who have what they think might be covid and are just holed up at home are being asked to contact their doctors for a test. 

Sorry yes I skipped some  points in that post. Some notes here from another article - translations - paraphrased in order from the linked article 04/06/2020 :

Study made by Robert Cohen, paediatrician at Creteil and vice-president of the French Society of Paediatricians. Extracts of the study of 605 children of 15yrs or less in Ile de France (the Paris region - most affected by covid-19) - children are very small vectors - contrary to what was thought. The risk is extremely weak - he assured.

The inquiry, led by 27 paediatricians - only 10% of children had the virus. 1.8% had a +ve PCR  test during lockdown, but only 0.6% were infectious. In 9/10 cases it is the adults which pass the virus - not the children. Even if they have siblings.

Risk of a child dying from covid-19 is extremely rare - as rare as bacterial meningitis.

The professor regretted school re-opening procedures to be unrealistic. Chalked squares in the playground ? Do not take a child in your arms to console it ? Reflect to what degree of inhuman conduct we have arrived !

Failure to re-open schools will have knock-on negative affects incl - school dropouts, poorer care for special needs cases, loss of social interaction - ALL - replaced by screen (computer) exposure - what a catastrophe !

Parting shot: children are less dangerous as vectors to their grandparents than the parents themselves are.

https://www.nouvelobs.com/coronavirus-de-wuhan/20200604.OBS29686/cvodi-19-l...

That's my excel calculations based upon the figures.

That'll explain it, thanks!

 Interesting, thanks.

If I’m reading that correctly, around 33% of those who tested positive were infectious. That seems far from negligible, even if the rate is indeed higher in adults.

Do we know if they only tested each child once? The window within which we are contagious is different to the period where we might show symptoms or test positive, so I’d be interested to know if there was any longitudinal testing there. 

With regard to 10% of children having the virus in that study (I presume you mean past and present cases, not just current cases?) - that seems high! How many adults had it at that time? Without comparison that figure isn’t too helpful. As far as I can see the overall estimated number of people in Paris who have had covid stood at about 10% a couple weeks ago. I don’t know when the study you quote was carried out, but that would suggest that these children are just as susceptible as everyone else, surely?

Where the devil did you get that 33% figure from ?

Whether it was 10% or other - what we're really interested in are

• cases which contract life-threatening disease
• cases leading to death
• cases capable of vectoring on to others

All of these above were defined to be low or inconsequential, as compared to the rates seen in adults, esp w r t vectoring on to the 60+ category - grandparents

There is one detail I didn't bring out. An important reason given for low infection in children was the possibility that they have acquired immunity through exposure to other coronavirus strains previously. For such cases longitudinal testing would have nothing to prove.

Your numbers were "1.8% had a +ve PCR  test during lockdown, but only 0.6% were infectious"

0.6% is 1/3 of 1.8%. From what you have written there, it appears that 1/3 of those who tested positive were infectious.

But to be fair I'm not clear on what these numbers represent so could be misunderstanding - 1.8% of who tested positive? All children? Just those tested? Same questions for the 0.6% - is that 0.6% of all children, just positive tests, all who were tested?

Interesting, although when "only" turns out to mean 'in line with the overall average', I can't help but question "low" and "inconsequential". Moving from an out of context "only 10%", to a claim that the number doesn't really matter after all, because other unstated numbers are "inconsequential" feels unconvincing.

Any link to a reference for that? I'm struggling to imagine how anyone has acquired immunity via exposure to a different virus, or why that would only apply to children. I've not seen mention anywhere that there is a possibility that parts of the population have an existing immunity to Covid-19. I'd have thought that finding might have been rather prominent in the news and would be genuinely interested to learn more. (Edit: I see you linked to the article above, my French is too poor to gain anything from that unfortunately. Althouh I'd have expected findings of pre-existing immunity to have made the news here too.)

I've just had a look at the evidence summaries available to staff in our health board, and I can't find anything about either pre-existing immunity in children, or reduced contagiousness. Generally these resources make some mention even of emerging or uncertain findings but I accept that things are moving fast at the moment.

Low & inconsequential were my descriptions -from the tone of the article. The 33% you named would relate to a third of those in the PCR test - but - that refers to 0.6% of all 605 children in the study - as I understood it.

Otherwise the overall conclusion was in breaking lockdown rules and getting out - with some sensible precautions; chalked playground squares and hug deprivation were deemed injurious - as was staying at home screen-gazing.

Otherwise -the question of naturally developed immunity. The general conclusion is that kids which play in the dirt from an early age becoming more disease tolerant with age. Or in other words - if the child is wrapped in cotton wool and antiseptic - the immune system is never exercised - so less likely to resist when otherwise mild microbial problems arrive. Discussed here as 'the farm effect'. Informal presentation but some references supplied:

https://www.canticlefarm.org/?p=2932

If 0.6% of all children in the study were infectious, and 1.8% of all children in the study tested positive, then surely I was correct in stating that 33% of those testing positive were infectious?

On immunity: Eh? Yes, exposure to micro organisms etc through dirt etc helps build your immune system. I get that. However, this is because children are still in the process of building a mature immune system. Adults tend to have a stronger immune system than children since it’s had more time to develop, so this line of reasoning doesn’t fit. And why aren’t we seeing worse covid outcomes among very young children who have had limited opportunity to develop their immune system?

Even if that weren’t the case, you (or the article) suggested that today’s children may have immunity to covid through past exposure to coronaviruses, apparently from playing outside. This still makes no sense. Why would this immunity not be seen in adults? Surely adults would also have been exposed to these viruses if they were out there? Whether via children, their own childhood exploits, or by exposure to mud as an adult?

Are you sure you’re not mixing up different arguments here? It feels like you might be conflating arguments about general child health and well-being with covid specific information. There is a huge difference between saying “on a balance of the risks kids should be allowed out” and “playing out makes kids immune to covid”

I don't know the answer - but this result ie. of infection and infectiousness - comparing child and adult, is clearly stated as research result. The study spoke of 'possible theories' as to why this might be.

A perfect experiment starts today. Most schools close today or this week for 9 weeks summer holiday. There should be a clear change in cases if kids are or aren't hotbeds of transmission. 

Here's a clue from the Guardian:

Q:  “It’s important to remember that no matter how healthy and active you are, your risk for getting pneumonia increases with age. This is because our immune system naturally weakens with age, making it harder for our bodies to fight off infections and diseases.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/what-happens-to-your-lungs-wi...

But up to a point your immune system also improves with age, before starting that decline. It is not a steady decline from birth since your immune response first develops and strengthens, before the effects of aging become the more significant factor. The weaker immune systems are found in the very young and very old. So we should be seeing a spike in, say, under 10s who don't have a mature immune system if this was the reason.

Seems logical at what age does it peak ?

Somewhere between early adolescence and early adulthood.

Although while breastfeeding our immune system gets some help from antibodies from our mother, which carries us through until our own immune system can start to get a foothold. 

There's evidence to natural births being very effective at boosting babies immune systems.

Latest Sweden case stats look very worrying. Is this real or to do with ramped up testing?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

From what I've read in the press many authorities have expanded testing, way beyond key workers or hospital patients, so many who have milder symptoms and are isolating at home are now tested to confirm covid. 

The graphs of cases has climbed, but hospitalization, deaths, icu useage are declining, which 'could' imply that there were previously even more cases in the community than anticipated and potentially the fatality rate is lower than the 1% previously estimated. But also that the R rate of covid is possibly higher than most countries estimate. 

Hospitalisations and deaths are delayed. The scary rise in cases are in the last week.... are you saying the testing has increased that much in the last week.... and there were that many previously undetected cases out there?

I don't know, time tell, blips on graphs do little to identify trends. They have been publically encouraging folk to test etc for the last couple of weeks. Yes deaths are delayed, so deaths today could actually be several days ago(anything upto 2 weeks), but aren't confirmed until after post mortem and testing, hence why numbers are occasionally zero at weekends when most staff aren't working. 

I think the fatality rate was higher because it was in the care homes early on and now the homes are taking better precautions to prevent them losing all their customers.

I think so.  They're currently seeing 1-2000 new cases per day, about the same number as in the UK.  Our test and trace system here showed about 40% of cases were asymptomatic / pre-symptomatic, so the jump up from 3-500 a day they were getting until about 10 days ago sounds plausible, along with the general increase in cases. 7 day average case rise is 2.42% per day now, but the data is noisy and we will need another week or so to see a trend.

Testing has allegedly gone up from 30 to 50k, that's actual testing not capacity. If they look more, they find more positive cases. It's the equivalent of the UK doing 350k / day. 

Schools finished for summer now, we can expect to see a massive decline if UK teaching unions(wannabe infectious disease experts) are correct in wanting to close all uk schools. 

UK cases per week didn't anything like double in 2 weeks when we ramped up though. Several more days in things still look odd in that Swedish daily case data. If it's all down to ramping up of testing they were clearly failing in their testing systems before.

The desperation that folk want the Swedish strategy to fail is palpable. How else will they justify their trillions in debt, millions unemployed etc.. or not educating their kids? Deaths, hospitalization, icu bed use have all been falling week after week, not sharply, just a slow sustained fall. 

While the UK now goes wild in the aisles shopping, parties, hugging granny etc. Etc. Sweden's lockdown rules are the same as they were at the end of March. Not as severe as many were originally but sustainable, in for the long haul. They will no doubt modify if a vaccine becomes viable but that could be Xmas time, long after schools resume in mid to late August. 

It is strange how desperate people are for other country's to fail because it does not suit their narrative.

There does seem to be widespread support for your Govt's handling of the crises so far, I assume that is continuing. I think your lead Dr said "people need more ice in their stomach". Or something like that.

Don't be so childish. I'd rather Sweden had been right all along: in the end, the way the world can cope from now on would be way easier if that was the case. Sadly it just looks increasingly like wishful thinking and that Sweden were really only different in terms of not needing to be as rigid with government instructions to achieve the same social distancing for the current above average levels of per capita deaths and current below average economic damage. Your leaders said they had a herd immunity policy and the UK let them down (after initially going with them).

They've never really pushed the herd immunity message, it's been inferred by others. As mentioned by neilh the chief spokes person basically said it's a long game and there will be pain in all respects. 

Your social Distancing comment doesn't really apply, in sweden schools didn't close and UK now it's ok to shop, party, protest, protest about protests, hug granny... but still won't open schools. Also in sweden only events over 50 people are banned. I'd be surprised if the strategy changes before September. The Oxford trial results might influence future plans. 

I think quite a few direct quotes from your politicians and senior epidemiologists show herd immunity for the majority of the population at less risk was very much policy. Playing with semantics around 'pushing' won't hide that.

Social distancing can be achieved in many different ways in detail. In particular we don't know how much comparative risk adapted school systems pose compared to adult social distancing. 

Generally the translation of media briefings have been terrible. 

Tegnell said a few weeks ago that he regretted care home deaths and in hindsight they could have done more or played it differently with the knowledge they have now. 

The foreign media reported that Tegnell admits Sweden's strategy is wrong. 

Come of it, most of the quotes used on herd immunity were made to an international audience in English.

My friends in Finland are planning a trip to Norway for summer skiing and fishing now the land borders have reopened between the two again with no quarantine expectations. I'm not jealous at all! Sadly it seems neither Finland or Norway thinks it safe to reopen their borders with Sweden yet though because of the much higher infection rates. It does feel that Sweden is really quite the exception now in the whole Nordic-Baltic region, as borders seem to be opening again all around it. I wonder how much that will affect economic activity in Sweden? 

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/norway_opens_borders_to_visitors_from_fi...

I guess it doesn't help that the majority of the ferries from Finland go into Stockholm city centre, and Stockholm seems particularly hard hit.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finlands_continued_travel_restrictions_r...

There will be some tourist impact but I don't think it will be significant. Most places aren't so dependent on it like parts of Greece or Spain are. 

More Swedes will holiday at home for the duration and perhaps prices will drop a little in places like Bohuslän, if there are less Norwegians visiting!! 

There will be small towns that miss the surge as sports events are axed, vattenrundan, vansbro, O Ringen etc.. all cancelled and with more still to decide. The same for music events. 

Here is an article that completely contradicts your optimism with a hard look at data. Thanks to Andy Popp on t'other channel. It also indicates the new peak is not due to increased testing with reasons.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-should-we-aim-for-herd-immunity-...

I think I'll put my faith in folk who've been fighting infectious diseases for 30 years etc.. not the medium website... his whole argument is based around counting cases, which is a bit of a false trail. Imagine if a country did zero testing, no cases, it must have no virus? Better to count cases AND hospitalization, icu bed use, death rates etc.. which he strangely completely ignores. 

Plus.. many of those cited as beating or as he says hammering the virus are having to clamp down as it's popping up again in China and Italy etc. 

Of course Sweden's economy will have been impacted and there is more to come with the western recession, but it's less severe than other countries, it isn't likely to have the mental health and educational problems long term that prolonged lock downs will incur. 

That said, if there is a right answer, it's not in Europe. It's probably NZ who stopped the in flow of the virus first. Had Europe stopped flights in January like it eventually did in April, we likely wouldn't be having this conversation. 

I think you are being grossly unfair to the highly detailed and multifaceted analysis by not countering the detail and resorting to ad hom attacks instead. That sort of attitude hardly inspires trust.

'Dancing' is to deal with small outbreaks and no western economy trying that route has failed to get things back under control as yet. Worst case following the standard response is you need a second hammer. As the article says Korea has been more open than Sweden and just danced despite some terrible luck (super spreader in a religious cult and people with forged ID in nightclubs so not to be exposed as homosexual).

As for the future we will see I guess.

As an NZ expert said, they, south Korea etc. Treated it like sars, the West treated it like influenza. 

Ps. I'm not being unfair to him. Anyone with an A level in statistics could present the same data to support whatever opinion they hold. We'll just have to see where things are in 2 months to know. 

Is Swedens economic hit projected to be lower than its Scandinavian neighbours? 

I'm honestly not sure, but the three countries are vastly different in terms of primary industries, currencies and economics; so it's likely not that easy to compare. Time will tell and I'll try a bit of searching now. It's not something most Swedes are losing sleep over or analysing to death.  

It's covered in that link that summo so dislikes and elsewhere. Predictions are pretty much as bad unless Sweden struggles to clear the virus when it will be comparatively even worse for them. Actual data so far has been better than predictions, so I'd say the jury is out despite being accused of being a Sweden basher.