Oh, well, sure.
Doing a quick google it looks like Sweden is a bit more urbanized, 87.7% of the population lives in urban areas vs 82.5% for the USA. Canada trails just behind the US at 81.5%.
Yes, yes… he’s the bad guy in this scenario. /s
What a strange gradient. It’s linear for the first 7 ticks, then switches to some sort of… arbitrary scale?! Definitely speaks to intentional manipulation to call out specific countries. Which is unfortunate, as they could have probably stuck with a linear or a log scale. (and I did pixel-count the color bins, each 140px wide). At least they included the values themselves.
Why do you think I think he’s the bad guy?
I just found it curious–noteworthy, anyway–that a western Constitutional Monarch is opining on something when the highest profile Constitutional Monarch, QE2, never says a thing other than in line with her government.
I don’t… it just seems strange to point out he might be violating the constitution when it’s pretty clear the elected government fucked up royally (pun intended maybe, IDK) on this issue. Which do you think is actually worse here? Him maybe violating the constitution by speaking the truth or the government fucking this up? It also assumes that covid is a political issue, I’d argue. It’s really not.
I worked at a Swedish company for a while, and one thing I learned is that it’s a place of intense extremes in certain ways. I’m sure we have actual Swede happy mutants here who can correct me, but this was my takeaway from working with them. As an example, we think of it as the bastion of modern social democracy (which it is) but it’s also the birthplace and safe haven of the modern neo-Nazi movement. There are conservatives there that would make Americans blush. They don’t dominate the public discourse and politics the way they do in the US, but Sweden has more than its share of Nazis.
FWIW, the Swedish management I worked with were also deeply sexist, but I don’t want to paint the whole country with my one 8-year experience with the culture.
I guess my interpretation of this is different…
My guess is that until now he has not opined on this because he was not supposed to; and he trusted his “advisors” to do the right thing. And they tried something, and it failed.
And as in other countries, the right thing to do now is politically hard and requires the trust of the people, which has probably been dealt a rather nasty blow by the current situation.
My guess is that this is a calculated move to try to get people to follow the new regulations and restrictions that will probably be announced as Sweden tries to get this under control over the next several days and weeks. And to be honest, I appreciate that he is doing this.
I really wish that Trump would address the nation, acknowledge that he has lead us down the wrong path, accept responsibility for our failure in this matter, and urge Americans to stay home, stay safe, wear masks, and follow the guidance of local and state health officials.
And yeah… I know that isn’t going to happen.
(Edited to add: By “Advisors”, I, of course, mean the elected government who actually has all of the real power within the system, who are the actual rulers of the country. He is, after all, the PR face of the nation, not the actual ruler. Which is a very useful and fine thing to have.)
I worked with an expat Swede here in Australia for a few years, and when she returned she was struck by how widespread casual racism was. Given that she’d been living in Australia for several years, that’s quite a striking result.
It was interesting to see the shock the other way too. The Swedish team that came here to the US had never seen economic disparity this extreme. A homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk next to a Bentley was the sort of thing they always commented on.
Yeah… Don’t pooh pooh that “dewormer”, Vitamin D, and Zinc so quickly:
specifically on that “dewormer”:
Now, this appears to be good information, not that talked up (and heavily invested in) hydroxychloroquine BS… but it pays to look at all the info.
Laughs in New Zealand.
I think the only thing that “Saved” them this long was the lower population density.
Well, that^ plus vastly higher social cohesion, trust in government, and an effective social safety net.
All of which is why clowns in other countries, the US in particular, were being especially disingenuous when they were saying things like “Look! See?! If they can safely ignore the virus there we must be able to ignore it here!”
^ And that is arguable, given the point raised by others re: relative urbanisation of Sweden.
lol
ISWYDT
Seconded.
I read that same FLCCC protocol a few days ago. Thanks for posting.
Disclaimer: I have no skin in the game here. IANAD. IANAL. Etc.
A friend got back from Mexico (she’s from Mexico but lives in the U.S.). Ivermectin is being used there to treat COVID-19. She has had extended family members there who tested positive for the coronavirus, some of them with symptoms at the time of testing, and they all were prescibed ivermectin. By their reports to my friend, it made them feel better in about a day and they all recovered, included some elderly family members. No one died.
India’s doing the same:
(scroll down for their language on usage)
There’s at least one MD in Austin (TX) [that I know of] likewise prescribing ivermectin for patients who either have tested positive for the coronavirus or who are awaiting test results but come to the clinic displaying many of the now-familiar symptoms. These patients (who are tracked and called by nurses at least once a day) report feeling better within 24 hours and AFAIK recover from COVID rapidly.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-020-0336-z#Sec23
Crikey, Onebox isn’t doing its job.
Heidary, F., Gharebaghi, R. Ivermectin: a systematic review from antiviral effects to COVID-19 complementary regimen. J Antibiot 73, 593–602 (2020). Ivermectin: a systematic review from antiviral effects to COVID-19 complementary regimen | The Journal of Antibiotics
Ivermectin, owing to its antiviral activity, may play a pivotal role in several essential biological processes, therefore it could serve as a potential candidate in the treatment of different types of viruses including COVID-19. Clinical trials are necessary to appraise the effects of ivermectin on COVID-19 in clinical setting and this warrants additional investigation for probable benefits in humans in the current and future pandemics. On April 10, 2020, FDA issued a statement concerning self-administration of ivermectin against COVID-19 [43] referring to recently published in vitro study on this subject [15]. FDA highlighted that this type of in vitro study is usually used in the early stages of drug development. Moreover, further trials are needed to confirm the safety and efficacy of ivermectin for human use against COVID-19 to discover preventive or therapeutic window [43].
As noted, the activity of ivermectin in cell culture has not reproduced in mouse infection models against many of the viruses and has not been clinically proven either, in spite of ivermectin being available globally. This is likely related to the pharmacokinetics and therapeutic safety window for ivermectin. The blood levels of ivermectin at safe therapeutic doses are in the 20–80 ng/ml range [44], while the activity against SARS-CoV2 in cell culture is in the microgram range. Ivermectin is administered orally or topically. If safe formulations or analogs can be derived that can be administered to achieve therapeutic concentrations, ivermectin could be useful as a broad-spectrum antiviral agent.
Before people here jump on my case about quack nostrums, let me repeat:
I have no special interest in promoting a cheap drug that came into medical use in 1981 that is commonly used to treat humans and (other) animals. Sometimes, drugs have circuitous case histories and secondary and tertiary uses that seemed initially off-label. Sildenafil (aka Viagra) was originally developed to address high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. (… see also:)
Also, as long as I am already sticking my head above the digital parapet, Vitamin D is a good thing and has been acknowledged as an important factor in immune response to COVID:
A Dec 11 article in Internal Medicine News is titled: “Vitamin D deficiency in COVID-19 quadrupled death rate.” A study by Dr. Dieter De Smet and colleagues from AZ Delta General Hospital, Roeselare, Belgium, looked at 186 patients hospitalized early in the pandemic, in March 2020, with severe acute respiratory syndrome and confirmed COVID-19.
Almost 60 percent of patients, 47 percent of women and 67 percent of men, were vitamin D deficient on admission (a level of 25(OH)D <20 ng/mL). The deficiency was worst in men with the most severe pneumonia. The correlation of vitamin D deficiency with death, with an odds ratio of 3.87, was independent of age or comorbidities.
The report, published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology , notes that studies involving hundreds to thousands of individuals in the U.S. and Israel showed an association between prior vitamin D deficiency and the possibility of a positive PCR test. Studies involving tens to hundreds of patients in Iran, Germany, Israel, Spain, China, and the UK reported correlations between low vitamin D levels and intensive care unit (ICU) admission, ventilator dependency, and death.
Back on topic, I hope that Swedes are able to turn the tide on their rising case numbers and deaths. I really do. I am in the middle of Texas and I am surround by both facemask-wearers and anti-maskers and as of today we’ve racked up almost 17,000 confirmed cases. My guess is that Sweden is smarter than Texas. Or my hope is that Swedes are smarter. It’s just a question now whether its society and its government will agree that what New Zealand did to regain the health of its public is worth pursuing.
The math may no longer be on Sweden’s side. It’s going to be seriously hard work now.
God Jul, Sverige and may the inspiration to do good for the public good come to us all.
Like most constitutional monarchs, he gets to have an own opinion but only as long as long as he doesn’t let us know what it is too often.
Fear not, Toby Young, Julia Hartley Brewer and the assorted fascist-adjacent market-frotting weirdos at The Daily Telegraph will be along to correct the king shortly.
Oh good. I hadn’t heard from Terfina Ghastly-Warcrimes in the last 24 hours, I was worried that she had been properly cancelled this time.
/s
Probably has make way for handing a special edition of the Torygraph over to Julie Burchill.
On topic for me Sweden shows how even if you have a well funded social democratic health system when ideological purity insists on “personal responsibility” to deal with a public problem you’re fucked.
And Sweden’s social democratic consensus was stable I think because it was white. The fash weren’t willing to publicly rail against it until Sweden became more multicultural.
