Hi @Jendrite, I read through this article you tweeted to me. It was long and full of questionable logic. I did read it all and considered its arguments and evidence and remain thoroughly unconvinced that Sweden is a disaster.

1/1,000

time.com/5899432/sweden…
To the contrary, like the recent WHO official, I believe Sweden was the model. Since I read it and wrote down my thoughts, I figure I might as well post them in a too-long tweet thread that nobody will probably ever read, but that’s how I roll.

2/1,000
First, Sweden isn’t 12th, they are 14th by the standard of the article. This is because in the two weeks since the article was published, Sweden’s deaths per million has hardly moved while they were passed by Panama and Colombia.
This emphasizes the reason people praise the Swedish approach, they are now living fairly normally and not dying.
Second, I find the metric “failure to reduce coronavirus mortality rates as the pandemic progressed” to be bizarre. It emphasize distribution of deaths over total number of deaths and favors frontloading.
A country that gets slammed ends up better on the list than a country that has lower overall mortality but spreads it out over time – and this is irrespective of the freedoms they lost in the process.
3rd, there seem to be glaring errors. Japan is listed as a having “locked down early &/or used extensive test and tracing.” Japan seems to have done neither. They did “a limited lockdown & spotty compliance w/requests to stay home & close businesses.” theregreview.org/2020/06/10/fel…
Japan testing: “The country has reported fewer deaths than other major nations and ended a state of emergency even while maintaining a low testing rate.” nytimes.com/2020/05/29/wor…
On the other side Peru is listed as a country “that locked down late, came out of lock down too early, did not effectively test and quarantine, or only used a partial lockdown.” But, “Peru Grapples With The Pandemic Despite An Early And Tough Lockdown.” npr.org/2020/08/31/908…
Also, “Peru: COVID-19 testing is 2nd highest in Latin America, Case count tops 600,000” outbreaknewstoday.com/peru-covid-19-…
The Time .com article is either just wrong on Peru or the phrase “not effectively test and quarantine” is self-validating, meaning if a country fares poorly, it can’t have “effectively test[ed] and quarantine[d].”
The comparison to other Nordic countries is questionable also (in the graph). Sweden counts anyone with Covid as a Covid death. Norway, I believe, only counts confirmed Covid caused deaths in hospitals. contagionlive.com/view/how-swede…
Further, the entire neighbors argument is questionable. Lockdown proponents say lockdowns & masks are key. Yet by comparing Sweden w/neighbors they essential argue it’s about demographics or geography – b/c that is what Sweden shares with neighbors. Yet this is never addressed.
As to Sweden’s cases rising along with the rest of Europe, I believe cases to be a terrible metric because it relies so heavily on testing which for many reasons is a suspect.
Testing could be a subject of another whole denunciation, but for now, I’ll just say if cases don’t produce deaths, then who cares? Sweden’s deaths rate is still very, very low.
The portion of the Time .com article talking about Sweden’s strategy is to achieve herd immunity is in fact the strategy employed by every country every flu season.
If Peru locks down hard & forces mask wearing, but sees way more deaths than Sweden, & Sweden implements a strategy used every flu season & bets on the virus stopping naturally (likely through herd immunity or some similar phenomenon), would you rather be in Peru?
The article states, “After all, herd immunity to an infectious disease has never been achieved without a vaccine.” Before vaccines were developed, this is how diseases were routinely stopped.
Even now, in a flu season when the vaccines are ineffective (it varies wildly), herd immunity is the driving force behind stopping them. Note that herd immunity may be achieved at a lower level of community infections in the summer than in the winter (for northern hemisphere).
The passage about nursing homes is accurate, and Tegnell has stated that this is the area where Sweden failed. He has said that they underestimated what it would take to shield nursing homes. Norway, for example, was much better at this.
Moreover, Sweden's denigrated “triage system” is typical in socialized medicine where resources are not determined by the consumer, but top down. Also, the sad anecdotes seem to be socialized medicine problems, not Covid problems (I'm sure we disagree here).
The passages regarding Sweden’s relative lack of testing and quarantining, it seems to follow their philosophy, which is born out in their mortality. I don’t see it as a separate issue.
As to masks, Swedish epidemiologists and scientist believe they are not helpful. Perhaps many Swedes are caught up in a mass hysteria believing masks aren’t effective, but if that’s possible, it’s also possible it’s the rest of the world that’s suffering from mask hysteria.
Bottom line is before Feb, scientists (inc Fauci) generally believed societal mask wearing by healthy general public wasn't beneficial. Science hasn’t changed. People will cherry pick places where mask wearing coincided w/prevalence reduction while ignoring places where it didn’t
There have been no general public, cloth mask, controlled studies that show effectiveness. It was the politics that changed. People needed to feel not powerless and politicians provided a pacifier.
Regarding schools, the article points to a study saying schools were OK and tries to say the study is flawed citing to a newspaper article that admits it’s “difficult to draw conclusions” and then draws conclusions. Then it claims this means Swedish officials misrepresent data.
Then the article makes the “Sweden actually was locked down” argument and, without evidence, states that this is why Sweden fared so well. But I tend to believe my eyes and videos and pictures of Swedes that are maskless and normal tell me otherwise.
So, that’s my “quick”, unproofed response. You can accuse me of supporting the spread of Covid. I see it as a balancing act. Covid reactions kill, I seek to balance the harm of Covid with the harm of the reaction to Covid and find the best path forward.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Karl Dierenbach

Karl Dierenbach Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Dierenbach

5 Oct
Colorado is committing suicide.

CDC excess death data shows since June 20 more than twice as many Coloradans have died from @GovofCO @CDPHE and local restrictions than have died from Covid.

310 with Covid, 787 from response.

Literally suicide.

Details follow.

1/9
The CDC tracks the total number of deaths for the country and each state. Any deaths over the expected number of deaths are “excess” deaths.

Note: CDC data takes a while to collect and publish so data is through Aug 22.

Data here: cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr…

2/9
In CO, Covid caused a massive spike in excess deaths March-May. The BLUE line.

However, aside from Covid, CO saw above normal fatalities. The RED line.

The red line has exceeded the blue line since June 20. Since then, deaths from our response have exceeded Covid deaths.

3/9
Read 9 tweets
17 Sep
Here are more thoughts regarding the possibility of a Covid floor in Colorado. First, as a reminder, both positivity and hospitalizations seem to have found a steady-state floor and have been at the same levels for weeks.

STEADY-STATE LEVELS ARE NOT NATURAL!

1/8
Here's a chart showing last 10 years of visits for Influenza-like illnesses (ILI) in US. What's missing? Aside from perhaps mid-July to mid-Aug summer nadir, there are no steady-state periods where ILI visits remain unchanged for weeks. Such balance doesn’t occur naturally.

2/8
And it makes sense, either the flu is spreading or contracting. To strike a perfect balance where there are a steady-state significant number of cases week over week would be very difficult. Even Colorado’s modeling group agrees.

3/8
Read 8 tweets
27 Aug
Fun fact #2:

Colorado's COVID-19 Modeling Group estimates that if we stopped social distancing and stopped wearing masks, 13,370,000 Coloradans would become infected with Covid-19.

Which is weird, as Colorado only has 5,841,000 residents.

Read on.
1/10
1st the model. The COVID-19 Modeling Group (CMG) made an app of their model. @GovofCO Polis said it's the same data used in CMG reports to him. Here is a screenshot of the model with social distancing & mask wearing set to 0.

It results in 5,513,600 Symptomatic Infections
2/10
The model is available at cucovid19.shinyapps.io/colorado/

3/10
Read 10 tweets
23 Jul
It's now possible to determine the effect of the severe lockdowns in Colorado from March thru May:

Lockdown lowered CO’s peak covid hospitalizations from about 1,120 to the 888 CO saw on April 14.

It delayed about 40 deaths by 3 months.

That’s it. That's all.

Thread explains.
Covid is inevitable. We can’t stop it. We can only delay some effects if we react harshly and early. This was the whole premise of “Flatten the Curve”. FTC never implied infection/hospitalization/death avoidance, just delay.
Here’s how the effects of Colorado's lockdown can be determined.

This chart is the covid hospitalizations curve for Colorado from 3/22 to 6/11. It displays the classic Gompertz curve associated with a virus moving through a population.
Read 18 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!