These countries are reopening -- here's how they're doing it

[SheltieLover]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/11/health/european-countries-reopening-coronavirus-intl/index.html

Sweden challenges Trump -- and scientific mainstream -- by refusing to lock down
Dr. Peter Drobac, a global health expert at the Oxford Saïd Business School, told CNN that those countries now easing their restrictions were "important and hopeful examples" for the West.

"We still have a lot of learning to do about how we are going to come out of lockdowns safely and effectively," he said.
Any loosening of limits will carry risk. The World Health Organization's Regional Director for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, warned this week that the situation in Europe is still "very concerning" and insisted "now is not the time to relax measures."
Europe "remains very much at the center of the pandemic," he said Wednesday, with seven of the top 10 most affected countries globally located on the continent.

And a study based on China's outbreak, published in medical journal The Lancet, has suggested that coronavirus lockdowns across the globe should not be completely lifted until a vaccine for the disease is found.

More at link.

Hopeful? I think this is insane! 🤯

[DFW]

1. Sweden is paying a price for their liberalized policy

They have more recorded cases of infection than the rest of Scandinavia combined.

Here in Central Europe, the numbers aren't increasing at the rate they were, but that's just the rate of INCREASE that is slowing down. The statistics announced here are all bogus anyway. It's almost impossible to get tested, and deaths not specifically attributed to tested cases of COVID-19 aren't recorded as deaths caused by it. If someone who suddenly comes down with severe pneumonia can't get tested (and that's almost everybody), and dies from it, the death is not part of the reported statistics. I tried for a week to get tested, since I had just been in Spain for most of the week before returning to Germany. No way.

The announced cases of infection here in Germany are around 100,000. I doubt there have been 2 million people tested, and there are 80 million people in Germany. That doesn't mean there are 77,900,000 uninfected people here, it just means that we know about the status of 2.5% of the country, and not about the rest. That does NOT constitute "having things under control," it just means we don't know. A few countries have extended their lockdown period, and I fear that Germany will soon join them (the current lockdown period ends on April 19).

Like you said. Insane, not hopeful.

[SheltieLover]

2. WOW!

Is your government confisgating testing supplies & PPE for medical staff too?

Trump told states' governors to go find their own supplies and, when they do, the fed swoops in & takes the stuff! Nobody knows where its going. shit show beyond anyone's wildest nightmares!

This is really ugly intention, and from what you have shared, is apparently not only the States. 😳

Do your medical staff have masks, gloves, etc?

I guess putin has a plan for every country.

[DFW]

5. The German government did seize one shipment destined for the USA

It was already ready to be shipped when German customs caught it and stopped it.

Once medical supplies are allocated for somewhere, as far as I know, they get sent there. However, in the big city nearest us (we are a suburb of Düsseldorf), they have (announced yesterday) the physical capacity to test 800 people a day, or about 0.1% of the population. Great--in three years they'll have tested almost everyone!

Everything is in short supply, including masks. Gloves, I don't know.

Germans and immigrants are still irrationally buying up stocks of toilet paper. There is never any on store shelves. Our neighbor told us (no idea if this is really true) that the Germans have been irrationally stocking up on toilet paper and cheese crackers, where the French have been hoarding red wine and condoms. It sound very stereotypical, but no one ever claimed people were rational, so who knows?

[SheltieLover]

3. Germany's testing

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52234061

It's being portrayed as thorough & effective.

[DFW]

4. To the outside world, yes. It's a an iamge they like to project.

Here in Germany, we see another story altogether. In today's newspaper (Düsseldorf's Rheinische Post), it was announced that Düsseldorf could now test 800 people per day. With a population of around 650,000 just in the city and close to a million counting adjacent areas, that means that if we are lucky, we'll have tested everyone within three years. Maybe.

I don't know where that counts as "thorough and effective." Albania maybe? Mississippi? Here in Germany, it is considered scandalously inefficient.

When I got back from Spain four weeks ago, since Spain is considered one of Western Europe's most highly infected areas, I tried to get tested. I was shoved from one doctor to another to one government agency back to the doctor, and finally the health department said if you don't have sever symptoms, stay home and don't call again unless you are (practically) dead.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. Looks like Sweden may have to be forced into action - by deaths.

Sweden prepares for possible tighter coronavirus measures as deaths rise

Country, which has taken soft approach, has death rate higher than Nordic neighbours’
Jon Henley Europe correspondent @jonhenley
Sun 5 Apr 2020 13.50 BST

Read it here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/sweden-prepares-to-tighten-coronavirus-measures-as-death-toll-climbs

Excerpts:

Sweden’s government is drawing up new legislation to allow it to take “extraordinary steps” to combat Covid-19, local media have reported, amid concern that its relatively soft approach may be leading to a higher death rate than in other Nordic countries.
+++
The state broadcaster SVT said on Sunday that after an outcry by opposition parties, the Social Democrat-led government had abandoned plans reported earlier in the weekend to rule by decree, bypassing MPs. Under legislation to be tabled next week, the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament, will now be consulted before the government takes any new emergency steps such as shutting airportsor train and bus stations, closing shops and restaurants, further limiting public gatherings or requisitioning medical equipment, according to SVT.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, has described the country’s coronavirus strategy as an attempt to ensure “a slow spread of infection and that the health services are not overwhelmed”, arguing that it is important for a part of the population to acquire immunity. Tegnell has denied trying to build rapid “herd immunity” to the virus, a strategy originally adopted by the UK and the Netherlands before projected soaring death numbers prompted those countries to change course, but he has conceded that such a policy is “not contradictory” to Sweden’s objectives.

“But in Stockholm it is fast becoming critical,” Hanson said. “There is a real risk now that cases will rise so high that the hospitals cannot cope. Treatment choices are already having to be made by biological age.” Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, a professor of microbial pathogenesis and one of about 2,300 academics to sign an open letter to the government at the end of last month calling for tougher measures to protect the healthcare system, said the government had “no choice” and should now lock down Stockholm.

Let's hope their Parliament doesn't debate this into a total disaster......

[catbyte]

7. Norway is open for business. I follow a channel by a couple of guys from Norway

(they're a hoot) and they posted this yesterday:

&t=1s

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Here's the thing:

If even one country "opens" before we do, Trump's going to go into a frenzy with the theme "They're getting ahead of us (economically) and we have to catch up and beat them."

Between the business leaders pressuring him to prematurely open this country and Trump's pathological need to be Number One, he will be relentless in pressuring governors to play ball with him and not only lift quarantines, but to order people back to work.