LeSving wrote:
yet the pandemic has gone bananas there
Don’t exaggerate. Sweden is among the countries in Europe with the lowest excess death rate during the pandemic. Certainly Norway has a lower (even negative I think) excess death rate.
LeSving wrote:
What do these countries have in common? I think the “usual”, but also plain wrong explanation is low population density. It certainly is a factor, but not a main factor in itself. Sweden, particularly north of Stockholm has much lower population density than Norway
It’s always multi factored – but as you write in essence a very core thing is people keeping distance. And if in Norway they did this more voluntarily, there has been less need for strict measures.
On other thing both countries have in common (and is a significiant difference between Norway and Sweden) is a comparatively low share of elderly living in aged residential care facilities – for Norway it is about 15% of the 85+ population while for Sweden it is 20%. And again: The key problem of such facilities is the combination of a comparatively weak immune system population with the practical inability to apply social distancing. Therefore this is a huge driver of infection and death.
Malibuflyer wrote:
The key problem of such facilities is the combination of a comparatively weak immune system population with the practical inability to apply social distancing. Therefore this is a huge driver of infection and death.
That was very clear in Sweden.
Justine should be ultra immune – she tested positive for antibodies in Jan 2021, mysteriously…
Avoid this outfit which takes money off you for virus tests for airline travel, with a website which makes you go around in circles, with a duff feedback/enquiry form (a duff recaptcha implementation), no phone number and a nonresponding email address.
I wasted £80 on two rapid tests, including one pre-return test which then exposes me to a £500 fine upon returning to the UK.
The process involves doing the test over a video link and that has to be a sham because nobody in the UK is going to set up a call centre big enough to handle tens of thousands of concurrent video calls… and with somebody who has an IQ over 10 doing it.
I guess one should not be surprised to see yet another crappy website. The world is full of them, because it is so easy to knock them up, using the latest fashionable “framework” 
I just did the test myself and will be happy to argue the case with the help of a lawyer. Fortunately, no virus… hardly surprising since I have been double vaccinated and haven’t been clubbing
But can you imagine doing this for a family of four, and one of them tests positive??
The UK is now starting on the 25-29 age group.
Very high vaccine effectiveness data:
More in the Daily Trash
There will always be some who end up in hospital because in any population there will be people in poor health, etc, and anything will push them over the edge. These numbers are very good though.
Portugal came off the green list today 4am. Manic scenes at the airports. It turns out that 1.5% of the returning people were testing positive! This is many times the population rate, which leads to the question of what the hell are British holidaymakers doing in Portugal? It must be some “very high density socialising”
Peter wrote:
Portugal came off the green list today 4am. Manic scenes at the airports. It turns out that 1.5% of the returning people were testing positive! This is many times the population rate, which leads to the question of what the hell are British holidaymakers doing in Portugal? It must be some “very high density socialising”
I thought the understanding was that lateral flow tests had a false positive rate in the region of 0.1 – 0.5%.
When the disease is relatively rare (as it is now) and the vast majority of test results are negative (as they are now) you get serious statistical issues with false positives. At the upper end of that estimate, one third of the apparent positives returning from Portugal would be false!
I don’t know what tests are/were done on Portugal returnees, but the currently required tests are
Yes it would be dumb to base policy on such a false positive rate, but they must know about that problem, surely?
The UK’s unwillingness to use vaccination status is generating lots of income for all the crooks selling the kits. A large % of them are selling kits but not shipping them until much later, or not delivering the next stage (the supervised test).
Peter wrote:
Yes it would be dumb to base policy on such a false positive rate, but they must know about that problem, surely?
They do, but I believe the underlying policy is that LFTs are used as a drag-net….. if you get a positive then you’re suspicious but a negative does not mean a green light and you still need one or more PCR tests.
Indeed – government-mandated screening is always a great business opportunity, and with the whole thing having to operate on such a large scale, with so little planning and such little prospect of competent universal oversight it is inevitable that businesses will take the money but not deliver the tests in time to actually comply with the procedure.
I’ve made a personal decision that I will never take a Covid test I have to pay for, nor one where my ability to return home depends on a negative result.
I’ve made a personal decision that I will never take a Covid test I have to pay for, nor one where my ability to return home depends on a negative result.
Which means you will not leave the country unless no more tests are required? Makes sense.
However I honestly do not understand why the UK mandates tests for people with 2 vaccines plus 14 days?
