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Originally posted by chellim1:

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Originally posted by PowerSurge:

Just people know what it's about:
Wolf Administration is Caught Adding Up to 269 Fake Coronavirus Deaths to State Totals the Day After Anti-Lockdown Protests in Pennsylvania

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Originally posted by konata88:
Thanks Kevbo. I need to reread it a few more times. But the gist is that this is really complicated with a multitude of real and false factors.

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
This is complete bullshit. No one was drinking bleach over Trump's comments. If anything, douchebags were just calling the poison control center to say that they did. The NY Daily shitrag News.

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Originally posted by sdy:
State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver claimed the first phase could span two years.

“I, personally, think Phase One will be a two year affair,” Oliver said. “There are a lot of people working on this, and I hope they prove me wrong, but I don’t see it happening in less than two years.”

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Originally posted by WaterburyBob:

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Originally posted by kimber1911:

A spike in New Yorkers ingesting household cleaners following Trump’s controversial coronavirus comments

If you're that fucking stupid to ingest bleach, society will be better off without you.

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21 April 2020

‘Closing borders is ridiculous’: the epidemiologist behind Sweden’s controversial coronavirus strategy

Anders Tegnell talks to Nature about the nation’s ‘trust-based’ approach to tackling the pandemic.

Marta Paterlini

As much of Europe imposed severe restrictions on public life last month to stem the spread of the coronavirus, one country stood out.

Sweden didn’t go into lockdown or impose strict social-distancing policies. Instead, it rolled out voluntary, ‘trust-based’ measures: it advised older people to avoid social contact and recommended that people work from home, wash their hands regularly and avoid non-essential travel. But borders and schools for under-16s remain open — as do many businesses, including restaurants and bars.

The approach has sharp critics. Among them are 22 high-profile scientists who last week wrote in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that the public-health authorities had failed, and urged politicians to step in with stricter measures. They point to the high number of coronavirus deaths in elder-care homes and Sweden’s overall fatality rate, which is higher than that of its Nordic neighbours — 131 per million people, compared with 55 per million in Denmark and 14 per million in Finland, which have adopted lockdowns.

The strategy’s architect is Anders Tegnell, an epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, an independent body whose expert recommendations the government follows. Tegnell spoke to Nature about the approach.

Can you explain Sweden’s approach to controlling the coronavirus?

I think it has been overstated how unique the approach is. As in many other countries, we aim to flatten the curve, slowing down the spread as much as possible — otherwise the health-care system and society are at risk of collapse.

This is not a disease that can be stopped or eradicated, at least until a working vaccine is produced. We have to find long-term solutions that keeps the distribution of infections at a decent level. What every country is trying to do is to keep people apart, using the measures we have and the traditions we have to implement those measures. And that’s why we ended up doing slightly different things.

The Swedish laws on communicable diseases are mostly based on voluntary measures — on individual responsibility. It clearly states that the citizen has the responsibility not to spread a disease. This is the core we started from, because there is not much legal possibility to close down cities in Sweden using the present laws. Quarantine can be contemplated for people or small areas, such as a school or a hotel. But [legally] we cannot lock down a geographical area.

What evidence was this approach based on?

It is difficult to talk about the scientific basis of a strategy with these types of disease, because we do not know much about it and we are learning as we are doing, day by day. Closedown, lockdown, closing borders — nothing has a historical scientific basis, in my view. We have looked at a number of European Union countries to see whether they have published any analysis of the effects of these measures before they were started and we saw almost none.

Closing borders, in my opinion, is ridiculous, because COVID-19 is in every European country now. We have more concerns about movements inside Sweden.

As a society, we are more into nudging: continuously reminding people to use measures, improving measures where we see day by day the that they need to be adjusted. We do not need to close down everything completely because it would be counterproductive.

[...]

Do you think the approach has been successful?

It is very difficult to know; it is too early, really. Each country has to reach ‘herd immunity’ [when a high proportion of the population is immune to an infection, largely limiting spread people who are not immune] in one way or another, and we are going to reach it in a different way.

There are enough signals to show that we can think about herd immunity, about recurrence. Very few cases of re-infection have been reported globally so far. How long the herd immunity will last, we do not know, but there is definitely an immune response.

What would you have done differently?

We underestimated the issues at care homes, and how the measures would be applied. We should have controlled this more thoroughly. By contrast, the health system, which is under unusual pressure, has nevertheless always been ahead of the curve.

Are you satisfied with the strategy?

Yes! We know that COVID-19 is extremely dangerous for very old people, which is of course bad. But looking at pandemics, there are much worse scenarios than this one. Most problems that we have right now are not because of the disease, but because of the measures that in some environments have not been applied properly: the deaths among older people is a huge problem and we are fighting hard.

Moreover, we have data showing that the flu epidemic and the winter norovirus dropped consistently this year, meaning that our social distancing and hand washing is working. And with the help of Google, we have seen that the movements of Swedes have fallen dramatically. Our voluntary strategy has had a real effect.

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EuroMOMO is a European mortality monitoring activity, aiming to detect and measure excess deaths related to seasonal influenza, pandemics and other public health threats.

Official national mortality statistics are provided weekly from the 24 European countries in the EuroMOMO collaborative network, supported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

EuroMOMO Bulletin, Week 16, 2020

Pooled mortality estimates from the EuroMOMO network continue to show a marked increase in excess all-cause mortality overall for the participating European countries, coinciding with the current COVID-19 pandemic. This overall excess mortality is, however, driven by a very substantial excess mortality in some countries, primarily seen in the age group of 65 years and above, but also in the age group of 15-64 years.



Note on interpretation of data: The number of deaths shown for the three most recent weeks should be interpreted with caution, as adjustments for delayed registrations may be imprecise. Furthermore, results of pooled analyses may vary depending on countries included in the weekly analyses. Pooled analyses are adjusted for variation between the included countries and for differences in the local delay in reporting.

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Originally posted by Excam_Man:
On a positive note, Lowe's was busier than I've saw in years!

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Originally posted by Excam_Man:
Try this on for stupid.
Say a couple weeks ago, stopped at Dog-n-Suds. Ordered food and ate in the vehicle like normal.

Now, IN is set to re-open May 1st. Just around the corner right?
Stopped at the same Dog-n-Suds yesterday and now you are required to leave as soon as you get your food.
The health department will no longer allow people to eat there, in their vehicles!


On a positive note, Lowe's was busier than I've saw in years!
I think Menards 'no one under 16 is allowed' policy is having an impact.

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Originally posted by sdy:
I watched both videos. Definitely worthwhile. thanks BigSwede

I didn't realize that while anyone stays in isolation, their immune system gradually deteriorates. Did I miss something ?

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I believe what he is saying is, if you aren't exposed to these viruses and germs by isolation, your body is not building an immunity to them. Therefore, you are weakening your immune system

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Originally posted by BigSwede:

Link to original video: https://youtu.be/xfLVxx_lBLU

Link to original video: https://youtu.be/zb6j7o1pLBw