One Will Either Get The Vacccine, Or Covid, Or Both -- But Very Few Will Actually Escape One Or The Other -- Swedish Experience -- May 5, 2022

Most western countries are still recording new cases of Covid-19.

Sweden has gone either two or three consecutive days reporting no new cases.

Swedish experience:

228 "countries" are tracked. 

Some selected statistics.

Tests / 1 million population:

1. Denmark: 21.8 million / 1 million population
6. Spain: 10.1 million / 1 million population
12. UK: 7.6 million / 1 million population
22. Israel: 4.4 million
32. Italy: 3.6
38. USA: 3.0
57. Norway: 2.0
58. Finland: 1.9
64. Sweden: 1.8
72. Canada: 1.6
73. Germany: 1.5

Sort of supports the adage, if you don't test for it, it doesn't exist.

Deaths / 1 million population:

1. Peru: 6,296 / one million
18. USA: 3,059
31. UK: 2,561
57. Sweden: 1,834
90. Denmark: 1,067
WORLD: 804
111. Finland: 747
125. Norway: 547

Sort of supports the adage, everyone will either get the vaccine, the disease, or both.

Early on:

• Norway: strict
• Sweden: lenient
• 547/ 1834 = per capita, Norway had 30% of Covid-19-related deaths compared to Sweden.

Sort of supports the adage, once a meme is established, it never dies. Sort of like Covid sub-types. 

Studies, articles:

JAMDA, June 10, 2021:

Conclusions and Implications: In Swedish LTCFs, COVID-19 was associated with a large excess in mortality after controlling for an extensive number of risk factors. 

Beyond older age and male sex, several prevalent clinical risk factors independently contributed to higher mortality. These findings suggest that reducing transmission of COVID-19 in LTCFs will likely prevent a considerable number of deaths.

BMJ, December 22, 2021. The British Medical Journal is perhaps the most respected international medical journal, vying the London Lancet and the Boston NEJM for that distinction.

“Swedish statistics do not differ from other European countries,” Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist who has been the face of Sweden’s infamous pandemic strategy, tells The BMJ. 

“After two years of pandemic Sweden does not stand out. We are not the best, but we are definitely not the worst.”

In contrast to the stricter, often lockdown focused, approaches of many European countries—including its neighbours in Scandinavia—Sweden’s strategy has relied on individuals taking responsibility under non-binding recommendations.1 In the first six months of the pandemic, the government enacted extensive work from home measures for those that could, as well as remote learning for over 16s.

The public acquiesced and there was little debate about the stance, bar a group of 22 scientists who were outspoken about the high number of coronavirus deaths among the elderly, which was significantly higher than that of its Nordic neighbours—131 per million people compared with 55 per million in Denmark and 14 per million in Finland, which all adopted lockdowns.

Tegnell was among those insistent that the lockdowns imposed by other countries were excessive. 

Compared with other major European countries the number of overall cases and deaths in Sweden was low—just under 93 000 cases and 6000 deaths by 1 October 2020 compared with over 118 000 cases and 10 000 deaths in Belgium, which has a similar overall population size, or the 606 000 cases and 32 000 deaths seen in France and other larger countries, according to Our World in Data.

But by winter 2020 a second wave with the new alpha variant brought a spike in cases. 

In the six months between October 2020 and March 2021, the country saw 657 309 positive cases and 12 826 deaths.

The government’s measures were sharply criticised in an 800-page report (the second of this sort) published in October 2021 by the Swedish Corona Commission — the government commissioned inquiry into the pandemic response—which it noted were both late and insufficient, and called preparedness “non-existing.”

This was followed in November 2021 by a report from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, proposing the establishment of an independent expert unit for future pandemics, stating that authorities were “inadequately prepared” in terms of knowledge as well as equipment such as face masks, and that high mortality during the first two waves of the pandemic was because of “mild and tardy” measures to prevent the initial spread of infection.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf labelled Sweden’s handling of the pandemic a “failure” in his end of 2020 TV speech. Then prime minister Stefan Lofven agreed. 

“The fact that so many have died can’t be considered as anything other than a failure,” he said.

Anders Vahlne, a professor of virology at the Karolinska Institute and one of the scientists critical of the Swedish response, told The BMJ that it was shameful that the whole pandemic had been in the hands of a few civil servants who acted and reacted slowly, lacking flexibility and still not clearly acknowledging that the virus was airborne.

A year on, as the country faces up to a second winter of the pandemic and both delta and omicron variant threats, experts The BMJ spoke to are clear: Sweden’s situation remains precarious.

See graphic below correlating The BMJ article with subsequent experience.