Deaths soar in country that didn’t lock down. Officials identify big reason why

Unlike its European neighbors, Swedish officials did not institute lock down measures to combat the Covid-19 epidemic. CNN's Phil Black takes a look at how that has affected the country's outbreak.

71 comments

    1. Michael in the time of deadly virus u are afraid of religious people. U should be ashamed of your racism and islamophobie

    2. Milad Barzani

      Nope. But I sure hope those who wear Hijabs and burqas are Muslim. Unless you’re claiming they’re faking to be Muslim ?

    1. @Caveman Origins 90% of my profit in markets come from short selling. I’m more than happy to talk about it.

    2. @Caveman Origins what’s so bad about selling things? I’m sure insider trading is rife but there’s no 20 trillion insider trade just gone down.

    3. @Caveman Origins I was already short the market before coronavirus, waiting for the straw on the donkey’s back

    4. @Caveman Origins anyone on Earth with a brain and balls could’ve profited from this. It’s just a case of adding 2+2. The US economy was already massively over-leveraged, it only needed a glancing blow to come crashing down anyway. I’m not sure the over leveraged big business will be too happy about it though. I don’t see how you think “the elite” are currently benefitting from world GDP being absolutely destroyed. “The elites” actually made the gold price drop a few weeks back they were selling it that fast, just so they could meet margin on equities. That’s a lot of panic when you consider the rest of the world was buying gold as a safety asset… and they still managed to make the price sink!

    1. @huang yachao Um. Europeans were able to populate North America because of their herd immunity against influenza. Native Americans social distanced for 1000’s of years. Not to good for the immune system.

    2. @Sparky McSpark I’m nominating you for a Darwin Award. Many deaths by car accident are preventable now because of seat belts. But seat belts are also uncomfortable and aren’t natural. Are you going to forgo them as well, “Twit”?

    1. @Len Ovo “to you I say no thank you for the one solid month of free Communism” – lol ahh, but it’s NOT free….’communism’ means the COMMUNITY is responsible for it.

    2. @Sparky McSpark “So the constitution doesn’t apply if people get sick?
      ” – lol in the face of such a dire enemy, YES. Emergency measures means citizens give up some freedoms….in WW2 they gave up sugar silk gas etc…freedoms get restricted in times of emergency, and for LOGICAL reason. Too bad for you you’ve a low concept of logic and reason.

    3. @Sparky McSpark
      Without a test we don’t know where we stand. Without testing we can’t stamp this out. People just need to hold on for testing and tracing to minimize loss. Not spread misinformation about how it’s no worse than the flu or whose lying about death tolls, doesn’t help. Only testing can help and South Korea is the evidence. Japan just opened and shut down a city of 5.3 million the following week and said it was a mistake. I crossed a line but it’s serious stuff here.

    4. @Evil Papa
      Yeah me neither and I’m broke. I don’t want to add a death count to my negligible financial statements. We need to wait for testing. I travel around the country to work, I can’t even get a test right now to find out if I’m asymptomatic.

  1. Swedish leadership says: human lives, especially those of the elderly, aren’t important. Good luck with that.

    1. Aside from all the other ignorant comments, did no one hear the part where the Swedes are relying on ‘personal responsibility’ to keep the virus in check? In a basically law abiding and ordered society like theirs, that probably worked to a small degree, for a while.
      But using that model as a template for the US would fail miserably. If it ever actually existed, personal responsibility went out the window in the first days in the US. As is evidenced by many comments, it is all about self-involvement here. Until the sh*t hits the fan.
      That is the real problem here: endless reaction as opposed to simple, responsible, diligent and religiously practiced forms of prevention. No matter how inconvenient they are.

    2. It seems as our country does not either. Take a look at the staggering number of deaths in our own long term care facilities.

  2. To me Swedes always appeared quite chilled and smart but this is starting to look like stupidity

    1. Average Joe spread is down in Stockholm, while it increases in other parts of the country. And do remember that there are countries with full lockdown that has a higher death rate. Belgium for instance. It has over 2x the rate.

    2. @deleder Sweden are playing around the 15-20% case fatality rate which means their real infection count is at least 15 times the confirmed number, judging from places like new Zealand and Australia who have tested far in excess of their outbreaks and have case fatality rates ~1-2% which is likely much more accurate. There is only one case fatality rate for covid-19, the only discrepancy is testing and identifying cases.

    3. @deleder Sweeden is far less densely populated and literally has nearly 50% of the population in single occupancy housing. Their rates are far higher than the other Nordic countries

    1. @Sparky McSpark I am not sure you understand percentages according to your figures it is over 500% higher. That is a massive rise

    2. @Sparky McSpark we do outlaw driving whilst drunk or without seat belts.
      Also driving is useful and has benefits for society.
      I am not sure covid 19 helps with the school run and I have never caught a contagious disease from a car.

    3. @Sparky McSpark it is a 600% increase not statistically insignificant at all quite the opposite

    1. yea he’s like, well i don’t care if they die or not. but we need to understand why.

      Ok then my question for him is: why on earth do we need to understand why, if we don’t care anyway.

    2. Juverne Divino he’s stupid. They are not dying from anything but Coronavirus. Very soon their health delivery system would be overwhelmed. It won’t be long. You can’t sit out this virus and just hope it would go away.

    3. @M.S. Actually our health care system while stressed at the moment is holding up quite well. After building up the capacity to handle the pandemic about 30% of ICU beds are unoccupied. A plateau seem to have been reached (might be temporary) and in the hardest hit region Stockholm patients in intensive care because of Covid-19 is going down.

    1. Key Ahh:: While Americans just want to kill anyone under 65 with a pre-existing condition…oh America is soo much better.

    2. You’re an idiot. They are just treating people like responsible adults and saying “Wash your hands, social distance, but lockdown is stupid”

    3. Existence of a Country means protect its citizen, no matter what.. at least try hard… Sweden looks to me , strong lives weak dies… what era do they live in? Elder people need care… this care differs us from animal.

    4. if you look at some of the comments on YouTube videos there’s people that think Sweden has the model the world should follow..absolutely nonsense.. Sweden however really is one of the most beautiful places to be normally outside of this virus

    5. @wyh del Its a tale of two cities. NYC achieved the same proportion of immunity WITH the lockdown. There is not s one size fits all here. I think Sweden may have made the right decision for Sweden. And SOME places may benefit from doing something similar.

  3. That chief virologist should face an enquiry after this. This is geronticide – killing off the elderly, let along all the other people who’ve died.
    Meanwhile, many other virologists and doctors in Sweden are begging the government to lock down. Guess the Swedish government cares more about money than people as well.

    1. DeathToTheDictators:: But here in the US we overprice drugs and then let people die when they can’t afford it be cause that is the moral way to kill people.

    2. @Mandy Last ” be cause that is the moral way to kill people” – lol yes…CLEARLY it is!…right? You’re preaching to the choir, i think.

  4. “we need to investigate and try to understand why” uhh really?! this guy is supposed to be the chief epidemiologist? let me save him the time by telling him it’s probably because most of the people in Sweden are out and about acting like it’s not even happening.

    1. he won’t care anyway… maybe his agenda is to let Covid sweep away the elderly in order to save lots of money ❔

    2. I think 50% of sweedes are currently working from home. Also a very low population density and a very large population living in single occupancy housing.

  5. This is what inhumanity looks like. Human life is worth preserving even if the economy suffers for awhile.

    1. Maurice Lucious::: I think it is hilarious that Americans will come on here and talk about the value of human life while people die in the US every day because they have to decide between food or chemo; between food or overpriced insulin…

    1. More people would have died in the cold from unemployment and homelessness if they shut down their economy.

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