Sweden Is Victorious

[skepticalmike]

Sweden has a population of 10.1 million with 111,000 known positive cases- 1.1% of the population. Sweden has been doing more testing per capita than most of its neighbors, suggesting that

the true number of positive cases should be less than 1 million or less than 9 times the total number of known positive cases. That would be a maximum of 10% of the population, and probably

much less l than that, currently having immunity. Remember, many of those with mild or asymptomatic cases don't develop a strong enough immune response to be immune.

There is another reason why any conclusion based on a single country to determine the efficacy of "lockdowns" should not be considered good science. It might be that

a particular population could have a greater percentage of citizens with a natural immunity to covid-19 compared to to other populations. In an article presented in Adelaide's

response, page1, it mentions that there could be cross-reactivity occurring from exposure of some portion of the population to other coronavirsuses which might provide some

degree of immunity. That is speculative.


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...ierce-backlash

Giesecke and Tegnell believed herd immunity would arrive quickly. In the Lancet article, Giesecke claimed about 21% of residents of Stockholm county had already been infected by the end of April; Tegnell predicted 40% of them would have antibodies by the end of May. When initial studies showed the number was actually about 6% in late May, Tegnell said immunity was hard to measure. FoHM continued to say Swedes had built up immunity, but in September it backtracked, estimating that “just under 12%” of Stockholm residents, and 6% to 8% of the Swedish population as a whole, had antibodies to the virus by mid-June.
If herd immunity is beginning to kick in, it should become visible in Sweden’s case numbers. Cases fell from a record 1698 on 24 June to about 200 per day in early September, and the percentage of positive tests reached a record low of 1.2%. Some speculate that Sweden’s summer traditions may have helped: Hundreds of thousands leave cities and towns for remote cabins in what amounts to 3 months of national social distancing.
At the time, numbers elsewhere in Europe were beginning to soar again, especially among young adults, whereas those in Sweden remained stable. But over the past few weeks, infections in Sweden have started to rise as well. On 25 September, FoHM reported 633 new cases nationwide in 1 day. Stockholm’s rates have nearly tripled in 2 weeks, from 334 in the second week of September to 967 last week. Whether immunity is making a big difference remains to be seen.

[Ethereal]

The total number of cases cannot be known if they aren't recorded.

Yeah, that's why they're called estimates.

Or if they can, what is the frequency, Kenneth?

From a meta-analysis by the WHO: The median infection fatality rate across all 51 locations was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%).

1.15 million COVID deaths globally implies 425 million cases globally: (1.15/425)*100 = 0.27%

425 million cases out of a global population of 7.8 billion is about 5.4% infection rate: (0.425/7.8)*100 = 5.4%

[Ethereal]

Sweden has not come close to reaching herd immunity. The graph you present appears to show evidence of herd immunity but that is insufficient information. It only provides information on

daily deaths versus time. An August study published around August 12, 2020 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found that 15% of the Stockholm population had antibodies to

covid-19 and I assume that the percentage of people in the rural areas and smaller cities would have lower rates of antibody protection. Not everyone with antibodies is immune to covid-19,

since those that developed mild or asymptomatic cases often don't develop a sufficient antibody response to be immune. There is no reason why the number of daily deaths could not turn

upwards again in a second wave since herd immunity has not been achieved.

I have a problem with the use of the word "lockdown". What does it mean? The U.S. did not have a lockdown on the scale that occurred in Italy or China. People in the U.S. could leave their

homes during the late March to early May time frame and many did not wear masks or practice social distancing. Sweden didn't have a lockdown but they did promote social distancing and

activities that discouraged large gatherings. Many individuals worked from home.

There is no reason to believe that the "lockdowns" were a gigantic fraud. One must examine all of the lockdowns throughout the world and determine what success each had and what the

conditions were for each one. Some lockdowns were successful. One should not jump to conclusions based on a single country and 1 graph.

The U.S "lockdown" would have been more successful if it was done earlier and on a nationwide level, some rural areas could have been excluded where there was no evidence of the virus.

After the lockdown it would have been necessary to maintain CDC guidelines until a large percentage of the population had immunity through a vaccine.

Herd immunity doesn't depend on antibodies alone. Much evidence indicates that T-cell immunity is the predominate form of immunity to coronavirus.

And the facts speak for themselves. Sweden's death rate has been flat for months and shows absolutely no sign of changing. It's clear they've achieved herd immunity, despite your torturous attempts to argue otherwise.

[Ethereal]

Sweden has a population of 10.1 million with 111,000 known positive cases- 1.1% of the population. Sweden has been doing more testing per capita than most of its neighbors, suggesting that

the true number of positive cases should be less than 1 million or less than 9 times the total number of known positive cases. That would be a maximum of 10% of the population, and probably

much less l than that, currently having immunity. Remember, many of those with mild or asymptomatic cases don't develop a strong enough immune response to be immune.

There is another reason why any conclusion based on a single country to determine the efficacy of "lockdowns" should not be considered good science. It might be that

a particular population could have a greater percentage of citizens with a natural immunity to covid-19 compared to to other populations. In an article presented in Adelaide's

response, page1, it mentions that there could be cross-reactivity occurring from exposure of some portion of the population to other coronavirsuses which might provide some

degree of immunity. That is speculative.


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...ierce-backlash

Giesecke and Tegnell believed herd immunity would arrive quickly. In the Lancet article, Giesecke claimed about 21% of residents of Stockholm county had already been infected by the end of April; Tegnell predicted 40% of them would have antibodies by the end of May. When initial studies showed the number was actually about 6% in late May, Tegnell said immunity was hard to measure. FoHM continued to say Swedes had built up immunity, but in September it backtracked, estimating that “just under 12%” of Stockholm residents, and 6% to 8% of the Swedish population as a whole, had antibodies to the virus by mid-June.
If herd immunity is beginning to kick in, it should become visible in Sweden’s case numbers. Cases fell from a record 1698 on 24 June to about 200 per day in early September, and the percentage of positive tests reached a record low of 1.2%. Some speculate that Sweden’s summer traditions may have helped: Hundreds of thousands leave cities and towns for remote cabins in what amounts to 3 months of national social distancing.
At the time, numbers elsewhere in Europe were beginning to soar again, especially among young adults, whereas those in Sweden remained stable. But over the past few weeks, infections in Sweden have started to rise as well. On 25 September, FoHM reported 633 new cases nationwide in 1 day. Stockholm’s rates have nearly tripled in 2 weeks, from 334 in the second week of September to 967 last week. Whether immunity is making a big difference remains to be seen.

No, it's not speculative. There is a lot of high quality evidence supporting the protective effect of preexisting natural immunity via T-cells.

Japan didn't lock down either, yet they had some of the lowest COVID death rates in the entire world, so it's not only one country.

Face it. Lockdowns have been a demonstrable failure and disaster. The only question is: when will supporters of lockdowns finally admit the truth?

[carolina73]

No, it's not speculative. There is a lot of high quality evidence supporting the protective effect of preexisting natural immunity via T-cells.

Japan didn't lock down either, yet they had some of the lowest COVID death rates in the entire world, so it's not only one country.

Face it. Lockdowns have been a demonstrable failure and disaster. The only question is: when will supporters of lockdowns finally admit the truth?

I look at it this way. The big cities are packed with people on top of each other. They have a different problem and solutions from Montana. The Northeast of the US was a horor show but not VT, NH and ME.

Federal solutions do not work. State wide solutions do not work.
NYC needs a different solution from Oneida, NY

Government are failures because they are run by politicians like Cuomo that are too stupid to understand what is happening in front of them. Imagine that idiot in CA has locked down Death Valley and the national Park lands of NW California as if the forests or tumbleweeds were going to pass on COVID. LOL
Now, shutting down downtown San Fransisco might have some merit. Probably more because it is a sewer than any other reason. Time to decentralize these cities. People need trees and fresh air.

[Ethereal]

I look at it this way. The big cities are packed with people on top of each other. They have a different problem and solutions from Montana. The Northeast of the US was a horor show but not VT, NH and ME.

Federal solutions do not work. State wide solutions do not work.
NYC needs a different solution from Oneida, NY

Government are failures because they are run by politicians like Cuomo that are too stupid to understand what is happening in front of them. Imagine that idiot in CA has locked down Death Valley and the national Park lands of NW California as if the forests or tumbleweeds were going to pass on COVID. LOL
Now, shutting down downtown San Fransisco might have some merit. Probably more because it is a sewer than any other reason. Time to decentralize these cities. People need trees and fresh air.

I think you're being too easy on them. Just look at Tokyo, for example. Very densely populated, yet some of the lowest mortality rates in the world. And no lockdown.

That said, I generally agree that the US needs more decentralization.

[skepticalmike]

No, it's not speculative. There is a lot of high quality evidence supporting the protective effect of preexisting natural immunity via T-cells.

Japan didn't lock down either, yet they had some of the lowest COVID death rates in the entire world, so it's not only one country.

Face it. Lockdowns have been a demonstrable failure and disaster. The only question is: when will supporters of lockdowns finally admit the truth?

Thank-you for your responses. I have just read a little in the last hour on preexisting natural immunity via T-cells. It isn't clear to me just how common this immunity is

It is plausible that there could be some significant preexisting T-cell immunity in Sweden and elsewhere but is it enough, in the case of Sweden, to achieve herd immunity if

only around 10% of the population is seropositive? This article in the journal Nature, "Cross Reactivity memory T cells and herd immunity to SARS-COV-2" mentions that

cross-reactivity immune memory to SARS-COV-2 is limited to T-helper cells which tend to limit the severity of disease. The article concludes that there is no reduction in

the herd immunity threshold, this preexisting immunity is already baked into the R0 number and epidemiological models, but the preexisting T-cell immunity could be a

factor in reducing the severity of the disease in those individuals with T-cell cross-reactivity.


"the reduction in viral spread potentially afforded by pre-existing immunity is already accounted for by the empirical observational data available and factored into epidemiological models of spread and herd immunity — with the key caveat that if T cell immunity varies geographically and affects transmission, the extrapolation of epidemiological parameters across populations may not be fully valid. However, in any scenario wherein cross-reactive T cell memory affects SARS-CoV-2, there would still be substantial implications for understanding disease severity and risk stratification, and, looking forwards, there are numerous immunological and epidemiological relationships that should be explored for their implications for the COVID-19 pandemic as well as for the post-pandemic era."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00460-4

Also from that article:

How does the recent discovery of cross-reactive T cells against SARS-CoV-2 in some individuals change our understanding of the pandemic? To find an answer to this question, several considerations are crucial. First, whereas scenario 1 suggests that T cell cross-immunity might increase viral spread, and scenarios 2, 3 and 4 suggest that T cell cross-immunity would reduce viral spread, the empirical data obtained in the early days of the pandemic (and since then) incorporate these aspects of virus–host interaction. It is ‘baked in’ to the data: the estimates of contagiousness (R0), the time course of infection and the range of severity parameters all incorporate the existence of whatever cross-immunity was present3.
Second, under scenarios 1–3 as described above, T cell immunity does not prevent infection but, rather, can modulate the time course of disease and infectiousness. Therefore, cross-immunity of this sort is not immunity to infection and is not expected to ‘supplement’ herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

[skepticalmike]

The Nature article on cross-reactivity T cells also mentions previous studies that show a high incidence (28% to 50%) incidence of cross-reactive memory T-cells in individuals not

exposed to SARS-COV-2. Those are CD4 Cells or T-helper cells.

Another article at bmj.com, "COVID-19: Do many people have preexisting immunity?" is interesting and suggests that the herd immunity threshold is lowered significantly by these preexisting memory T-cells.

The article also indicates that whether or not the herd immunity threshold is lowered by pre-existing memory T-cells is an open question.

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563

But memory T cells are known for their ability to affect the clinical severity and susceptibility to future infection,25 and the T cell studies documenting pre-existing reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 in 20-50% of people suggest that antibodies are not the full story.
“Maybe we were a little naive to take measurements such as serology testing to look at how many people were infected with the virus,” the Karolinska Institute immunologist Marcus Buggert told The BMJ. “Maybe there is more immunity out there.”

Buggert’s study in Sweden seems to support this position. Investigating close family members of patients with confirmed covid-19, he found T cell responses in those who were seronegative or asymptomatic.10 While around 60% of family members produced antibodies, 90% had T cell responses. (Other studies have reported similar results.27) “So many people got infected and didn’t create antibodies,” concludes Buggert.


The immunologists I spoke to agreed that T cells could be a key factor that explains why places like New York, London, and Stockholm seem to have experienced a wave of infections and no subsequent resurgence. This would be because protective levels of immunity, not measurable through serology alone but instead the result of a combination of pre-existing and newly formed immune responses, could now exist in the population, preventing an epidemic rise in new infections.
But they were all quick to note that this is speculation. Formally, the clinical implications of the pre-existing T cell reactivity remain an open question. “People say you don’t have proof, and they’re right,” says Buggert, adding that the historical blood donor specimens in his study were all anonymised, precluding longitudinal follow-up.
There is the notion that perhaps T cell responses are detrimental and predispose to more severe disease. “I don’t see that as a likely possibility,” Sette said, while emphasising that we still need to acknowledge the possibility. “It’s also possible that this absolutely makes no difference. The cross reactivity is too small or weak to affect the virus. The other outcome is that this does make a difference, that it makes you respond better.”
Weiskopf added, “Right now, I think everything is a possibility; we just don’t know. The reason we’re optimistic is we have seen with other viruses where [the T cell response] actually helps you.” One example is swine flu, where research has shown that people with pre-existing reactive T cells had clinically milder disease (box 1).12131

[Peter1469]

Sweden has not come close to reaching herd immunity. The graph you present appears to show evidence of herd immunity but that is insufficient information. It only provides information on

daily deaths versus time. An August study published around August 12, 2020 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found that 15% of the Stockholm population had antibodies to

covid-19 and I assume that the percentage of people in the rural areas and smaller cities would have lower rates of antibody protection. Not everyone with antibodies is immune to covid-19,

since those that developed mild or asymptomatic cases often don't develop a sufficient antibody response to be immune. There is no reason why the number of daily deaths could not turn

upwards again in a second wave since herd immunity has not been achieved.

I have a problem with the use of the word "lockdown". What does it mean? The U.S. did not have a lockdown on the scale that occurred in Italy or China. People in the U.S. could leave their

homes during the late March to early May time frame and many did not wear masks or practice social distancing. Sweden didn't have a lockdown but they did promote social distancing and

activities that discouraged large gatherings. Many individuals worked from home.

There is no reason to believe that the "lockdowns" were a gigantic fraud. One must examine all of the lockdowns throughout the world and determine what success each had and what the

conditions were for each one. Some lockdowns were successful. One should not jump to conclusions based on a single country and 1 graph.

The U.S "lockdown" would have been more successful if it was done earlier and on a nationwide level, some rural areas could have been excluded where there was no evidence of the virus.

After the lockdown it would have been necessary to maintain CDC guidelines until a large percentage of the population had immunity through a vaccine.

The US federal government does not have the authority to issue a national lockdown.

[skepticalmike]

Yeah, that's why they're called estimates.




From a meta-analysis by the WHO: The median infection fatality rate across all 51 locations was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%).

1.15 million COVID deaths globally implies 425 million cases globally: (1.15/425)*100 = 0.27%

425 million cases out of a global population of 7.8 billion is about 5.4% infection rate: (0.425/7.8)*100 = 5.4%

There are other studies that lead one to believe that the infection fatality rate in the U.S. and elsewhere is greater than what is given in this meta-analysis. I don't know who is right

but I don't believe in cherry picking evidence in order to draw a scientific conclusion.

A study by the Stanford School of Medicine found that the infection rate for the U.S. was 9.3% based on a July antibody study of a cross section of dialysis patients.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-ne...udy-finds.html


“Not only is this patient population representative of the U.S. population, but they are one of the few groups of people who can be repeatedly tested,” Anand said. “This is a potential strategy for ongoing SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing and surveillance.”
Since end-stage kidney disease is a Medicare-qualifying condition, these patients don’t face many of the financial barriers to care that limit testing among the general population, Anand said.
“Unlike other studies that have aimed to determine the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, these estimates are unaffected by whether people feel well or unwell, worried or not worried, or have access to testing or not,” Chertow said. Testing 28,503 blood samples from patients on dialysis, the researchers found that 2,292 had antibodies to COVID-19, a prevalence of 8 percent in the sampling population, and 9.3 percent when standardized to the U.S. adult population.


9.3% of 330 million (pop. of the U.S.) = 30.7 million infected. 0.14 million deaths/30.7 million = 0.46% infection fatality rate. I used a late July figure from the graph below for the number of deaths.









An article at the WHO website mentions studies that have shown infection fatality rates that are between 0.5% and 1.0%.


https://www.who.int/news-room/commen...-from-covid-19


Serological testing of a representative random sample of the population to detect evidence of exposure to a pathogen is an important method to estimate the true number of infected individuals [7,8,9]. Many such serological surveys are currently being undertaken worldwide [10], and some have thus far suggested substantial under-ascertainment of cases, with estimates of IFR converging at approximately 0.5 - 1% [10-12].