Updated December 2020. Sweden now has a robust vaccine campaign.
They also have testing and vaccine requirements for visitors.
"## Entering Sweden
There is a travel ban on non-essential travel to Sweden from most countries outside the EU until 31 August.
In order to travel into Sweden, foreign nationals travelling from an EU/EEA country need to show a Covid certificate, a negative Covid-19 test no more than 72 hours old or proof of a return to health. The Covid certificate shows that a person has been tested negative, has been vaccinated against, or has recovered from Covid-19.
Entry is banned for travellers from many non-EU/EEA countries, but there are exemptions. Exempted travellers need to show results from a negative Covid-19 test no more than 48 hours old before entry. Certificates of recovery or vaccination cannot be used for entry from non-EU countries.
Travellers from the Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland) do not need to show proof of testing, recovery, or vaccination."
Much of this debate relates to national interventions and planned responses to Covid. My point is that while Sweden did some stuff like mask bans, in general:
-They had negative economic growth in 2020
-Comparable or higher deaths
-Are running major vaccine campaigns for the populace
-And have locked themselves off from visitors (presumably because that would introduce Covid)
Thereâs often the implication here that if the disease had been allowed to ârun its courseâ all would be well, and Sweden is just about the only model offered for something like that.
Economic growth was always going to be an issue with a raw material export driven economy reliant upon its economic trading partners not to shut down their economies.
Higher deaths for sure. About 15,000 compared to 800 in Norway (off the top of my head)?
Vaccines are a no-brainer. Must be optional, of course, because human rights mean something.
Travel restrictions are globally standard at the moment. Some might consider supporting them to be far-right politically.
Sweden has been put under enormous pressure from the international community, and they eventually caved (in late 2020) to get with the programme. That they would have to bow to the vaccine narrative was inevitable.
Exactly what went on behind the scenes there is anybodyâs guess, but Anders Tegnell has privately stuck to his convictions while playing the diplomat in public. Heâs had to walk a fine line which avoided appearing to be a reckless maverick (which would probably have cost him his job), while also doing the right thing for the country. In particular, Swedes donât do mask mandates, and they donât do âlockdownsâ. Tegnell has a lot of public support.
As for deaths, yes, people died of COVID. And so what? Millions of old people die every year from respiratory disease. Swedenâs all-cause mortality for 2020 was slightly lower than their five-year average, suggesting (a) that people who died of COVID would otherwise have died of something else, within a similar timeframe and (b) lives were saved - by what mechanism we know not.
Unfortunately we do only have Sweden as a counterpoint to the mainstream narrative. But thereâs not much we can do about that.
So Swedenâs big interventions were not mandating masks and lockdowns, during which they had a lot of Covid deaths and still took an economic hit, and now theyâve adopted almost all the globally-recommended interventions for Covid. Got it. Awesome example.
Every country had a lot of Covid deaths and took an economic hit. Every country (barring perhaps North Korea?) has now adopted globally-recommended interventions for Covid to varying degrees.
Again, Iâm struggling to get your point. Is it that anyone who supports aspects of Swedenâs approach to the pandemic to be bad?
Its reverting back to the Penal Colony that it was 200 years ago.
For me and any other Australians currently living Overseas, we have been exempted from the rules about leaving as long as we have been outside of Australia (as determined by Immigration arrival and entry records) for more than 50% of the past 2 years (ie; 366 out of the past 730 days). That exemption is now being removed. Apparently quite a few with the fortitude to do 14 days in the Quarantine Hotel on each entry have been coming and going quite often, which has caused the Government get a knot in its knickers as it fills up the already scarce Arrival Caps caused by Hotel Quarantine Availability.
Not that I was intending to do a short trip back there until after the Covid Dictatorship in any case, as I have no wish to stay in a Quarantine Hotel, much less the estimated cost of AUD10,000 to do such a trip.
When will it end in Australia? I reckon about 2 months prior to the next Federal Election which will be held on or before 21 May 2022. The current Government will be in no hurry as they will be beaten to a pulp over Covid at the polls, and will want to use the âWe have come out of Covidâ as an election Platform, so allowing for Campaign time, probably Mid March 2022.
Wait a second. Please explain this to me. Perhaps I misunderstand.
You are blaming antivaxxers for what exactly? Causing the current and continued spread of the Covid virus?
If there were no antivaxxers and everyone dutifully got vaccinated, the pandemic would be over? The only reason that Covid and specifically the Delta Variant is spreading is because of the people who refuse to get the vaccine?
Hereâs how I see things. Correct me where Iâm wrong.
The Covid virus is continuing to spread between those who arenât vaccinated as well as those who dutifully got fully vaccinated. With the continued spread of the Delta Variant, children are now starting to get ill, according to NBC Nightly News today. The reason the virus is spreading is due to the failure to continue to practice social distancing and wear masks. People who got vaccinated incorrectly assumed that once they were fully vaccinated that they were immune from contracting or spreading Covid to others. This assumption has now been proven false. Fully vaccinated people can get infected with Covid and can infect others. The main thing being vaccinated does is protect from serious illness from Covid, hospitalization and intubation and death.
So, I donât give a crap about antivaxxers. They arenât preventing me from doing anything and they arenât causing this pandemic to continue. They get Covid, they might die. So what? Darwinâs Natural Selection at work here.
What Iâve read indicates that fully vaccinated people are extremely unlikely to be infected by other fully vaccinated folks.
Hence the problem with the current situation. Agree completely with the masks thing, which should continue in any enclosed space in which you are uncertain about the vaccination status of others around you.
Iâm blaming antivaxxers for not getting vaccinated.
The quicker they get vaccinated, the quicker countries can open up (look at the UK, all back to normal now). While the antivaxxers are kicking their feet like toddlers because of âmuh freedumbs!â COVID continues to rage, continues to spread, stops places from opening up and, obviously, leads to more chances of a new variant popping up.
Then, in Taiwanâs case. People dragging their feet and not getting vaccinated (to be fair, it seems to have picked up now) means that the country will be delayed in opening its borders because they canât risk Delta arriving while people are unvaccinated.
COVID is here to stay. But Taiwan and other countries can only fully open up once a significant portion of the population are vaccinated to minimize the threat of the Delta variant. So, yes. I am blaming the antivaxxers.
Theyâre idiots who are endangering the world because of their stupidity. Itâs just a matter of time until we get another variant thanks to them.
Ok. But, EXACTLY WHAT are you blaming them for and why?
Are you saying that if everyone got vaccinated, that Covid would no longer spread? That the pandemic would be over and all countries would open up and everything would go back to normal?
I love reading. Would you please give me a link where I can read this? I have never seen any credible sources which say anything like, âFully vaccinated people are extremely unlikely to be infected by other fully vaccinated folks.â
However, I have actually heard President Biden say, âIf you get the vaccine, youâre not going to get Covid.â Which has now been proven total b.s.
Never said they did. But there are many who have been eligible who havenât because theyâre idiots. Hence why younger people are being vaccinated ahead of them.
