Sweden — going for herd immunity and using the 1918 Flu plan

It’s a big natural experiment

Swedish people are still going to schools, restaurants and gyms. Even the cinemas are running. Apparently Sweden is taking the punt that there are many asymptomatic infections out there, despite having no data, and not doing any structured screening to get some either. They are also betting that immunity to this form of coronavirus will last a lot longer than the coronavirus colds where herd immunity is irrelevant one year later.

All recommendations are made by the Public Health Agency. Apparently they are learning from the 1918 influenza spread, and thus successfully “fighting the last war”. Swedish doctors are reportedly not happy about it.

Gatherings of 50+ people are banned, and the 70+ age group have been told to avoid social contact.

I predict that as the ICU units overflow, they will move to serious measures like the rest of the world. Perhaps dragged into tightening as curves flatten everywhere else, but theirs continues to rise. See Norway for example which appears to have peaked on March 27th. Currently Sweden has 4,700 cases and about 240 deaths. But Norway with the same number of cases has only 43 deaths, suggesting Norway is doing a lot more […]