World Health Organization (WHO) top official Dr. Mike Ryan applauded Sweden for its approach to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, which did not include a lockdown.
From Fox News:
“I think if we are to reach a new normal, I think in many ways Sweden represents a future model of — if we wish to get back to a society in which we don’t have lockdowns,” Dr. Mike Ryan said while speaking to reporters from Geneva.Ryan, who serves as executive director of WHO’s Emergencies Program, praised Sweden’s health care system and credited it with making all the right moves from the beginning of the outbreak.”They’ve been doing the testing, they’ve ramped up their capacity to do intensive care quite significantly,” he added. “And their health system has always remained within its capacity to respond to the number of cases that they’ve been experiencing.”Ryan claimed the backlash Sweden has faced for its seemingly lax policies on social distancing is an unfair criticism.”Sweden has put in place a very strong public policy around social distancing, around caring and protecting for people in long term care facilities and many other things,” he said.“What it has done differently is it has very much relied on its relationship with its citizenry and the ability and willingness of citizens to implement physical distancing and to self-regulate.”
However, the numbers might tell a different story. But unlike the MSM, I’m going to give you all the facts.
Sweden has over 10 million people, which “nearly doubles those of Denmark, Norway and Finland individually.” Sweden has the most deaths out of those countries, which makes sense since it has so many more people.
The latest reports show the number of deaths went 17 times higher than the other countries in the area. Sweden has witnessed over 1,300 deaths on Thursday.
But with the population difference can you really compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries?
I wish people would pay more attention to the mental health aspect of this lockdown. I wonder how many areas have the same stats as Queens:
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz was shocked one recent Monday by a pair of borough suicides: A 49-year-old man found hanging in a parking garage. And a 29-year-old woman who jumped from her bedroom window.The two deaths are among the 16 suicides in Queens since March 15, when New York schools were closed as the pandemic began to wrap the city in its lethal grip. The dead had nothing in common except “they were sheltered and not sure where to turn,” Katz told the Daily News on Wednesday.For comparison’s sake, there were 17 total suicides in Queens from Jan. 1 through April 29, 2019, just one more than reported in the past six weeks. While there are no citywide suicide stats available at this point in the COVID-19 crisis, anecdotal evidence points toward a bump in New Yorkers taking their own lives.“I started noticing the numbers coming in over the last month and a half, and I felt obligated to send a message that we need to be checking in on our colleagues, our loved ones, our friends,” said Katz.
The city council of 90210 voted to allow plastic surgeries during the outbreak, 4-1. One doctor agreed with the vote:
However, Dr. Arash Moradzadeh is already implementing safety measures at his office. “Things are never gonna really be the same at least not until we have a vaccine and eradicate coronavirus. We’ve taken a lot of measures to make sure safety is at the top, starting with infrared thermometers where we scan all of our employees as well as every patient before they enter our office. We do telephone pre-screening beforehand asking them key questions,” said Moradzadeh.Moradzadeh will also not allow patients to wait in the waiting room. He ordered an abundance of PPE, and is recommending patients quarantine seven days before and after elective surgery, and get COVID-19 testing before the scheduled surgery. “We’re not going to take any unnecessary risks. We’re going to do what we can to make the transition smooth and safe,” he said.Moradzadeh believes critical medical surgeries are important and should be prioritized, but believes plastic surgery is important too. “I do believe that the essential life-saving surgeries are the key and most important factors and we are going to focus a lot of our attention on that.While Botox may not be as important we can still conduct that in a very safe manner. People need these procedures because it helps them feel better and feeling better is very important right now when we’re taking such a psychological impact of being stuck at home or losing our jobs,” said Moradzadeh.Moradzadeh said it will not be “business as usual” when he reopens. He will be offering limited appointments. “There’s not going to be that many appointments available. We’re spreading things out very, very wide because we have a sanitation protocol that is taking place,” said Moradzadeh.
Modoc County is “sparsely populated” in the northeast corner of California. Officials there decided to defy Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order by opening schools, restaurants, salons, etc:
The county has no confirmed COVID-19 cases, and after consulting with health officials, the county’s board of supervisors voted to reopen Friday.“Just as our physical health is vital for our citizens, so is the mental health and the economic health of our citizens,” Ned Coe, a county supervisor, told Sacramento’s NBC affiliate.Coe said that the county wrote to Newsom last week, explaining how its plan follows the guidelines to reopening that Newsom previously released, but that the governor had yet to respond.He noted: “The governor himself has indicated that it is time to start opening in a staged and safe manner, and that will be different for different areas of the state.”When asked about the county’s planned reopening at his press briefing, Newsom replied: “Nothing would please me more than pleasing those local officials … but we’re not out of the woods. No part of the state, no part of this country, few parts of the globe have been immune to this virus.”He didn’t indicate if he would take legal action to stop Modoc County.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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