International COVID-19 Megathread

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Went grocery shopping for the first time in a week and a half.

No panic buying, just that certain shelves in certain aisles were looking weirdly sparser than normal. I asked the cashier at my local grocery store if it was busy, she said yes, but just busier than normal. Apparently people aren't hoarding but just buying a little more than usual. Some reports of stores in the city center having some problems keeping shelves full, but that's probably more a result of them being in the city center and high-traffic than anything else.

Swedes are known for many things, but panicking is not one of them.

Most restaurants are open but are very empty, people are being seated one table apart from each other, seems like most people are just doing take-out. Overall not a sense of panic, but a sense of uncertainty, dread, annoyance, and sadness :/

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden's Prime Minster Stefan Löfven will address the country tonight live. Excepting the 2018 debates, where all party candidates addressed the nation live, this will be the first speech of this kind since the murder of Anna Lindh in 2003.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/corona-i-intensivvarden/

SVT has an interactive site with daily updated numbers about ICU admittance.

The site is in Swedish but Google Translate Chrome extension works just fine on it.

Basically the average time from infection to ICU admittance is roughly 9 days, which would put today's numbers as infected around March 16th, which is roughly when everything started shutting down en masse. It's not perfect, but we could potentially see the number of critical cases peaking and stabilizing within the next week.

So we'll see if this strategy is going to work or not.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Merkel's speech has been translated into English, side-by-side with the original German text for any others who are learning German: https://singdeutsch.com/angela-merkels-corona-speech-with-english-translation/

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Number of cases in Sweden continues to rise in a linear, not exponential way, but most importantly is that ICU admittance numbers remain very, very low, lending evidence that the social-distancing-but-no-lockdown is working (so far):

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden's death toll per capita surpassed Norway and Denmark's, the government has asked for legislation to grant them emergency powers to enforce stricter measures including potential lockdown 😕

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden's death toll per capita surpassed Norway and Denmark's, the government has asked for legislation to grant them emergency powers to enforce stricter measures including potential lockdown 😕

The "herd immunity" enthusiasts have been using Sweden as a poster boy, so this is "interesting if true".

Yeah, which is strange because herd immunity is not even the goal. Like other countries, it's flattening the curve, but trying to achieve it with less strict measures.

To be clear: Sweden's curve is still not as steep as other countries', ICUs are not overwhelmed, the death toll per capita remains well below most other countries (which is why we are comparing to similar countries like Norway and Denmark), and the government merely asking for powers does not actually mean they intend to implement it right away, but rather are keeping it in reserve.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden had their first death on 11 March. Now they have 1,033 deaths.

In Finland we had our first death on 20 March. Now there are 64 deaths.

What's the average age of infected people? Obviously this is a huge deal. Germany has a low death toll by comparisan because the median age of patients is about 48. It's much higher in Italy.

Finland does not release data on the patients' age. Not sure about Sweden.

In Sweden it skews very old, like 71 on average. A bunch of elderly homes were hit early on.

Anecdotally whenever I walk around or take the subway, elderly people really seem to be the ones who are not taking this seriously at all. Followed by teenagers. Everyone between 20 and 60 seems to be taking it seriously.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

this is different from worldometers data, today report 130 deaths this are not few for a 10 millions people country

You are probably referring to this graph, right?


The difference is that the above graph is deaths by reporting date, while the official Health Authority graph that I posted is based on the actual date of death

The numbers are adjusted as investigations are completed and reported.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Some more Sweden graphs:

Black = new ICU admittances per day
Dark Blue = total current ICU patients
Light Blue = cumulative ICU patients, including those deceased or released from ICU
Orange = ICU capacity


Again, all the SWEDEN WILL BE A DISASTER!!!! takes are pure hysteria

7 day rolling average of daily ICU admittances:

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

this are all ICU patients? including no Covid?

No, it's all COVID-related. "p.g.a. COVID-19" = "per grund av COVID-19" = "due to COVID-19"

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

this are all ICU patients? including no Covid?

No, it's all COVID-related. "p.g.a. COVID-19" = "per grund av COVID-19" = "due to COVID-19"

so the graph miss the non covid patients in ICU

Yes, but the number of non-COVID patients in the ICU in Sweden is likely pretty low. I can try to find that number as well. But as you can see, total ICU capacity is more than twice the number of COVID-19 related ICU cases, so we're still nowhere near being overwhelmed.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Bavariageddon: This year's Oktoberfest has been cancelled!

This was supposed to be my first year going, goddammit

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden death toll update:



Obviously the tail of the curve will slope downwards more slowly as more people die, but looks safe to say that the peak was reached about 2-2.5 weeks ago

Other updates:
- Q2 GDP contraction estimated at 13%
- 2020 GDP contraction estimated at 7%
- unemployment claims are coming in under projection
- the unions and employer associations have agreed to delay major negotiations until the fall, but in the meantime did agree to an across-the-board pension boost, with the biggest boost for younger LO union members
- and the central bank has urged parliament to accede to the European Banking Union

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Denmark is finally opening up its border to Sweden on Saturday, ridiculous that it was closed for as long as it was.

I read an interesting article in Swedish (that I have since lost) that pointed out that the southern region of Scania (home to Malmö) did just as well as neighboring Denmark despite following the same strategy as Stockholm, which got clobbered.

So out of curiosity, I did the math:

Stockholm County = 23% of Sweden's population, but 51,4% of deaths

Västra Götland County (home to second largest city Gothenburg) = 16% of population, 14% of deaths

Skåne (Scania) County, home to third largest city Malmö = 13% of population, 4,6% of deaths

So why the f- did Stockholm get nuked compared to everywhere else, despite the same nationwide strategy?

Maybe it's because I take it a lot, but does Stockholm having the only subway in Sweden play a role in this?

And if privatized elder care centers did worse in protecting their residents, how privatized is Stockholm County's senior care relative to the country as a whole? I cannot find statistics, but since Stockholm is a stronghold of the conservatives, i would suspect that it would be higher.

Is it because of all those rich Stockholmers going skiing in the Alps in February-March, as is tradition amongst rich Stockholmers, bring back all the COVID cases?

Scania did not lockdown, neighboring Denmark did, why did they perform the same?

Is it because Malmö is a more middle-income city with less of a tradition of rich suburbanites going skiing like in Stockholm and Gothenburg?

Behavior in both Sweden and Denmark were broadly comparable.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Population density plays a big role, I'd imagine.

Oh of course, but why was it so disproportionate?

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden also not looking good, daily cases are 3x what they were at the peak in the spring (caveat: testing is more widespread now than back then, but still), and deaths are also ticking up with a noticeable jump since October 20th.

Much harsher restrictions announced today compared to previous measures, but again, most of them are "binding recommendations" due to the whole legal structure thing. Universities, which are still doing a hybrid 50-50 online/in-person method of teaching, are reviewing whether to continue this.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Sweden at 70% of ICU capacity, new polls shows only 42% of Swedes have confidence in the authority's ability to fight the virus, 44% worry that they are not doing enough.

Currently averaging about 4800 cases per day, projected to go up to 8000 per day in December. And we're back to about 20-40 deaths per day.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

We are FINALLY getting a mask recommendation, but even then it's only for public transit at certain times. I doubt a majority will still do it

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

It's really strange that cases have ticked up from 4000/day one month ago to 6000/day currently, and SUDDENLY alarms are going off like crazy here and everyone is freaking out. Funny how we're doing this now and not like, 1 year ago or back in October/November. But okay.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

It's really strange that cases have ticked up from 4000/day one month ago to 6000/day currently, and SUDDENLY alarms are going off like crazy here and everyone is freaking out. Funny how we're doing this now and not like, 1 year ago or back in October/November. But okay.

Turns out that now it's Northern Sweden that's getting clobbered in addition to the main population centers: Norrbotten County reporting 747 cases per 100,000 residents, Västra Götaland County 647 (where Gothenburg is), Stockholm County 552, and Skåne County 440 for example.

While regional health authorities up north are still investigating, they theorize that a major outbreak at a local battery factory in Skellefteå run by Northvolt and quickly spread north to Luleå.

In Norrbotten, around 14 percent of positive cases are currently the variant first discovered in the UK, but in other regions the figure is much higher, for example 60 percent in Gävleborg.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

We were told at work that we would be vaccinated in June as a "critical infrastructure" company. Today we found out that because the vaccine deliveries have been so much lower than expected, vaccinations through the corporate doctors will be delayed into July.

Just total f*** up here in Germany. Complete incompetence at all levels. Should have flown back to the U.S. in April to get my shot since no one on this side of the Atlantic can do anything properly.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The President of the RKI will demand that Germany go back into lockdown today at an emergency meeting with Merkel and the Traffic Light coalition leaders.

Hoping they tell him to  off.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Some in Germany are now discussing a post-Christmas lockdown....despite the fact that cases are falling, hospitalization is low, vaccinations are up, and deaths are minimal...honestly what is the point? It's a lifestyle for these people.

Bafflingly, a report came out saying that the number of ICU beds....declined by 300 beds over the past year. Who tf is running this?