Thread by @baekdal

One thing that many people here in Scandinavia don't understand is 'why' the virus is happening the way it is.

Let me explain by comparing Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. (well, mostly Denmark and Sweden)

When the virus hit Scandinavia (almost simultaneously), both Norway and Denmark imposed a lockdown, whereas Sweden had a more 'casual approach. Sweden did add some restrictions but to a much less degree.

The effect was very clear.

However, what happened then in Denmark was that, as we got the virus under control, we started reducing the restrictions more and more ... so much in fact that we ended up with fewer restrictions than in Sweden.

The reason for this was due to us having several months with almost no infections, and we had days with no deaths. In the region I live in, we have more than two weeks without a single death.

So... we kept easing up the restrictions while Sweden was still trying to catch up.

And it really did look like everything was under control.

The problem was that the graph in the previous tweet is slightly misleading. Because when you instead look at the 'active number of cases', we see that we never got below 500 active cases.

In other words, we had minimized the virus, but it was still very much part of society. 500 known cases + whatever number that is unknown ... that's a huge amount potential cases of future infections.

And this was exactly what happened.

Because the numbers were so low, people stopped caring. People started going back to their old lives, they had parties (many of them), the bars and restaurants were full again of people wanting to go out.

And this was the perfect environment for the virus to come back.

And so, in Denmark and Norway, after things going so well, we eased up too much, and the virus came back. But in Denmark, we keep saying "we got under control", and the newspapers kept reporting that "there is nothing to worry about" ... and yet, look at this graph.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, they had finally, kind of, caught up. They are still not even close to where we were three months ago. In fact, Sweden's numbers today is where we were in back in May.

So, while Denmark is heading into its second wave, Sweden is just now ending its first.

So, what is Sweden doing now? Well, they are making exactly the same mistake as we made here in Denmark a month ago. They have started easing up restrictions, allowing more people to gather in larger and larger groups.

So... here is my very simple question for you. If easing up restriction in Denmark caused the virus to come back and start a second wave ... what would you expect to happen in Sweden now that they are doing the same?

Let me give you a hint. Here is a graph for Sweden of the COVID cases per day. As you can see, they have not stopped the virus. Like Denmark, they have merely reduced it to a certain level ... but it persistently keeps spreading in the country.

So, again, what do you think will happen now that Sweden is starting to ease restrictions? (like Denmark did three months ago)

Do you think the virus will go away, even though more people are now closer together? ...or... do you think it will come back, like it did in Denmark?

For what possible reason should we believe that 'Sweden is winning?'

There is nothing in the data that would indicate that Sweden is at a better place now than what we were here in Denmark three months ago.