Quote Originally Posted by Returnofrros View Post
Had went the Swedish way.

Pity.
Quote Originally Posted by dayster View Post
Not really the answer tho

Sweden 10x death rate of Norway & Finland and marginally worse impact on economy (8.3%)

Expectation of herd immunity not working out prediction of 40% of adults have anti bodies is actually only 6%

40% of deaths have been in care homes so plan to protect vulnerable not been effective
I agree with some of the comments about us overreacting and I strongly think a UK wide approach would have been better that the fragmented mess to date. I also think we could have done a lot of things better. What I don't see is the idea that Sweden is somehow a shining light in the way to deal with Covid. As Dayster points out Sweden's comparison all along should be with it's neighbouring sparsely
populated countries. A much better comparison in the case of the UK would be to compare Sweden with the North of Scotland or Devon & Cornwall. Sweden has a population of only a seventh of the UK therefore their 6 thousand deaths and on a straight population comparison basis would equate to 42 thousand, almost as high as the UK total. The UK has many very large cities in comparison with Sweden which has only a few. The further comparison is that Sweden's land area is almost twice that of the UK meaning that the already smaller population is spread out even further. One thing that the scientists actually DO know is that the density of the populace has an inordinate effect on the transmission rate meaning that the doubling of the land area has a much higher than doubling effect on the Covid numbers. This 'could' mean that the incidence in Sweden would equate to 2 or 3 times the 42 thousand figure that comes from a straight population to population comparison. There is therefore, at least, a credible argument that Sweden has fared worse than the UK from the numbers of deaths point of view.

I wholly accept the argument that Sweden are where they are without having to 'shackle' their citizens and leaving their economy in ruins but in recent days their own government has started to ramp up restrictions and describe the outlook for Sweden as dire and dangerous. Furthermore a lot of the restrictions forced upon us have been voluntarily taken up by the Swedes so it is not altogether a case of them having a completely restriction free life.

Once again I have many disagreements with the way the UK and Scottish governments have dealt with Covid. At times I even have an element of sympathy with them because much of the time criticism of them comes from both sides of arguments, some thinking they are not doing enough or are too lenient others thinking that they are too strict and over the top.

When making comparisons we should be judged against France and Spain where we are broadly similar in our shortcomings, Germany who have dealt with Covid much better than us and perhaps even S. Korea from whom I think lessons could have been learned to an enormous extent. But Sweden no, I am not saying they have got it wrong, just not right to the extent that they are held up as an example of all that is good in dealing with Covid.