Sweden And Denmark Took Very Different Approaches To Fighting The Coronavirus. The Data Shows Many More People Are Dying In Sweden.
Sweden has seen a 34.5% increase in excess deaths this month compared to a 6.5% rise in Denmark.
In the 21 days before April 19, 7,169 people died — 1,843 more people compared to the average number of deaths during the same weeks between 2015 and 2019. That’s the equivalent of a 34.5% increase.
And on Monday, the Swedish statistics office
said the number of deaths recorded in the week ending April 12 was the highest this century, surpassing a milestone set in the first week of 2000 when 2,364 people died. Three of the four weeks with the highest death tolls in the past two decades have occurred this month.
A bridge away in Denmark, the numbers tell a very different story. Statistics Denmark recorded 201 extra deaths over the same three weeks compared to a five-year average, an uptick of 6.5%. The contrast with the recent past is minimal. Even taking into account population size — Sweden is home to 10.3 million people, Denmark to 5.8 million — the gulf between the two countries appears stark.
South Korea is one of the few countries that has succeeded in flattening the
coronavirus curve. Its policy of testing, tracing and treating without lockdowns has been widely lauded. Some attribute this to South Korea’s
experience of having dealt with previous epidemics such as Sars and Mers. Commentators in the US tend to stress the country’s effective leadership, contrasting it with that of Donald Trump’s. Others point to cultural factors, such as the willingness of the public to sacrifice privacy for the greater good.
What is often overlooked, though, is that at the roots of South Korea’s success against Covid-19 are a well-funded and efficient system of delivering public services. Without this baseline infrastructure, the policy of test, trace and treat could not have been sustained or expanded to the degree that it has. Likewise, effective leadership cannot achieve much if it lacks a well-oiled public service system that can deliver.
March 25, a day after the announcement, Tokyo counted 41 confirmed cases of the virus, more than double its previous high of 17 cases. The same day, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike held a press conference warning that the city was at a critical phase. She said that it might see an explosion in the number of infections if it failed to act. She used the word “lockdown” as if it came out of the blue and asked everyone to refrain from leaving their homes—for that weekend.
The numbers nationwide kept rising. “In order to make it appear that the city was taking control of the coronavirus, Tokyo made the number of patients look smaller,”
former Prime Minister Yukio Hatayama tweeted caustically on March 25. “The coronavirus has spread while they waited. [For Governor Koike] it was the Olympics first, not Tokyo’s residents.”
No one is denying there is a problem now, just two weeks after the Olympic announcement. As of early April 9, Japan has conducted 61,498 tests for the virus, and confirmed 4,877 cases. There have been 94 deaths.
But while Tokyo, Osaka and other prefectures are planning what they call a “soft lockdown” to stop the spread of the virus, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is planning to engage in a software lockdown of criticism about Japan’s handling of the coronavirus.
Hong Kong Shutdown a Lesson to the World in Halting Virus
Most of Hong Kong’s restrictions were put in place at the end of January, when the city had only a handful of cases.
As the world struggles with the rapid spread of Covid-19, Hong Kong appears to be having success controlling it -- in part because the memory of a similar virus in 2003 prompted a public outcry early on.
Hong Kong’s government quickly implemented restrictive “social distancing” measures now being hotly debated around the world, in part because of pressure from medical workers to close its border with China at the beginning of the outbreak. Those included closing schools, canceling large-scale events, shutting government offices and ordering civil servants to work from home -- a move that many companies quickly followed.
Hong Kong’s experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- which killed almost 300 people of more than 1,700 infected, the most outside of mainland China -- impacted the psychology of the city, said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong. Many residents wore surgical masks and avoided gatherings from the very start of the outbreak, a practice that continues more than six weeks later.
“As soon as the virus started to break out, and people read ‘China’ and ‘coronavirus,’ people remembered,” said Thomas, who has edited an academic book series titled “Health Security and Governance.” “The social part is one of the reasons why we’ve been able to keep the virus cases so low, because in some way the public has been able to make the government take measures.”
On Tuesday, the government said it was extending mandatory 14-day quarantines for all visitors arriving from outside of Greater China, reiterated that city residents should avoid traveling, and said it would keep some schools shut beyond an original April 20 deadline.
‘We will be very careful on school resumption,” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said. “From what we see now, a complete school resumption on April 20th is quite impossible. And even if the situation has stabilized, we could only reopen schools in phases.”
Taiwan took early action
"Due to the hard lessons that Taiwan learned during the SARS epidemic in 2003, it is more prepared for the coronavirus outbreak than many other countries," said Dr. Chunhuei Chi, a public health professor at the Oregon State University in the US.
Taiwan's government introduced a travel ban on visitors from China, Hong Kong and Macau soon after the number of coronavirus cases began to rise in mainland China.
Anticipating the high demand for masks in late January, the Taiwanese government started rationing the existing supply of masks. Taiwanese citizens can now go to designated drug stores across the island to line up and buy a specific amount of masks on a weekly basis. Chi pointed out that this policy has also been duplicated in other countries like South Korea and France.
"Taiwan leveraged the strength of its manufacturing sector and invested approximately $6.8 million (€ 6 million) to create 60 new mask production lines," said Chi.
"This increased Taiwan's daily mask pro production capacity from 1.8 million masks to 8 million masks. This has been called 'Taiwan’s Mask Miracle.'"
Technology for early detection
The Taiwanese government has also used data technology to help medical personnel identify and trace suspected patients and high-risk individuals.
In a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Jason Wang, a public health policy expert at Stanford University in the US, highlighted Taiwan's use of technology to track the whereabouts of those under quarantine.
"The government will call you and try to figure out where you are," said Wang. "They can track people with their phone, which allows them to make sure all individuals who are supposed to go through the mandatory 14-day quarantine and are not violating the rules by sneaking out of their quarantine locations."
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The Taiwanese government also provides support for those put under quarantine. Local village leaders will bring a bag of basic supplies like food or books to quarantined individuals. Since most quarantines are enforced, the Taiwanese government also rolled out a welfare program that provides a $30 daily allowance to those affected by the quarantine during the two-week period.
"This gives Taiwanese people more incentive to report their symptoms honestly," Wang said.
"That's the way democracies are handling quarantine during the coronavirus outbreak, and it's very different from authoritarian governments. I think this is a case where democracies should leverage their data and technologies appropriately, so they can triage people to the right place and follow up with appropriate care."