The sad part is, that current infection rate shows no signs of an effect through immunity. So even Sweden is quite a way away from herd immunity.

Sweden as a whole yes, but I think numbers for Stockholm are down and numbers for Gothenburg are up so it shifted a little (no source on this, just what I read somewhere). Similar to the low numbers we see in New York vs. the much higher ones in California.

There is an outbreak in Gällivare.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and-public/2020/06/uncontrolled-outbreak-says-city-northern-swedish-and-imposes-lockdown

“Gällivare now has the county’s highest number of infected people,” says Stefan Nieminen, communication manager with the crisis group to Swedish Television. The situation in the town is now as bad as Stockholm at its worst, concludes the Swedish broadcaster. 

Like many places in Sweden, they are not social distancing enough

Apart from less public transit and more working from home Gällivare is more like doing the opposite or nothing at all.

It's currently exploding in Norbotton but other counties are on the rise as well

https://www.bing.com/covid/local/stockholmcounty_sweden
Bing is a bit behind though, the data for Norbotton is only up to the 8th, 10 days ago now.

Stockholm is slowly recovering but now the virus is picking up steam in the rest of the country. Her immunity could play a small role in Stockholm. Doing just enough social distancing to get the infection rate close to 1 and any bit of immunity will eventually drive it below 1. Not that that would make it safe as the 'immunity' people are getting would be very biased to those taking the most 'risks', while those that have been social distancing more will provide fresh ground for the virus to spread once they reduce their social distancing. Nor do we know how long and how effective any gained immunity might be.

Germany added 1122 cases yesterday according to worldometer, it's time for Mette to ban Germans entering Denmark!

We still don't know if face masks work, compare denmark, Norway and Finland to germany, they are mandating face masks in Germany while in the other scandinavian countries they are not mandating or recommending. I think Denmark, Norway and Finland has much better cases/capita than germany, although I read some stuff that Finland cheats (no indoor restaurants/bars) but germany cheats too, face masks mandated in churches and no singing.

Finland, Denmark and Norway are also sending their kids to school, it's totally safe.

Well things has not gone as good they were suppose too, Stockholm were suppose to achieve herd-immunity in May and things were suppose to go back fully to normal this month according to Johan Giesecke our former virus dude.

But according to Tove Fall who is a scientist (molecular epidemiology) here in Sweden most of our scientists are happy what we have done according to this tweet (note Tove Fall is a critic of our strategy):

2 days old tweet, but I'm unsure of our immunity, we had a big test around beginning of May showing 10% in stockholm region had immunity and 5% had the virus, they tested 8k people in week 18 (may 27 - June 3). They estimated 15% had been infected on may 15.

https://www.dn.se/sthlm/studie-15-procent-av-arbetande-stockholmare-smittade-av-coronaviruset/ (swedish only)

Our own government estimated that 26% would be infected on May 1 but this was based on calibrated PCR tests where it only tested positive during the first 5 day of infection. They did 2 tests showing around 2-2.5% in stockholm region got infected per week.

But now another antibody test was released, yesterday or 2 days ago showing 14% in stockholm region had antibodies.

As I wrote in a previous post, our finance minister said our courage level is at 90% and today she held another press conference saying things are looking more positive, we will have -6% gdp and 9% unemployment this year, this from her previous forecast of -7% gdp and 10% unemployment. I myself think we will only take a -3% gdp hit but depends on other countires, they must not do another lockdown.

And combined this with falling daily reported deaths, things are just looking very good here in Sweden, ofc if you compare our numbers to other countries, maybe not so much.

Your graph just looks great to me, feels like we Swedes are like barbarians, just charging right at the virus with no face masks :) nah we are just doing more testing, 20k in beginning of april and 60k last week. You can see for Stockholm county in beginning of June, the computer glitch adding 1.5k cases in Stockholm. It was hiding ~50-100 cases a day I think.

It's because of the increase of testing I think the virus will be almost gone/eliminated in sweden next month, people who get sick will just test themself and if they positive for the virus, they will just isolate themself.

I'll take that last part with a grain of salt lol. I'm afraid atm it looks like the daily reported deaths will be going up again for a while. If the stories from Gällivare are true, that it's getting as bad as Stockholm was, then it would follow that hospitalizations etc will be up again.

I don't think face masks do much either apart from slowing the spread a bit from people that are contagious. I'm pretty sure I'm not infected but I wear one anyway hoping to break to stigma against wearing face masks here. Today I went back to the chiropractor for the first time since March. They did improve their cleaning, new beds that get (quickly) wiped down after each patient, but none of the staff wore face masks and no distance markers or anything. It was quiet at least this morning. Plenty of hand sanitizer and washing my face as well afterwards (contact with the adjustment bed) and it should be fine. Quick in and out, not a lot of breathing in the recycled air inside.

Which is my problem with the minimal back to school changes. More cleaning and focusing on hand washing is only half of the equation. The virus is airborne (even from flushing the toilet) and remains infectious for 4 hours floating in the air. What I would expect from the schools is to cut classes in half, one week on, one week home schooling. Stagger the start and end times with multiple lower occupancy bus rides, different classes starting and ending at different times. Staggered lunch breaks as well. Install UV-C air filters in class rooms and an industrial one on the central air system. Check the temperature of students, preferably before they get on the bus, a bit of extra work for the bus driver, then another health check at the start of class. Staff has the weekend to look for any symptoms, check on Monday to start the next week with the other half of the students.

Not this, oh well, life has to go back to normal, just cover you cough and wash your hands and clean common surfaces. That doesn't address the transmission through air at all.

Hey,respect for that!

Moderna's vaccine will enter Phase 3 trails next month, with their CEO saying they hope to have efficacy data by Thanksgiving to allow them to apply for approval late this year or early in 2021:

https://www.barrons.com/articles/moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-will-be-ready-for-distribution-in-2021-51592483405

October is getting closer and no sign of me being able to go to Japan.

As much as I and many others dislike face coverings, the data just keeps on showing that they work, esp when coupled with other common sense mitigation measures. Previously we had the hamster study suggesting substantially less risk of transmission when wearing a mask and when transmission did occur, the disease was less severe.

Now we have a conclusion to the infected Missouri hair stylists who exposed over 100 clients to coronavirus back in May because they worked while symptomatic(though they did only have mild symptoms)

"Two Missouri hair stylists who saw dozens of clients while infected with the coronavirus did not pass the illness to any of their customers who were tested, health officials said.

The health department also said Monday that in addition to required masks, the Great Clips had other policies like the distancing of chairs and staggered appointments that likely prevented the spread of the disease."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-new-covid-19-cases-reported-after-infected-hair-stylists-n1230346

So, it sounds like haircuts are probably safe if everyone is wearing a mask, properly distanced etc...

Every bit helps keeping the viral load under the threshold where it can do harm. A mask won't protect you 100% but often less than a 50% reduction is enough to stop the virus from taking hold. A mask also does stop the bigger particles. Small aerosol particles do go through, but you need a lot more of those to get infected. A man doesn't shoot out up to a billion sperm for nothing ;)

Good ventilation is also key, few people inside and as a hairdresser you are mostly behind the client and not at the same level. I do have my doubts about going back to the dentist though. Plaque removal is a messy job, patients obviously can't wear face masks. The mouth hygienist would have to wear a N95 respirator to stay safe and not transfer anything to the next patient. They already wear surgical face masks normally but that won't be enough with prolonged close contact that generates lots of aerosol particles. I wonder if they'll use the N95 masks when they re-open (still closed for now) That's not 100% either, but much better than the standard surgical masks.



Canada has decided on a contact tracing app they want to introduce next month on a voluntary basis. What it does is, when someone gets tested positive, their anonymous unique ID gets flagged and all phones that have registered of having been closed to that ID will get alerted. Bluetooth is used to scan for other phones nearby and log the encounter when close to another phone for a certain period of time.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/pm-says-a-national-contact-tracing-app-is-coming-next-month-how-will-it-work-1.4989702



It does seem like a waste of money and time when it's only voluntary.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/4-takeaways-from-contact-tracing-apps-in-other-countries-1.4990497

In Iceland, developers launched “Rakning C-19” in early April and it was quickly downloaded by 38 per cent of the population, but its impact has been minimal. “The technology is more or less … I wouldn’t say useless,” Gestur Pálmason, a detective with the Icelandic Police Service overseeing contact tracing efforts, told the MIT Technology Review. “I would say [Rakning-19] has proven useful in a few cases, but it wasn’t a game changer for us.”

A study out of the University of Oxford inApril, shows that contact tracing apps can help stop an epidemic, but only if approximately 60 per cent of the population uses it.

In Singapore, “TraceTogether” launched in April, but its lead developer was quick to temper expectations surrounding the product. In a blog post, Jason May said the app would not be a “panacea” for the spread of the virus and that it is only meant to complement the existing tracing efforts. “You cannot ‘big data’ your way out of a ‘no data’ situation. Period,” May wrote in the post.

In the United Kingdom, a contact tracing app had been a focal point of its response to the virus, with an initial plan to release their app in mid-May, but now the British government has said it won’t be ready before winter. The U.K. government added that the delays are simply because it is no longer a priority, as they’ve noticed that people would rather hear any potential bad news from a human voice, rather than a notification on their phone.

In the United States, a survey from Avira indicates that more than 71 per cent of Americans would not download a contact tracing app if it were an option.

Every bit helps I guess, it can slightly speed up contact tracing.