Thread by @andrewflood

The right wing suggest we can let people die of #Covid19 in order to 'save the economy'. But countries like Sweden that took that route did as bad if not worse in GDP loss than neighbours
Sweden -8.6
Denmark -7.4
Finland -3.2
Latvia -7.5
Lithuania -5.1
ec.europa.eu/eurostat/docum…

Both Sweden & UK in different ways tried to keep economy open while talking of 'protect the vulnerable' Both failed because the vulnerable need a lot of care workers (1:1) and so can't simply be locked away from society, even if that was a moral option which it isn't.

Unless you intend to isolate care workers how do you stop those in their care getting infected. Same for health care workers. Or indeed for the elderly & vulnerable groups who often need others to care for them whether family or paid. Many families have 1+ vulnerable members

Morally many of these vulnerable elderly people are in their last otherwise healthy & active months / years. How is it reasonable to suggest they lock themselves back into their homes for those so the rest of us can 'get on with life. And many of them live with us.

Then consider how much is unknown yet about medium and long terms effects for Covid survivors. We know is some cases there are long lasting severe outcomes even from mild infections. HIV, Polio, HPV, Hepatitis & Herpes are all viral infections that don't go away after 1st hit

And while its true death is an unusual outcome for the young hospitalisation runs at 5% plus. 100k infections could be 5,000 people in a very over crowded hospital system, 250+ of them in ICU. Not at all sustainable

There are some 638k people over 65 in Ireland (CSO 2016). IFR at that age is well over 1% suggesting at least 20,000 at risk if death & perhaps a lot more as in 2005 2/3 were over 70 & 24% over 80 (10% IFR). Far too many to isolate

cso.ie/en/releasesand…

An aside on Sweden, it often gets treated as if it took no measures. This isn't true, they were considerable & escalated until they are now similar to ours. The main difference was our lockdown cut R & thus daily cases fast leading to deaths levelling off & curves diverging

Sweden actually closed down 5 bars that were breaking social distancing rules (we've yet to close 1). This piece despite the not great title is a useful Swedish account of what went wrong with decision making there opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-…

The Local' is useful for Covid Sweden news
Swedish & Finnish health officials' emails about herd immunity and schools - "One point might speak for keeping schools open in order to reach herd immunity more quickly," Tegnell wrote in the email
thelocal.se/20200813/revea…

Every day what happened and is happening in Sweden looks more and more dubious "Families, including those in high-risk groups, have been reported to social services and faced fines for keeping children at home." theguardian.com/world/2020/aug…

A magical bit thinking is that there is limit to Covid19 deaths at 500 per million. Its been clamed that this (rather than schools shutting for summer) is why deaths reduced in Sweden. However the magic number vanishes when you compare regions

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1295618728508502016?s=20

The latest excuse for Swedens dismal failure I've come across is the false idea it was uniquely hit hard by returning ski tourist cases. It wasn't, if anything Norway and Finland had more cases per population coming from Ischgl ski epicenter

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1276436616211464193?s=20

I’ve seen threads that claimed Sweden’s deaths were not above normal - this turns out not to be true according to their national statistics office

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1296698545727307776?s=21

https://t.co/SlxVdLPicb

Finally at this stage there is little difference in measures between Sweden and the rest of Europe.
But also "Families, including those in high-risk groups, have been reported to social services and faced fines for keeping children at home" thelocal.se/20200228/coron…

The Economist adding to the evidence that those who thought there was a choice between saving lives & saving the economy were wrong.

While the 'herd immunity' grifters are trying to fool you that Sweden is near the required HI level in Sweden they are ordering 18 million vaccine shots for next year to be given up to the start of 2022
thelocal.se/20200822/swede…

A useful 5 post thread with some additional facts about Sweden's respond, the one about people be expected to work in care homes even if a family member had Covid is pretty shocking in terms of the official rhetoric about protecting the vulnerable

https://twitter.com/EvaSaraLindberg/status/1300413259313483776?s=20

A significant factor as to why Sweden can get R down under 1 with lighter measures than Ireland is that they don’t have our overcrowded housing. This also effects fatality as multi generational housing here means many elderly can’t cocoon as workers & kids live with them

There is a lot of misinformation out there about Sweden being close to so called ‘herd immunity’ but their own seroprevalence studies say even Stockholm isn’t 1/5 of the way there if measures removed

https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1301266804380057605