Thu, 04/23/2020 - 15:57
Dear colleagues,
- Sweden installed a much weaker lockdown and yet the epidemic did not explode, although the leading epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has been criticized, because the figures in Sweden look worse than in neighboring countries. He himself admits that it may have led to more deaths in elderly homes…. But that is exactly what we also see in Belgium, where the lockdown was officially much stricter.
So, what I did is just putting some figures about the relative epidemics in various European countries in a table (everything expressed per million of inhabitants).
If you take Sweden and compare it with the neighbors (Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany), the relative number of PCR(+) is somewhat elevated, but the number of deaths is indeed much higher.
However, if you take Belgium as compared to Netherlands, Germany and France: we are the champions, both in number of infections and of deaths. For both parameters, we are 2-3 times higher than Sweden and we even beat Italy and almost also Spain!
I feel it is interesting to contemplate, but my wife Ann (social nurse) says it is rubbish, because the different countries count in a different way…. Anyhow….
- Colleagues asked me about the best way of testing: which sample to take and what about “infectiousness” of stool samples? In fact, there is a lot of important research to be done, because the literature until now is rather patchy. Of course it is not easy to prove the specific SARS-CoV-2 infectiousness of “dirty” samples, like pharyngeal swabs and stools, but we should really know whether infectious virus can be cultivated. We should also standardize the testing strategy and study the sensitivity of various approaches in “the field”, because to me, it is quite evident that a “negative” result of a swab, taken outside a well-controlled hospital setting does not mean “certainly not infected”. Good operational research would provide a sound basis for the public health measures to be taken…..
- And yes, the first scientist who ever saw a Coronavirus under the microscope was a Scottish woman, named June Almeida
I’m curious to know your opinion
Best wishes,
Dear colleagues,
- Sweden installed a much weaker lockdown and yet the epidemic did not explode, although the leading epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has been criticized, because the figures in Sweden look worse than in neighboring countries. He himself admits that it may have led to more deaths in elderly homes…. But that is exactly what we also see in Belgium, where the lockdown was officially much stricter.
So, what I did is just putting some figures about the relative epidemics in various European countries in a table (everything expressed per million of inhabitants).
If you take Sweden and compare it with the neighbors (Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany), the relative number of PCR(+) is somewhat elevated, but the number of deaths is indeed much higher.
However, if you take Belgium as compared to Netherlands, Germany and France: we are the champions, both in number of infections and of deaths. For both parameters, we are 2-3 times higher than Sweden and we even beat Italy and almost also Spain!
I feel it is interesting to contemplate, but my wife Ann (social nurse) says it is rubbish, because the different countries count in a different way…. Anyhow….
- Colleagues asked me about the best way of testing: which sample to take and what about “infectiousness” of stool samples? In fact, there is a lot of important research to be done, because the literature until now is rather patchy. Of course it is not easy to prove the specific SARS-CoV-2 infectiousness of “dirty” samples, like pharyngeal swabs and stools, but we should really know whether infectious virus can be cultivated. We should also standardize the testing strategy and study the sensitivity of various approaches in “the field”, because to me, it is quite evident that a “negative” result of a swab, taken outside a well-controlled hospital setting does not mean “certainly not infected”. Good operational research would provide a sound basis for the public health measures to be taken…..
- And yes, the first scientist who ever saw a Coronavirus under the microscope was a Scottish woman, named June Almeida
I’m curious to know your opinion
Best wishes,