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Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

bbc.com

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Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#21

Post by taeric »

elliekelly wrote: post #13
taeric wrote: post #5

I don't get the criticism of the guidance being "voluntary". The bigger question is more in compliance, no? That is, if they have compliance rates that are comparable to the countries that do have legal recourse, do we have reason to think legal recourse would have gotten them better compliance?

This Yale study[1] collected data from every county in the US about which restrictions were in place and then tracked how many people got sick. Their data[2] distinguishes between “mask mandate” and a “mask recommendation” and the study author is quoted that the recommendation “doesn’t do anything”. Of course this is all US data so I’m not sure whether or to what extent it would apply to Sweden’s compliance with a ma…

My gut would be that the US is not very comparable to Sweden for compliance rates. Though, a lot of that will depend on how partisan the message has been there.

Even here in the US, some mandates have gotten worse compliance than others.

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#22

Post by taeric »

learc83 wrote: post #12
taeric wrote: post #5

I don't get the criticism of the guidance being "voluntary". The bigger question is more in compliance, no? That is, if they have compliance rates that are comparable to the countries that do have legal recourse, do we have reason to think legal recourse would have gotten them better compliance?

If you're talking about wearing masks in public, it looks like their numbers are low--implying that voluntary compliance isn't working great. For an example, I was driving through rural Alabama, which has a state wide mask mandate, and at every convivence store I stopped in, everyone was masked. Right next door in Georgia, which has the opposite of statewide mask mandate (the governor made local mandates illegal), al…

I haven't seen reporting on their numbers in compliance. The reporting is mostly like this one, focusing on it being voluntary. But then not stating how effective is otherwise it was.

They definitely have high numbers of covid. So does most everyone. :(

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#23

Post by jgwil2 »

0x445442 wrote: post #20
elliekelly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Yale study[1] collected data from every county in the US about which restrictions were in place and then tracked how many people got sick. Their data[2] distinguishes between “mask mandate” and a “mask recommendation” and the study author is quoted that the recommendation “doesn’t do anything”. Of course this is all US data so I’m not sure whether or to what extent it would apply to Sweden’s compliance with a ma…

Yep. In order to claim something a failure you need objective criteria to begin with. In terms of Covid those objective criteria never existed and thus the King's claim has as much meaning and weight as mine that Sweden's handling of Covid has been a wild success compared to other countries.

There are many objective criteria: case rate and death rate are just the most obvious.

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#24

Post by brigandish »

Not only is it probably too early to judge any country's response properly, I wonder how far his expertise, or even just his reasoning, enables him to make a judgement worth listening to.

It's worth keeping in mind that the BBC likes to play the journalistic game of "holding the government to account", which really means they will support a kind of response (lockdowns) tacitly while criticising the government for any piece of bad news (because they didn't lockdown / didn't lockdown fast enough / hard enough) while also engaging in the kind of general doom-mongering that does nothing to inform or educate. Like much of a UK media that shares its outlook, there's been nigh on 6 months of articles looking for any sign that Sweden's largely voluntary strategy will or has failed, as Spiked noted[0]… oh, 6 months ago in May, so it seems it's been longer than 6 months.

For a far more balanced view of Sweden's response, I recommend this article[1] in the Spectator. I suspect I'll have to wait another 6 months until the sun is back out for another of its ilk.

[0] https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/28/why-they-hate-swede...

[1] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-sweden

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#25

Post by 0-_-0 »

bzb6 wrote: post #19
learc83 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about wearing masks in public, it looks like their numbers are low--implying that voluntary compliance isn't working great. For an example, I was driving through rural Alabama, which has a state wide mask mandate, and at every convivence store I stopped in, everyone was masked. Right next door in Georgia, which has the opposite of statewide mask mandate (the governor made local mandates illegal), al…

Voluntary compliance is working great: people can do whatever they feel like doing, which is literally the point of voluntary compliance.

Or, the point of voluntary compliance is to balance between personal freedom and infection rate, in which case it's a failure.

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#26

Post by josep-panadero »

Why there is no lockdown in Sweden? One of the reasons is how legislation works in Sweden:

"Sweden cannot legally declare a full state of emergency to deal with corona, says an expert in constitutional law - and right now Sweden can't declare a lockdown and confine people to their homes either, as has been done in Britain, France, Spain and other countries.

Tormod Otter Johansen is a researcher in public law at Gothenburg University, he says, however, that legislation introducing the possibility of wider lockdowns could be introduced very quickly, as the government has shown over the past few weeks with other legislation to deal with the effect of the coronavirus."

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7454661

So, it is possible to change the legislation to enable the goverment to call for lockdowns, but it needs some more steps than in other countries.

The current main criticism, thou, relates to eldery care: "Corona commission criticises government over elderly care" https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1625475

The current recomendations can be found here: https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disaster...

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#27

Post by Izkata »

jgwil2 wrote: post #14

I saw a picture of people in a subway car in Stockholm earlier this month and 90% were maskless. The no-lockdown approach shows a fundamental lack of seriousness that filters down to everyone. In the United States we see this phenomenon just as clearly in Republican-led states.

> just as clearly in Republican-led states.

They aren't doing any worse than Democrat-led states though, so no idea how you can say this.

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#28

Post by juusto »

It does not surprise me that this approach has failed.

Folks don't mask up and, also, do not keep the distance as required. Visit a supermarket, metro or restaurants (yes, restaurants are open!) and you won't see anyone using masks or distancing.

Anecdotally my wifes work place only started WFH recommendations once 6 people got infected. On industries such as software almost everyone I know has been WFH since February but many folks insist in going to the office.

On the beginning of the pandemic retirement homes were badly hit which would lead you to think the government would learn something. It did not happen and lots of places are being reinfected.

Recent news headlines to keep in mind:

-Gov is thinking in requesting private practice nurses to help with the load on public hospitals

-Talk of neighboring countries "sharing the burden"

-Elder care not well equipped to deal with this wave

-ICU occupancy reaching 99% in Stockholm

Re: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed'

#29

Post by sto_hristo »

Everyone completely lost the point of lockdowns, which is to simply severely limit the spread of the disease until health care system is reorganized to face the challenge. If your hospitals can accept patients and nobody is left outside to die on their own, because there's no capacity in country, then by no means you can say that you failed.

It's absolute insanity to throw your country in the pit of perpetual isolation in order to "save everyone." You can't save everyone even if you home-jail 100% of the population. The virus will not magically disappear no matter what you do, especially when it's do contagious.

This guy is being a populist just like anyone else nowadays. Say and do whatever nets you more upvotes.

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