Sweden's Controversial COVID-19 Plan Begin To Show Result

[Bt1 5,213]

1 hour ago, BenG said:

There is currently no evidence of long term antibodies being developed after an infection. There are also multiple strains of SARS-CoV-2.

There is currently also no evidence that antibodies dont work as usual. 

[Supersonic 49,376]

Just yesterday I heard on the news that top epidmiologists of Sweden actually collectively called for a lockdown because the death numbers are skyrocketing. Which would make sense because Sweden actually has a bigger relative mortality case than Italy and Spain.

[hijadeputa 4,050]

Idk what too say tbh. It has it’s pros and cons 

[BenG 19,908]

13 minutes ago, Florin said:

There is currently also no evidence that antibodies dont work as usual. 

You have to assume the worst case scenario.

[BenG 19,908]

For most countries, it should have been early lockdown to contain community transmission and mandatory 14-day quarantine for incoming visitors to curb imported cases. Once the number of new cases is low enough, open the economy in stages according to the number of new cases. Central bank slashes interest rates and government massively increases spending.

[Bt1 5,213]

1 hour ago, BenG said:

Population density, air pollution, age distribution etc are important factors. Even with the same way of counting deaths, comparing per capita across the board is less meaningful than just against its neighbours, which presumably will have much smaller differences in those factors.

Those are important factors also, but it's not meaningful to compare Sweden to other countries than its direct neighbours, considering that most cases are in stockholm and the way that the virus arrived there was by international air travel. 

And again, there are other factors also. I dont know why people want to act like Sweden had the best starting point. 

Sweden counts deaths in nursing homes. One of its neighbours doesnt even count all people with covid as covid deaths, which probably is correct.

Sweden has bigger nursing homes. A big proportion of deaths happened there. This simple difference make the difference between having 4 deaths versus 20 deaths in one nursing home. Sweden had restrictions for nursing homes.

While the healthcare system is very good in Sweden, one of its neighbours used war supplies to fight the virus. Not many countries have that. 

World Health Organization didnt recommend lockdowns in 2019 in case of pandemics. 

[Bt1 5,213]

4 minutes ago, BenG said:

You have to assume the worst case scenario.

You have to assume first that a virus works the same way as the other viruses. 

Until you dont have evidence that this isnt the case, you shouldn't take measures based on the worst case scenario. 

 

[BenG 19,908]

Even if herd immunity can be achieved, lockdowns may be necessary to not overwhelm the health system given how transmissible this virus is. If the number of cases increase beyond the capacity of the health system, unnecessary deaths will occur.

[Guest]

It‘ll be interesting to see how the situation will evolve bc experts say Sweden will face a lockdown within a few weeks. The numbers are still increasing and if they are really shutting down there isn‘t much of a difference compared to results of strategies other countries have. 

[Bt1 5,213]

2 hours ago, venusinmyhead said:

It‘ll be interesting to see how the situation will evolve bc experts say Sweden will face a lockdown within a few weeks. The numbers are still increasing and if they are really shutting down there isn‘t much of a difference compared to results of strategies other countries have. 

They arent shutting down. They say they are past their peak and that they will have "herd immunity" next month. 

[Franz Ferdinand 2,359]

2 hours ago, Florin said:

There is currently also no evidence that antibodies dont work as usual. 

What's the usual?

Immune responses vary wildly across the board.

[Bt1 5,213]

6 minutes ago, Franz Ferdinand said:

What's the usual?

Immune responses vary wildly across the board.

I dont know the specifics.

All I know is that antibodies help the immune system fight future infections in a way or another. 

[Franz Ferdinand 2,359]

4 minutes ago, Florin said:

I dont know the specifics.

All I know is that antibodies help the immune system fight future infections in a way or another. 

Then let me clear this up. Now, disclaimer, I'm not an immunologist, but I am a biomedical researcher and I work very closely with immunologists in my research (not to mention I've had to take immunology courses in my studies).

Immunity is NOT an on-off switch. Our immune systems, upon contact with a pathogen, develop a complex immune response that can be divided into three phases. There is a primary immune response, in which the immune cells bind to the pathogen and develop a series of markers so that "attacker" cells can recognize it. This is what's generally called fighting the infection. It generally takes a few days to a week for the immune system to start developing specific cells and antibodies to fight off a pathogen effectively. This leads to the next stage, in which memory cell and antibody production are very high, which is why re-infection is almost impossible in the few weeks that follow primary infection. This is the start of immunological memory, but note that this stage only lasts a couple of weeks (the exact time depends on the size of the primary response). The number of memory cells and antibodies drops drastically after a couple of weeks (because your body doesn't really need a high number of them anymore). If some remain, when re-infection happens, they quickly produce more of themselves and fight off the re-infection very quickly (and usually we don't even know it because we show no symptoms). Long-term immunological memory depends on how many memory cells and specific antibodies keep being produced over time. Sometimes (think smallpox, for instance), it lasts throughout a lifetime. Most of the time, however, the number drops to negligible amounts in a matter of months (looking at you, common cold) or years (hence why so many vaccines require booster shots every number of years). 

Now, here's what we know about the immune response to covid-19: close to nothing. This is a new virus, we have no clue how long-term immunity to it will work. What we do know is that for most other coronaviruses, immunological memory is short. It wears off quickly. A big exception to this is for the coronavirus that causes SARS, to which the immunological memory seems to be long-lasting. The other thing we know; however, is that immunological memory depends heavily on the size of the primary immune response. Preliminary studies (and I want to stress, it is TOO EARLY to say anything definitive) are hinting that asymptomatic and mildly-symptomatic cases generate a much lower antibody count that moderate and severe cases of Covid-19. At this point it seems very likely that people with moderate and severe cases (who survive) will develop long-lasting defences; however, we don't know if this will be true for other cases (and there is no reason to assume they will, in fact, if I had to bet on it, I would say no).

[andreas85 400]

6 hours ago, Not The Real Gaga said:

I think Sweden's approach might be the best one. Lockdowns will badly damage our economies, which means for the long term: less welfare, more cuts on health care budgets and thus - probably - more deaths.

The truth is that Sweden screwed up badly. Lockdown prevents thousands of people from dying so why would any sane person be against it? If you think economy is more important than the people then there's something seriously wrong with your morals. Letting thousands of people to die has much more disastrous consequences than any lockdown. Lockdowns aren't even going to be that long really.

[Bt1 5,213]

2 hours ago, Franz Ferdinand said:

Then let me clear this up. Now, disclaimer, I'm not an immunologist, but I am a biomedical researcher and I work very closely with immunologists in my research (not to mention I've had to take immunology courses in my studies).

Immunity is NOT an on-off switch. Our immune systems, upon contact with a pathogen, develop a complex immune response that can be divided into three phases. There is a primary immune response, in which the immune cells bind to the pathogen and develop a series of markers so that "attacker" cells can recognize it. This is what's generally called fighting the infection. It generally takes a few days to a week for the immune system to start developing specific cells and antibodies to fight off a pathogen effectively. This leads to the next stage, in which memory cell and antibody production are very high, which is why re-infection is almost impossible in the few weeks that follow primary infection. This is the start of immunological memory, but note that this stage only lasts a couple of weeks (the exact time depends on the size of the primary response). The number of memory cells and antibodies drops drastically after a couple of weeks (because your body doesn't really need a high number of them anymore). If some remain, when re-infection happens, they quickly produce more of themselves and fight off the re-infection very quickly (and usually we don't even know it because we show no symptoms). Long-term immunological memory depends on how many memory cells and specific antibodies keep being produced over time. Sometimes (think smallpox, for instance), it lasts throughout a lifetime. Most of the time, however, the number drops to negligible amounts in a matter of months (looking at you, common cold) or years (hence why so many vaccines require booster shots every number of years). 

Now, here's what we know about the immune response to covid-19: close to nothing. This is a new virus, we have no clue how long-term immunity to it will work. What we do know is that for most other coronaviruses, immunological memory is short. It wears off quickly. A big exception to this is for the coronavirus that causes SARS, to which the immunological memory seems to be long-lasting. The other thing we know; however, is that immunological memory depends heavily on the size of the primary immune response. Preliminary studies (and I want to stress, it is TOO EARLY to say anything definitive) are hinting that asymptomatic and mildly-symptomatic cases generate a much lower antibody count that moderate and severe cases of Covid-19. At this point it seems very likely that people with moderate and severe cases (who survive) will develop long-lasting defences; however, we don't know if this will be true for other cases (and there is no reason to assume they will, in fact, if I had to bet on it, I would say no).

Thank you for the information. 

I assumed it is something closer to seasonal flu, but those informations about sars are interesting and new. 

I understand that we should take into consideration all the possibilities, but I dont get why we have to turn every development into something negative.

Yes, tomorrow this can get a mutation and be something else, but that can happen with everything. 

Some antibodies can be short lived, but that also happens with the flu. 

We should of course continue to learn about this, try to create vaccines and treatments, but I dont see the use of promoting worst case scenarios without scientific evidence and I can only see bad intentions when the same worst case scenarios are used as a reason for strict measures.