As you know, I'm kind of fascinated as to how other countries are dealing with COVID and am fortunate to know a few folks in Sweden, one a Board Chair of a European med device company who is a really bright woman. We were comparing notes yesterday and she said vaccine deployment was abysmal in Sweden....only 9% of the population has been vaccinated and there was still a good chunk of elderly (over 80) that had not been vaccinated. She explained the government bureaucracy and how they had done a poor job of getting allocations from the pharmaceutical companies (one advantage of having U.S. based pharma - so think of that next time you want to bash the industry). The supply chain, distribution system and administration is also a problem there. She pointed to the U.S. private/public coordination (OWS) as a much more successful model that they were lacking.
With regards to spread and fatalities, Sweden's numbers fair very well in comparison to the U.S., U.K. and others but are much higher than the other Scandinavian countries. She was somewhat critical of their Health Ministry in that they dug in their heels telling the public that you could not spread the virus if you were asymptomatic (which we know now is false). She mentioned that Denmark (or Norway) had only about 600 deaths while Sweden was about 14,000 (similar sized countries). Both were more prescriptive in closing things down and wearing masks. The vast majority of deaths in Sweden were at nursing homes and they believe the major culprit was letting asymptomatic people come and go into the long term care facilities (even thought they had instituted testing and PPE in those locations). As you know Sweden never implemented any mask requirements and in her estimation only about 10% of the population have worn them (she wears them in public places as she believes it's good common sense). They also never shut their economy down.
Finally, Sweden's population is very healthy which has contributed to the few fatalities and hospitalizations of the general population. She indicated that the people she knows who have had it, have generally had minor flu symptoms and no one required hospitalization. So you may want to think about pushing that Big Mac away to give you a much better survival rate.
With regards to spread and fatalities, Sweden's numbers fair very well in comparison to the U.S., U.K. and others but are much higher than the other Scandinavian countries. She was somewhat critical of their Health Ministry in that they dug in their heels telling the public that you could not spread the virus if you were asymptomatic (which we know now is false). She mentioned that Denmark (or Norway) had only about 600 deaths while Sweden was about 14,000 (similar sized countries). Both were more prescriptive in closing things down and wearing masks. The vast majority of deaths in Sweden were at nursing homes and they believe the major culprit was letting asymptomatic people come and go into the long term care facilities (even thought they had instituted testing and PPE in those locations). As you know Sweden never implemented any mask requirements and in her estimation only about 10% of the population have worn them (she wears them in public places as she believes it's good common sense). They also never shut their economy down.
Finally, Sweden's population is very healthy which has contributed to the few fatalities and hospitalizations of the general population. She indicated that the people she knows who have had it, have generally had minor flu symptoms and no one required hospitalization. So you may want to think about pushing that Big Mac away to give you a much better survival rate.
