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A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

sebastianrushworth.com

151–160 of 340 posts

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#151
post #149

Only thing anyone can do is go to a shoe store, buy some running shoes and start running like 5 to 10 miles a week. Lay out in the sun and start eating healthier. If you can't run just walk. Play basketball, play soccer whatever. Why do people worry so much about things they can't control, when there are things they actually can control. If some of my facebook friends were more worried about walking everyday instead…

I wish I could play soccer but that'd be incredibly stupid during a pandemic and everything is shut down anyway. Running yes. Contact sports hell no.

Sorry I meant like go shoot basketball or run with a soccer ball by yourself. Whatever is fun to get out.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You win the prize for the understatement of the century. The ideological clarity of the covid regime is sublime. All sorts of debated matters are decided, by "science", and that is that. Whether by accident or design, the covid regime , the "new normal" that MSM has been educating us about from the very beginning, is a blueprint for a global authoritarian technocracy with its own internal logic, ethics, and mores.

I share your concerns about authoritarians using this occasion to bend things in a bad direction but are you asserting that the virus is not a real thing or that some group with authoritarian aims is behind its release? Because if the virus is a real thing then surely protesting by gathering into crowds and falling victim doesn’t harm the bad guys right? Help me understand if you don’t mind, serious questions it’s ha…

I think it's quite a bit more than bending in a bad direction. Many countries are still under their emergency authoritarian restrictions - to this day, troops are patrolling the streets of Melbourne to make people stay inside.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#153

"COVID is over in Sweden" is a pretty bold claim with ~400 daily infections, and increasing again as per https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6... Just like in other EU countries, it is now the younger population which seems mostly affected, and thus the mortality is lower - which is ultimately some good news. Summer holidays are now almost over though, so people are traveling home from vacation…

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Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#154
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we really are losing sight of the before versus now comparison. NYC is an absolutely ghost town compared to how it was. Everyone stays remarkably limited in their social contact. Professional sports are a ghost of what they were, running in an incredibly limited fashion. Travel is rare. The same is true of Sweden as well, of course. Social interaction has collapsed to very close to nil, and any article that c…

How are sports teams a ghost of what they were? NHL playoffs are incredible right now. European soccer is wrapping up and play is great. NBA is just getting started. Most of them just canceled games or took a break, which, for example, the NHL used to do every 4 years for the Olympics. The only sport that seems to be having real trouble is the MLB, who just had a terrible plan. I admit, I have no belief the NFL has a…

"NHL playoffs are incredible right now"

No fans. Playing in two bubble cities in Canada.

"NBA is just getting started"

No fans. Playing in one bubble city.

And I was talking about NYC. Zero NBA or NHL games are taking place in NYC.

In an average month in NYC, pre-COVID, there are dozens of enormous sports events. Hundreds of concerts. Tens of thousands of significant parties. If social interaction were on a scale from 0 to 100, and 100 was the before, right now NYC is at a less than 1. So when someone looks at NYCs current infection rate and presumes that means there is some herd immunity or the like, I don't think they're fully taking into account the reality on the ground.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#155

Confused by this: > Shutting down completely in order to decrease the total number of deaths only makes sense if you are willing to stay shut down until a vaccine is available. Wouldn’t shutting down completely for a month or two effectively end covid ?

The UK, France, Spain, India and Australia who all shutdown (to varying degrees) are now experiencing significant upticks in cases. Even Vietnam is now fighting hard to tamp down a resurgence of C19 despite impressive initial measures to try to stop it.

You'd have to be completely sure that during your lockdown, the virus burned itself out inside each household. You'd have to have a really strict lockdown (e.g. troops on the streets, imprisonment for violation) to do that; I think maybe only Italy & China did anything close to that. And of course it would only take a handful of exceptions to re-ignite the virus (see Australia).

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#156
Interesting take from someone inside one of the outlier nations -- but all his numbers are about morbidity.

Claims are made that SARS-CoV-2 must be widely spread through the community now (because cases requiring hospitalisation are dropping) but what then are the numbers for neuro, renal, respiratory etc complications caused by this virus?

Personally, the stats make me reasonably confident I would survive an infection, but the fact that significant quality-of-life effects in the mid to long term seem to be a random distribution scares the willies out of me.

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#157
post #128
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is you can't compare the impact of the flu because 1) it hits every year (versus a quick outbreak) and 2) many people are vaccinated. Don't forget the '17 flu seasons was 65k deaths in the US. So we're at a little under 3x right now. So yes, Covid is worse, but we don't bat an eye at 65k deaths due to the flu.

> So yes, Covid is worse, but we don't bat an eye at 65k deaths due to the flu. 1) Only as long as they are old people. The moment flu kills even a couple children, everybody goes apoplectic. 2) I suspect that one of the takeaways from Covid is going to be that viruses (even flu) cause a lot more long-term damage than we give them credit for. Nobody was funding brain or circulatory scans for flu patients--we're going…

During the 2017-2018 flu season, an estimated 115 children under 4 years old died. And almost 700 if you count those under 18.[1] That's more than I've seen reported for Covid so far.

And the flu certainly can cause long-term damage.

"Other possible serious complications triggered by flu can include inflammation of the heart (myocarditis), brain (encephalitis) or muscle (myositis, rhabdomyolysis) tissues, and multi-organ failure (for example, respiratory and kidney failure). Flu virus infection of the respiratory tract can trigger an extreme inflammatory response in the body and can lead to sepsis, the body’s life-threatening response to infection."[2]

[1]https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm [2]https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/symptoms.htm#complications

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#158
post #45
post #8

Sweden is effectively as locked down as anywhere else. The prevalence of the virus is diminishing there because people are not going out and getting sick, rendering R_t<1. I don't participate in social distancing because my government says to, and I certainly don't stop because my government says to either.

Sweden is effectively as locked down as anywhere else. Is that true? Are all the schools closed? Are most people working from home? Are most businesses shutdown? That's not what I've read (outside this article).

Google's COVID-19 Community Mobility Report is currently showing a 50% drop in visits to workplaces, compared to a pre-COVID baseline.

https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-08-04_SE_Mobil...

Re: A Swedish doctor's perspective on Covid

#160
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is you can't compare the impact of the flu because 1) it hits every year (versus a quick outbreak) and 2) many people are vaccinated. Don't forget the '17 flu seasons was 65k deaths in the US. So we're at a little under 3x right now. So yes, Covid is worse, but we don't bat an eye at 65k deaths due to the flu.

> Don't forget the '17 flu seasons was 65k deaths in the US. So we're at a little under 3x right now. So yes, Covid is worse, but we don't bat an eye at 65k deaths due to the flu. How can we compare Covid numbers to the flu when the US has gone into lockdown, schools closed, everyone that can is WFH. No concerts or sporting events totally different circumstances Sweden might be a more accurate comparison since they d…

The other thing to consider about influenza is that it ravaged us for millennia until fairly recently.
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