Former state epidemiologist Johan Giesecke expects Sweden to return to a more normal situation by the end of May.
“It’s a gut feeling I have,” he says.
Giesecke is a former state epidemiologist, that is, he used to have a position with the Swedish National Public Health Agency (FOHM). I am not even sure what his connection to FOHM is, but he somehow seems seems to have become the puppet master of the very current FHOM.
Strangest setup: We would expect the government to be active and visible during such crisis. Instead, it seems to be the FOHM that is ruling the country. In that case, we might expect – not necessarily approve of, but expect – the state epidemiologist to be a more prominent and decisive figure. The one who tells us what is going on and how to be safe. But no. The guy who used to have that job calls the shots, the guy who has the job follows. It doesn’t make any sense.
Someone needs to look into that!
Giesecke, the former, is the one who headlined the Swedish policies that Covid-19 is no more dangerous than a common flu, and who ridicules people who choose to wear mask as ‘running around town with a rag that gets wet.’ The first statement he made, according to SVT as ‘Virus expert, ’ the latter, according to SVT, as ‘Former state epidemiologist ‘
SVT doesn’t seem to know exactly what kind of authority he is, either.
ECDC reported 114 deaths of Covid-19 in Sweden, bringing the total number of deaths to 591 .
I do not dare to suppose that todays tally were an indication for how the virus is taking hold of Sweden. There are are always outliers, I just hope we are looking at one of those today.
The FOHM graph does not look as scary, That is because FOHM is backdating. On that graph, yesterday there were practically no deaths, the 114 reported yesterday were scattered as follows:
There is something to say for both of these different curves. For as long as the the death rate clearly is growing, the ECDC more clearly gives an accurate picture of the acceleration.
The FOHM stat always make it seem as though it were just about to be better.
The ECDC more accurately describes where we are now, by the shape of the curve. It is not going to be as accurate when the number of deaths is going to be leveling out, but doubt that is going to happen for some time.
ECDC gives the truthful picture, as it graphs the numbers as they are reported. FOHM draws a misleading picture, because tomorrow, the whole graph is going to look different, and it will keep going like that, until it settles maybe 10-14 days from the report day.
just like TT reported three days ago. There are missing bodies.
It is also interesting to see them side by side, to get a visual on the report lag.
On a positive note, Denmark. 16 deaths reported today , 203 total. Most importantly, for several days now, the growth has been solidly linear, meaning there is a good chance it is already leveling out.
Then there is the little bend there,around yesterday. I like that little bend. When we talk about and compare all kinds of curves and numbers and statistics about all the Denmarks and Swedens and Greenlands of this world, it is way too easy to forget to see that the little bend on a curve is a Very Beautiful Thing. It means that we would have expected someone to die, but they lived.
Sweden in the Time of Corona 