#suède

Tête-à-queue en Suède à propos des changements de sexe
par TRADFEM
L’Hôpital Karolinska de Suède met fin à l’utilisation des bloqueurs de puberté pour les moins de 16 ans : Nouvelle déclaration de politique générale de l’hôpital Karolinska - @SEGMtweets

Le « protocole néerlandais » pour le traitement des mineurs souffrant de dysphorie de genre vient d’être abandonné en raison de ses risques de préjudice médical et de ses avantages incertains.

L’hôpital Karolinska, en Suède, a récemment publié une nouvelle déclaration de principes concernant le traitement des mineur.e.s souffrant de dysphorie de genre à sa division pédiatrique des services liés au genre. Cette politique, qui est entrée en vigueur en avril 2021, a mis fin à la pratique consistant à prescrire des agents bloqueurs de puberté et des hormones transsexuelles aux mineur.e.s de moins de 16 ans. Les interventions hormonales pour les jeunes âgé.e.s de 16 à 18 ans sont toujours autorisées, mais uniquement dans le cadre de recherches approuvées par le comité d’examen éthique suédois, après un consentement éclairé approfondi ou sont divulgués les risques et incertitudes considérables des interventions hormonales, et en tenant compte du niveau de maturité du ou de la mineure et de sa capacité à donner un consentement réellement éclairé.

Il s’agit d’un tournant décisif. La Suède est le premier pays dont un hôpital renommé a explicitement répudié le protocole néerlandais, qui autorise l’administration d’agents bloqueurs de puberté à l’âge de 12 ans (et de plus en plus souvent à partir de 8-9 ans, au stade précoce de la puberté connu sous le nom de Tanner 2), et d’hormones transsexuelles à l’âge de 16 ans. C’est également le premier pays à se démarquer officiellement des directives du World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Ce lobby s’est longtemps positionné comme l’autorité mondiale en matière de santé des transgenres.(...)
▻https://tradfem.wordpress.com/2021/05/05/tete-a-queue-en-suede-a-propos-des-changements-de-sexde

#transgenrisme #droitsdesenfants #BigPharma #Suède #protocolenéerlandais

Le Ghana et l’Afrique du Sud devant la France pour la liberté de la presse Philippe Rosenthal
▻http://www.observateurcontinental.fr/?module=articles&action=view&id=2649

Le #journalisme, « principal vaccin » contre la désinformation en pleine pandémie, est « totalement ou partiellement bloqué » dans plus de 130 pays, rapporte Reporters sans frontières (RSF), qui a publié ce mardi 20 avril l’édition 2021 de son classement mondial de la liberté de la presse.

http://www.observateurcontinental.fr/media/volodina/2104-68.jpg

La #France absente de la zone blanche de la carte de la liberté de la presse. « Le journalisme, est totalement ou partiellement bloqué dans 73 % des pays évalués », écrit Reporters sans frontières (RSF). Tous les ans la situation sur la liberté de la presse dans 180 pays et territoires est scrutée par l’ organisation indépendante basée à Paris dotée d’un statut consultatif auprès de l’Organisation des Nations unies, de l’Unesco, du Conseil de l’Europe et de l’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).

Ce rapport annuel montre que « l’exercice du journalisme », ce que RSF nomme comme étant le « principal vaccin contre le virus de la désinformation, est gravement entravé dans 73 des 180 Etats du Classement établi » par l’association et « restreint dans 59 autres, soit au total 73 % des pays évalués ». Ces chiffres correspondent au nombre de pays classés rouge ou noir sur la carte mondiale de la liberté de la presse, c’est-à-dire ceux dans lesquels le journalisme est dans une « situation difficile », voire « très grave » et à ceux classés dans la zone orange, où l’exercice de la profession est considérée comme « problématique ».

La France (34e), classée pourtant jaune, dans le groupe où la situation est plutôt bonne selon RSF, est cependant derrière l’#Espagne (29e), le #Royaume-Uni (33e) et devant la #Slovénie (36e), classée toujours jaune, qui est, elle, classifiée par RSF comme étant un pays qui bloque le journalisme en obligeant, par exemple, l’agence de presse STA à suivre la ligne politique du gouvernement au risque d’être privée de financement d’Etat. La France, pays des droits de l’homme par excellence n’est en tout cas pas dans la zone blanche de la carte de la liberté de la presse, qui indique une situation d’exercice du journalisme sinon optimale du moins très satisfaisante comme cela est le cas pour la #Norvège, la #Finlande, la #Suède, le #Danemark.

Les #Etats-Unis et la France derrière des pays africains. La France, classée donc en jaune, se trouve, comme le montre RSF derrière des pays comme, la #Costa_Rica, la #Jamaïque, l’#Uruguay, le #Suriname, la #Namibie, le #Cap-Vert, le #Ghana et l’#Afrique_du_Sud. L’organisation indépendante, qui place curieusement le Royaume-Uni (33e) juste devant la France alors qu’il garde le journaliste d’investigation, Julian #Assange, dans la prison à haute sécurité de #Belmarsh, où sa santé physique et mentale continuent de se dégrader, met la Russie en rouge en indiquant que ce pays a « déployé son appareil répressif pour limiter la couverture médiatique des manifestations liées à l’opposant Alexeï #Navalny ».

Le deux poids, deux mesures est, d’emblée visible dans ce rapport. En effet, pourquoi placer le Royaume-Uni en 33e position et la #Russie en 150e quand un reporter de renommé international ayant dénoncé les violations des droits de l’Homme et les meurtres de l’armée américaine est enfermé en prison à Londres ? Il semble que RSF prenne une défense arbitraire pour un pays occidental et porte un bandeau sur les yeux. Pourtant, RSF, souligne que le cas du fondateur de #Wikileaks est un « type de revers pour le journalisme ».

Même si les Etats-Unis sont d’après RSF en 44e position et classée toujours en jaune bien loin derrière la France et le #Ghana, le problème a été, selon l’organisation, la dernière année du mandat de Donald Trump qui « s’est caractérisée par un nombre record d’agressions (près de 400) et d’arrestations de journalistes (130), selon le US Press Freedom Tracker, dont RSF est partenaire ».

L’organisation Reporters sans frontières, qui même si elle prend une position favorable pour le Royaume-Uni alors que Julian Assange y est emprisonné, ne peut pas cacher le fait que la liberté de la presse est réellement en danger dans de nombreux pays occidentaux. Aussi, on peut vraiment écrire que la France, le Royaume-Uni et les Etats-Unis peuvent apprendre de pays africains comme le Ghana et l’Afrique du Sud. Cela prouve que de graves dérives non démocratiques ont actuellement lieu dans ces pays.

Même si « l’Europe et l’Amérique (Nord et Sud) restent les continents les plus favorables à la liberté de la presse » et « même si la zone des Amériques enregistre cette année la plus grande dégradation des scores régionaux (+2,5 %) », RSF informe que « le continent européen accuse pour sa part une détérioration conséquente de son indicateur “#Exactions” » car « les actes de violence ont plus que doublé au sein de la zone Union européenne-Balkans, alors que cette dégradation est de 17 % au niveau mondial ».

L’organisation indépendante et défenderesse de la presse ►https://rsf.org/fr/classement-mondial-de-la-liberte-de-la-presse-2021-le-journalisme-est-un-vaccin précise que « les agressions contre les journalistes et les interpellations abusives se sont notamment multipliées » en #Pologne (64e, -2), en #Grèce (70e, -5) , en #Serbie (93e) et en #Bulgarie (112e, -1) mais aussi en #Allemagne, en France (34e) et en #Italie (41e).

The Death of Asylum and the Search for Alternatives

March 2021 saw the announcement of the UK’s new post-Brexit asylum policy. This plan centres ‘criminal smuggling gangs’ who facilitate the cross border movement of people seeking asylum, particularly in this case, across the English Channel. It therefore distinguishes between two groups of people seeking asylum: those who travel themselves to places of potential sanctuary, and those who wait in a refugee camp near the place that they fled for the lottery ticket of UNHCR resettlement. Those who arrive ‘spontaneously’ will never be granted permanent leave to remain in the UK. Those in the privileged group of resettled refugees will gain indefinite leave to remain.

Resettlement represents a tiny proportion of refugee reception globally. Of the 80 million displaced people globally at the end of 2019, 22,800 were resettled in 2020 and only 3,560 were resettled to the UK. Under the new plans, forms of resettlement are set to increase, which can only be welcomed. But of course, the expansion of resettlement will make no difference to people who are here, and arriving, every year. People who find themselves in a situation of persecution or displacement very rarely have knowledge of any particular national asylum system. Most learn the arbitrary details of access to work, welfare, and asylum itself upon arrival.

In making smugglers the focus of asylum policy, the UK is inaugurating what Alison Mountz calls the death of asylum. There is of course little difference between people fleeing persecution who make the journey themselves to the UK, or those who wait in a camp with a small chance of resettlement. The two are often, in fact, connected, as men are more likely to go ahead in advance, making perilous journeys, in the hope that safe and legal options will then be opened up for vulnerable family members. And what makes these perilous journeys so dangerous? The lack of safe and legal routes.

Britain, and other countries across Europe, North America and Australasia, have gone to huge efforts and massive expense in recent decades to close down access to the right to asylum. Examples of this include paying foreign powers to quarantine refugees outside of Europe, criminalising those who help refugees, and carrier sanctions. Carrier sanctions are fines for airlines or ferry companies if someone boards an aeroplane without appropriate travel documents. So you get the airlines to stop people boarding a plane to your country to claim asylum. In this way you don’t break international law, but you are certainly violating the spirit of it. If you’ve ever wondered why people pay 10 times the cost of a plane ticket to cross the Mediterranean or the Channel in a tiny boat, carrier sanctions are the reason.

So government policy closes down safe and legal routes, forcing people to take more perilous journeys. These are not illegal journeys because under international law one cannot travel illegally if one is seeking asylum. Their only option becomes to pay smugglers for help in crossing borders. At this point criminalising smuggling becomes the focus of asylum policy. In this way, government policy creates the crisis which it then claims to solve. And this extends to people who are seeking asylum themselves.

Arcane maritime laws have been deployed by the UK in order to criminalise irregular Channel crossers who breach sea defences, and therefore deny them sanctuary. Specifically, if one of the people aboard a given boat touches the tiller, oars, or steering device, they become liable to be arrested under anti-smuggling laws. In 2020, eight people were jailed on such grounds, facing sentences of up to two and a half years, as well as the subsequent threat of deportation. For these people, there are no safe and legal routes left.

We know from extensive research on the subject, that poverty in a country does not lead to an increase in asylum applications elsewhere from that country. Things like wars, genocide and human rights abuses need to be present in order for nationals of a country to start seeking asylum abroad in any meaningful number. Why then, one might ask, is the UK so obsessed with preventing people who are fleeing wars, genocide and human rights abuses from gaining asylum here? On their own terms there is one central reason: their belief that most people seeking asylum today are not actually refugees, but economic migrants seeking to cheat the asylum system.

This idea that people who seek asylum are largely ‘bogus’ began in the early 2000s. It came in response to a shift in the nationalities of people seeking asylum. During the Cold War there was little concern with the mix of motivations in relation to fleeing persecution or seeking a ‘better life’. But when people started to seek asylum from formerly colonised countries in the ‘Third World’ they began to be construed as ‘new asylum seekers’ and were assumed to be illegitimate. From David Blunkett’s time in the Home Office onwards, these ‘new asylum seekers’, primarily black and brown people fleeing countries in which refugee producing situations are occurring, asylum has been increasingly closed down.

The UK government has tended to justify its highly restrictive asylum policies on the basis that it is open to abuse from bogus, cheating, young men. It then makes the lives of people who are awaiting a decision on their asylum application as difficult as possible on the basis that this will deter others. Forcing people who are here to live below the poverty line, then, is imagined to sever ‘pull factors’ for others who have not yet arrived. There is no evidence to support the idea that deterrence strategies work, they simply costs lives.

Over the past two decades, as we have witnessed the slow death of asylum, it has become increasingly difficult to imagine alternatives. Organisations advocating for people seeking asylum have, with diminishing funds since 2010, tended to focus on challenging specific aspects of the system on legal grounds, such as how asylum support rates are calculated or whether indefinite detention is lawful.

Scholars of migration studies, myself included, have written countless papers and books debunking the spurious claims made by the government to justify their policies, and criticising the underlying logics of the system. What we have failed to do is offer convincing alternatives. But with his new book, A Modern Migration Theory, Professor of Migration Studies Peo Hansen offers us an example of an alternative strategy. This is not a utopian proposal of open borders, this is the real experience of Sweden, a natural experiment with proven success.

During 2015, large numbers of people were displaced as the Syrian civil war escalated. Most stayed within the region, with millions of people being hosted in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. A smaller proportion decided to travel onwards from these places to Europe. Because of the fortress like policies adopted by European countries, there were no safe and legal routes aboard aeroplanes or ferries. Horrified by the spontaneous arrival of people seeking sanctuary, most European countries refused to take part in burden sharing and so it fell to Germany and Sweden, the only countries that opened their doors in any meaningful way, to host the new arrivals.

Hansen documents what happened next in Sweden. First, the Swedish state ended austerity in an emergency response to the challenge of hosting so many refugees. As part of this, and as a country that produces its own currency, the Swedish state distributed funds across the local authorities of the country to help them in receiving the refugees. And third, this money was spent not just on refugees, but on the infrastructure needed to support an increased population in a given area – on schools, hospitals, and housing. This is in the context of Sweden also having a welfare system which is extremely generous compared to Britain’s stripped back welfare regime.

As in Britain, the Swedish government had up to this point spent some years fetishizing the ‘budget deficit’ and there was an assumption that spending so much money would worsen the fiscal position – that it would lead both to inflation, and a massive national deficit which must later be repaid. That this spending on refugees would cause deficits and hence necessitate borrowing, tax hikes and budget cuts was presented by politicians and the media in Sweden as a foregone conclusion. This foregone conclusion was then used as part of a narrative about refugees’ negative impact on the economy and welfare, and as the basis for closing Sweden’s doors to people seeking asylum in the future.

And yet, the budget deficit never materialised: ‘Just as the finance minister had buried any hope of surpluses in the near future and repeated the mantra of the need to borrow to “finance” the refugees, a veritable tidal wave of tax revenue had already started to engulf Sweden’ (p.152). The economy grew and tax revenue surged in 2016 and 2017, so much that successive surpluses were created. In 2016 public consumption increased 3.6%, a figure not seen since the 1970s. Growth rates were 4% in 2016 and 2017. Refugees were filling labour shortages in understaffed sectors such as social care, where Sweden’s ageing population is in need of demographic renewal.

Refugees disproportionately ended up in smaller, poorer, depopulating, rural municipalities who also received a disproportionately large cash injections from the central government. The arrival of refugees thus addressed the triple challenges of depopulation and population ageing; a continuous loss of local tax revenues, which forced cuts in services; and severe staff shortages and recruitment problems (e.g. in the care sector). Rather than responding with hostility, then, municipalities rightly saw the refugee influx as potentially solving these spiralling challenges.

For two decades now we have been witnessing the slow death of asylum in the UK. Basing policy on prejudice rather than evidence, suspicion rather than generosity, burden rather than opportunity. Every change in the asylum system heralds new and innovative ways of circumventing human rights, detaining, deporting, impoverishing, and excluding. And none of this is cheap – it is not done for the economic benefit of the British population. It costs £15,000 to forcibly deport someone, it costs £95 per day to detain them, with £90 million spent each year on immigration detention. Vast sums of money are given to private companies every year to help in the work of denying people who are seeking sanctuary access to their right to asylum.

The Swedish case offers a window into what happens when a different approach is taken. The benefit is not simply to refugees, but to the population as a whole. With an economy to rebuild after Covid and huge holes in the health and social care workforce, could we imagine an alternative in which Sweden offered inspiration to do things differently?

▻https://discoversociety.org/2021/04/07/the-death-of-asylum-and-the-search-for-alternatives

#asile #alternatives #migrations #alternative #réfugiés #catégorisation #tri #réinstallation #death_of_asylum #mort_de_l'asile #voies_légales #droit_d'asile #externalisation #passeurs #criminalisation_des_passeurs #UK #Angleterre #colonialisme #colonisation #pull-factors #pull_factors #push-pull_factors #facteurs_pull #dissuasion #Suède #déficit #économie #welfare_state #investissement #travail #impôts #Etat_providence #modèle_suédois

ping @isskein @karine4

–-

ajouté au fil de discussion sur le lien entre économie et réfugiés/migrations :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/705790

Anders Engström 🦩 sur Twitter : « Animerad påminnelse om utveckligen i Sverige jämfört med våra nordiska grannländer #COVID19SWEDEN » / Twitter
▻https://twitter.com/dibbuk/status/1359566727571529736

▻https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1359566693916368896/pu/vid/720x776/-G2VeNeuQw6gcRUT.mp4?tag=10

#Suède #immunité_de_groupe #covid_19

Sweden and Denmark plan digital Covid vaccine certificates for travel | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/04/sweden-and-denmark-plan-digital-vaccine-certificates-for-travel-covid
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/523d7be078431507023455a3e59425e2569a5d6e/0_117_3500_2100/master/3500.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

Sweden has announced it is to start developing digital vaccine certificates, to be used for travel and potentially more, following a similar move by Denmark a day earlier.The two Nordic countries have said the coronavirus vaccine certificates would be designed to enable citizens to travel abroad, but also hinted they could potentially be used to check whether someone was vaccinated if they were attending something like a sports or cultural event.“With a digital vaccine certificate it will be quick and easy to prove a completed vaccination,” Sweden’s minister for digital development, Anders Ygeman, said in a statement.The Swedish government said it hoped to have the infrastructure to issue digital certificates in place by June

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#sante#suede#danemark#passeportvaccinal#economie#frontiere

30.01.2021: H & M kennt keine Gnade (Tageszeitung junge Welt)
▻https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/395421.konzernmacht-h-m-kennt-keine-gnade.html

https://www.jungewelt.de/img/1100/148307.jpg

Der schwedische Modefilialist H & M hat lange den Trend zur Digitalisierung verschlafen. Nun sollen die Beschäftigten die spät begonnene Neuausrichtung bezahlen: 800 Stellen will das Unternehmen in Deutschland streichen. Dabei verfügt der Konzern über hohe Rücklagen. Für das von Dezember 2019 bis November 2020 laufende Geschäftsjahr verfügte H & M über einen Gewinn vor Steuern von 2,05 Milliarden Schwedischen Kronen (rund 203 Millionen Euro), wie das Unternehmen am Freitag in Stockholm mitteilte – dank »guter Kostenkontrolle«, wie es hieß. Im Jahr zuvor stand sogar ein Plus von 17,4 Milliarden Schwedischen Kronen (1,72 Milliarden Euro) in der Bilanz.

#travail #crise #licenciement #Allemagne #Suède

#Coronavirus : Est-ce la fin définitive du « modèle suédois » ?
▻https://www.20minutes.fr/monde/2948915-20210109-coronavirus-fin-definitif-modele-suedois

https://img.20mn.fr/W4Qph9MASpW92BWWAZCXbw/648x360_drapeau-suedois-manifestation-allemande-contre-mesures-restrictives-face-coronavirus.jpg

Chiffres catastrophiques, comparaison douloureuse avec les voisins nordiques, aveu d’échec royal… Le #modèle suédois résonne aujourd’hui comme une défaite pour le pays.

#Suède

Les Suédois victimes de la « coronaskam », la honte de la stratégie du pays face au Covid-19
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/12/31/en-suede-les-habitants-ont-la-coronaskam-la-honte-de-la-strategie-du-pays-fa

https://img.lemde.fr/2020/12/30/686/0/5852/2926/1440/720/60/0/5d9f9c7_157512002-241773.jpg

L’année 2019 avait popularisé le mot « flygskam » : en suédois, la honte – « skam » – de prendre l’avion – « flyga » –, ce moyen de transport polluant. L’année 2020 a rapidement réglé le problème, en clouant au sol la majeure partie de la population mondiale. Pour autant, les Suédois ne se sont pas départis de leur sentiment de déshonneur. A la « flygskam » a succédé la « coronaskam » : littéralement, la « honte du corona ». En cause : la stratégie suédoise face à la pandémie due au coronavirus et la décision du gouvernement, à Stockholm, de ne pas confiner sa population. Chez ses voisins, ayant tous adopté des mesures plus restrictives, cette approche tout en douceur a d’abord suscité l’incompréhension, avant de provoquer l’effroi, et parfois, l’hostilité. Car au final, la Suède a enregistré 4,5 fois plus de morts que le Danemark, près de neuf fois plus que la Finlande et l’Islande, et onze fois plus que la Norvège.

Or, les Nordiques veulent croire qu’ils ont plus de points communs que de différences : une histoire, une culture, des traditions, et même la langue pour certains. Bref, « une identité très forte, pas toujours facile à mesurer de l’étranger », assure Anna Hallberg, ministre suédoise des questions nordiques. Depuis 1952 – et jusqu’à l’arrivée du coronavirus – leurs ressortissants pouvaient même passer d’un pays à l’autre, sans montrer leur passeport. Mais « tout cela n’a rien à voir avec ce qui s’est passé depuis le début de la pandémie », martèle Bertel Haarder, député danois du Parti libéral et président du conseil de la liberté de circulation mis en place par les cinq pays. A partir du 1er janvier 2021, il va prendre la tête du Conseil nordique, dans un contexte complètement inédit.
Non seulement, depuis le mois mars, les frontières ont fait leur réapparition dans la région, ce qui a causé un traumatisme dans les régions limitrophes, dont l’économie a été durement affectée. Mais de nombreux Suédois affirment être stigmatisés par leurs voisins. C’est le cas notamment d’une partie des 14 000 transfrontaliers qui vivent en Suède et travaillent en Norvège et dont certains disent être ostracisés par leurs collègues ou leurs employeurs. Chaque semaine, ils doivent se faire tester dans un centre de dépistage norvégien.
« Pourtant, jusqu’à début décembre, les contaminations étaient plus élevées côté norvégien que suédois dans les localités frontalières », rappelle Kjell-Arne Ottosson. Député chrétien-démocrate, vivant dans la province suédoise du Värmland, « à 100 m de la Norvège », il ne décolère pas : « Sur un chantier à Oslo, des ouvriers suédois ont dû porter une veste de couleur orange et manger dans une salle séparée », affirme-t-il. Même ceux qui vivent en Norvège depuis des années font part de leur malaise. « Au printemps, on nous traitait comme des pestiférés », assure Johan Öberg. Habitant à la frontière, côté norvégien, il en a parlé à des journaux locaux. « Depuis, quand je discute avec les parents du club de hockey de ma fille, par exemple, ils me demandent d’abord si cela ne me dérange pas qu’ils me posent des questions sur la Suède. » Des interrogations devenues désormais inévitables pour les Suédois à l’étranger, qui ne savent pas toujours y répondre. (...) Pour certains, la honte finit par être intériorisée : « Quand la frontière a été brièvement ouverte cet été, je suis allé faire du kayak sur mon lac préféré, juste à côté de chez moi en Norvège, raconte Kjell-Arne Ottosson. D’habitude, je vais boire un café après, mais j’y ai renoncé. Je ne me sentais pas bien, j’avais l’impression de violer la loi, d’être un criminel. Pourtant, je ne faisais rien d’illégal. »Des Norvégiens, propriétaires de maisons secondaires en Suède, se sont eux aussi retrouvés exposés à la « coronaskam », après avoir passé la frontière. Un millier d’entre eux a d’ailleurs porté plainte contre l’Etat norvégien, qui leur impose une quarantaine de dix jours, à leur retour de Suède. La ministre suédoise Anna Hallberg va jusqu’à parler de « harcèlement » et s’inquiète d’une polarisation, dont elle craint qu’elle laisse des marques durables, qui « mettront du temps à guérir ». Bertel Haarder regrette pour sa part, « le sentiment de défiance », qui s’est installé dans les régions transfrontalières, compliquant l’intégration des cinq pays nordiques : « A l’avenir, certains pourraient hésiter à chercher du travail ou déménager dans le pays voisin », observe-t-il.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#suede#danemarknorvege#scandinavie#honte#stigmatisation#frontiere#economie#residence#quarantaine

Spain and Sweden report cases of UK Covid variant | Coronavirus | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/26/spain-and-sweden-report-cases-of-uk-covid-variant
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ec9b0145414e72def9ca1687e789cc5dc9b5c8c8/0_346_5184_3110/master/5184.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

Spain and Sweden have joined the growing list of countries to have reported cases of the more contagious coronavirus variant first identified in Britain.Four cases of the variant have been confirmed in Madrid. All involve people who recently arrived from the UK, the Madrid regional government’s deputy health chief, Antonio Zapatero, told a news conference on Saturday.
“The patients are not seriously ill, we know that this strain is more transmissible but it does not cause more serious illness,” he said. “There is no need for alarm.”A further three suspected cases of the new variant have been tested, but the results will only be available on Tuesday or Wednesday, Zapatero said.Madrid has banned all entries from the UK since Tuesday except for Spanish nationals and residents.Swedish authorities detected the new strain after a traveller from Britain fell ill on arrival and tested positive, Sweden’s health agency said on Saturday.Sara Byfors, a health agency official, told a news conference that the traveller, who was not identified, had kept isolated after arrival in Sweden and that no further positive cases had yet been detected.Sweden imposed travel restrictions earlier this month on passengers from Britain amid concerns over the variant.Similar measures have been taken by several other countries in the EU and around the world. On Saturday the Philippines extended a ban on flights from the UK by two weeks until mid-January in an effort to prevent the spread of the new variant.The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, also ordered a 14-day quarantine for passengers who come from or travel through the UK or from countries where the more infectious Covid-19 variant has been detected, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan.On Friday, authorities in France and Lebanon also confirmed cases of the new variant.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#angleterre#france#suede#espagne#sante#mutation#test#contamination

Sweden’s Top Epidemiologist Says Herd Immunity Remains a Mystery - Bloomberg

▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/sweden-s-top-epidemiologist-says-herd-immunity-remains-a-mystery

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Les chiffres avec la machine de @fil

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/0n342w9rmqsxbjj/capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202020-12-02%20%C3%A0%2007.50.32.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/juzev5kzz0oty5h/capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202020-12-02%20%C3%A0%2007.50.08.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/udp2x8cvu5py1ci/capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202020-12-02%20%C3%A0%2007.49.49.png?dl=0

The man behind Sweden’s coronavirus strategy, best known for the absence of a lockdown, says key questions remain about how immunity works.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, says it’s still not clear to what extent transmission rates are reduced when more people have been exposed to the virus.

#suède #coronavirus #covid-19

En Suède, éviter à tout prix la « catastrophe » migratoire de 2015
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/11/23/en-suede-eviter-a-tout-prix-la-catastrophe-migratoire-de-2015_6060794_3210.h

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Les associations s’inquiètent du sort de ceux dont la situation n’a toujours pas été régularisée. Sur les 163 000 personnes arrivées en 2015, 95 000 ont obtenu un titre de séjour. Zahra Hosseiny, son mari et leurs deux jeunes enfants ont été déboutés et auraient dû être renvoyés en Afghanistan. Ils ont fait appel : « Si nous avions su que cela prendrait aussi longtemps, nous ne serions jamais venus en Suède, souffle la jeune femme. Mais maintenant nos enfants parlent suédois et nos amis sont ici. » Sharif Omari, lui, pensait avoir décroché une seconde chance, grâce à la « gymnasielagen », la « loi lycée » adoptée sous la pression des Verts en 2018. Elle devait permettre aux jeunes, arrivés comme mineurs isolés, de rester en Suède, à condition qu’ils suivent une formation. Ayant fait les frais des lenteurs bureaucratiques, beaucoup avaient atteint la majorité avant que leur dossier soit traité, réduisant drastiquement leurs chances de décrocher l’asile.
Environ 7 000 lycéens ont ainsi obtenu un sursis. « Mais le dispositif est tellement compliqué que certains n’ont pas suivi la bonne formation et vont se retrouver sans aucun droit à la fin de leur parcours », se lamente Helena Wihlborg, directrice du projet Baba auprès de l’association caritative Stadsmission. Pour les autres, la pandémie de Covid-19 se dresse comme un nouvel obstacle vers l’asile. Car la loi exige de décrocher un contrat de travail de deux ans au minimum, dans les six mois suivant l’obtention du diplôme. « C’était déjà très compliqué avant la crise, remarque Helena Wihlborg. C’est désormais presque impossible. »
Sharif Omari a terminé sa formation de soudeur en juin : « A cause de la pandémie, je n’ai pas pu faire mon stage. De toute façon, les patrons n’embauchent pas. » Il est désespéré : « Depuis que je suis arrivé en Suède, j’ai fait tout ce qu’on m’a demandé. J’ai appris la langue, je suis allé à l’école, j’ai même travaillé et payé des impôts. J’ai l’impression d’être coincé, comme en prison. C’est inhumain. »
Originaire d’Afghanistan, Rahim Ali, 21 ans, a jeté l’éponge en décembre 2019. Après quatre ans passés à Halmstad, dans le sud du pays, il est parti pour Paris. Placé en procédure Dublin, il a fait appel : « J’ai expliqué que je serais expulsé en Afghanistan si on me renvoyait en Suède. » Rahim a été autorisé à déposer une demande d’asile en France. Comme lui, ils seraient 3 000 à avoir quitté la Suède pour tenter leur chance en France, selon Sara Brachet. Cette Suédoise, installée à Paris, a fondé l’association Les Amis des migrants suédophones en France. « Au printemps, ils ont eu du mal à voyager avec les restrictions liées au Covid, mais depuis la fin de l’été ils arrivent par dizaines », dit-elle. Preuve des incohérences du système européen : Sara Brachet assure que beaucoup d’entre eux obtiennent l’asile en France.En Suède, les ONG réclament une régularisation, sans y croire. Ancien vice-secrétaire général de l’ONU, Jan Eliasson les soutient. « A moins de trouver une solution, cette plaie béante va laisser de profondes marques dans la société », affirme-t-il. Début octobre, une quinzaine de personnalités, dont l’ancien archevêque, ont porté plainte contre la Suède auprès du Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l’homme, pour dénoncer le sort de ces jeunes. Au printemps, les réfugiés ont commencé à partager leurs récits sur les réseaux sociaux, sous le hashtag « Jag är 2015 » (« je suis 2015 »). Le mouvement est né après que le parti conservateur a publié une photo de son leader, Ulf Kristersson, en tenue de chasse, sous laquelle était écrit : « La crise des réfugiés de 2015 ne doit plus jamais se reproduire. » A l’origine de la mobilisation, l’artiste iranienne Atoosa Farahmand a rassemblé 1 500 témoignages, qu’elle déposera bientôt au Parlement, à Stockholm

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#suede#france#ue#asile#refugie#mineur#sante

Swedish surge in Covid cases dashes immunity hopes | World news | The Guardian

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/12/covid-infections-in-sweden-surge-dashing-hopes-of-herd-immunity

New infections and hospital admissions have surged in Sweden as the country battles a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic that officials had hoped its light-touch, anti-lockdown approach would mitigate.

#suède #coronavirus #covid-19
“We consider the situation extremely serious,” the director of health and medical care services for Stockholm, Björn Eriksson, told the state broadcaster SVT this week. “We can expect noticeably more people needing hospital care over the coming weeks.”

Why the Swedish Model for Fighting COVID-19 Is a Disaster | Time
▻https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster

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Le fameux modèle suédois de lutte contre le #covid est une immense #imposture basée sur le précepte ultra-libéral du #laisser-faire, voire plus franchement de l’#eugénisme social.
Non seulement ils ont imposé l’#immunité_de_troupeau à la population en lui mentant assez éfrontément, mais ils ont carrément donné un coup de pouce à la #contamination_de_masse en ouvrant massivement les #écoles pour en faire des #accélérateurs d’#épidémie.

Et cette #forfaiture #criminelle est à présent à l’œuvre chez nous

The Swedish COVID-19 experiment of not implementing early and strong measures to safeguard the population has been hotly debated around the world, but at this point we can predict it is almost certain to result in a net failure in terms of death and suffering. As of Oct. 13, Sweden’s per capita death rate is 58.4 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data, 12th highest in the world (not including tiny Andorra and San Marino). But perhaps more striking are the findings of a study published Oct. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which pointed out that, of the countries the researchers investigated, Sweden and the U.S. essentially make up a category of two: they are the only countries with high overall mortality rates that have failed to rapidly reduce those numbers as the pandemic has progressed.

Yet the architects of the Swedish plan are selling it as a success to the rest of the world. And officials in other countries, including at the top level of the U.S. government, are discussing the strategy as one to emulate—despite the reality that doing so will almost certainly increase the rates of death and misery.

Countries that locked down early and/or used extensive test and tracing—including Denmark, Finland, Norway, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and New Zealand—saved lives and limited damage to their economies. Countries that locked down late, came out of lock down too early, did not effectively test and quarantine, or only used a partial lockdown—including Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Spain, Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.—have almost uniformly done worse in rates of infection and death.

Despite this, Sweden’s Public Health Agency director Johan Carlson has claimed that “the Swedish situation remains favorable,” and that the country’s response has been “consistent and sustainable.” The data, however, show that the case rate in Sweden, as elsewhere in Europe, is currently increasing.

Average daily cases rose 173% nationwide from Sept. 2-8 to Sept. 30-Oct. 6 and in Stockholm that number increased 405% for the same period. Though some have argued that rising case numbers can be attributed to increased testing, a recent study of Stockholm’s wastewater published Oct. 5 by the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) argues otherwise. An increased concentration of the virus in wastewater, the KTH researchers write, shows a rise of the virus in the population of the greater Stockholm area (where a large proportion of the country’s population live) in a way that is entirely independent of testing. Yet even with this rise in cases, the government is easing the few restrictions it had in place.

From early on, the Swedish government seemed to treat it as a foregone conclusion that many people would die. The country’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter on April 3, “We will have to count the dead in thousands. It is just as well that we prepare for it.” In July, as the death count reached 5,500, Löfven said that the “strategy is right, I am completely convinced of that.” In September, Dr. Anders Tegnell, the Public Health Agency epidemiologist in charge of the country’s COVID-19 response reiterated the party line that a growing death count did “not mean that the strategy itself has gone wrong.” There has been a lack of written communication between the Prime Minister and the Public Health Authority: when the authors requested all emails and documents between the Prime Minister’s office and the Public Health Authority for the period Jan. 1—Sept. 14, the Prime Minister’s Registrar replied on Sept. 17 that none existed.

Despite the Public Health Agency’s insistence to the contrary, the core of this strategy is widely understood to have been about building natural “herd immunity”—essentially, letting enough members of a population (the herd) get infected, recover, and then develop an immune system response to the virus that it would ultimately stop spreading. Both the agency and Prime Minister Löfven have characterized the approach as “common sense“ trust-based recommendations rather than strict measures, such as lockdowns, which they say are unsustainable over an extended period of time—and that herd immunity was just a desirable side effect. However, internal government communications suggest otherwise.

Emails obtained by one of the authors through Freedom of Information laws (called offentlighetsprincipen, or “Openness Principle,” in Swedish) between national and regional government agencies, including the Swedish Public Health Authority, as well as those obtained by other journalists, suggest that the goal was all along in fact to develop herd immunity. We have also received information through sources who made similar requests or who corresponded directly with government agencies that back up this conclusion. For the sake of transparency, we created a website where we’ve posted some of these documents.

One example showing clearly that government officials had been thinking about herd immunity from early on is a March 15 email sent from a retired doctor to Tegnell, the epidemiologist and architect of the Swedish plan, which he forwarded to his Finnish counterpart, Mika Salminen. In it, the retired doctor recommended allowing healthy people to be infected in controlled settings as a way to fight the epidemic. “ One point would be to keep schools open to reach herd immunity faster ,” Tegnell noted at the top of the forwarded email.

Salminen responded that the Finnish Health Agency had considered this but decided against it, because “over time, the children are still going to spread the infection to other age groups.” Furthermore, the Finnish model showed that closing schools would reduce “the attack rate of the disease on the elderly” by 10%. Tegnell responded: “10 percent might be worth it?”

The majority of the rest of Sweden’s policymakers seemed to have agreed: the country never closed daycare or schools for children under the age of 16, and school attendance is mandatory under Swedish law, with no option for distance learning or home schooling, even for family members in high risk groups. Policymakers essentially decided to use children and schools as participants in an experiment to see if herd immunity to a deadly disease could be reached. Multiple outbreaks at schools occurred in both the spring and autumn.

At this point, whether herd immunity was the “goal” or a “byproduct” of the Swedish plan is semantics, because it simply hasn’t worked. In April, the Public Health Agency predicted that 40% of the Stockholm population would have the disease and acquire protective antibodies by May. According to the agency’s own antibody studies published Sept. 3 for samples collected up until late June, the actual figure for random testing of antibodies is only 11.4% for Stockholm, 6.3% for Gothenburg and 7.1% across Sweden. As of mid-August, herd immunity was still “nowhere in sight,” according to a Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine study. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, herd immunity to an infectious disease has never been achieved without a vaccine.

Löfven, his government, and the Public Health Agency all say that the high COVID-19 death rate in Sweden can be attributed to the fact that a large portion of these deaths occurred in nursing homes, due to shortcomings in elderly care.

However, the high infection rate across the country was the underlying factor that led to a high number of those becoming infected in care homes. Many sick elderly were not seen by a doctor because the country’s hospitals were implementing a triage system that, according to a study published July 1 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, appeared to have factored in age and predicted prognosis. “This likely reduced [intensive care unit] load at the cost of more high-risk patients”—like elderly people with confirmed infection—dying outside the ICU.” Only 13% of the elderly residents who died with COVID-19 during the spring received hospital care, according to preliminary statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare released Aug.

In one case which seems representative of how seniors were treated, patient Reza Sedghi was not seen by a doctor the day he died from COVID-19 at a care home in Stockholm. A nurse told Sedghi’s daughter Lili Perspolisi that her father was given a shot of morphine before he passed away, that no oxygen was administered and staff did not call an ambulance. “No one was there and he died alone,” Perspolisi says.

In order to be admitted for hospital care, patients needed to have breathing problems and even then, many were reportedly denied care. Regional healthcare managers in each of Sweden’s 21 regions, who are responsible for care at hospitals as well as implementing Public Health Agency guidelines, have claimed that no patients were denied care during the pandemic. But internal local government documents from April from some of Sweden’s regions—including those covering the biggest cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö—also show directives for how some patients including those receiving home care, those living at nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and those with special needs could not receive oxygen or hospitalization in some situations. Dagens Nyheter published an investigation on Oct. 13 showing that patients in Stockholm were denied care as a result of these guidelines. Further, a September investigation by Sveriges Radio, Sweden’s national public broadcaster, found that more than 100 people reported to the Swedish Health and Care Inspectorate that their relatives with COVID-19 either did not receive oxygen or nutrient drops or that they were not allowed to come to hospital.

These issues do not only affect the elderly or those who had COVID-19. The National Board of Health and Welfare’s guidelines for intensive care in extraordinary circumstances throughout Sweden state that priority should be given to patients based on biological, not chronological, age. Sörmlands Media, in an investigation published May 13, cited a number of sources saying that, in many parts of the country, the health care system was already operating in a way such that people were being denied the type of inpatient care they would have received in normal times. Regional health agencies were using a Clinical Frailty Scale, an assessment tool designed to predict the need for care in a nursing home or hospital, and the life expectancy of older people by estimating their fragility, to determine whether someone should receive hospital care and was applied to decisions regarding all sorts of treatment, not only for COVID-19. These guidelines led to many people with health care needs unrelated to COVID-19 not getting the care they need, with some even dying as a result—collateral damage of Sweden’s COVID-19 strategy.

Dr. Michael Broomé, the chief physician at Stockholm’s Karolinska Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, says his department’s patient load tripled during the spring. His staff, he says, “have often felt powerless and inadequate. We have lost several young, previously healthy, patients with particularly serious disease courses. We have also repeatedly been forced to say no to patients we would normally have accepted due to a lack of experienced staff, suitable facilities and equipment.”

In June, Dagens Nyheter reported a story of one case showing how disastrous such a scenario can be. Yanina Lucero had been ill for several weeks in March with severe breathing problems, fever and diarrhea, yet COVID-19 tests were not available at the time except for those returning from high risk areas who displayed symptoms, those admitted to the hospital, and those working in health care. Yanina was only 39 years old and had no underlying illnesses. Her husband Cristian brought her to an unnamed hospital in Stockholm, but were told it was full and sent home, where Lucero’s health deteriorated. After several days when she could barely walk, an ambulance arrived and Lucero was taken to Huddinge hospital, where she was sedated and put on a ventilator. She died on April 15 without receiving a COVID-19 test in hospital.

Sweden did try some things to protect citizens from the pandemic. On March 12 the government restricted public gatherings to 500 people and the next day the Public Health Agency issued a press release telling people with possible COVID-19 symptoms to stay home. On March 17, the Public Health Agency asked employers in the Stockholm area to let employees work from home if they could. The government further limited public gatherings to 50 people on March 29. Yet there were no recommendations on private events and the 50-person limit doesn’t apply to schools, libraries, corporate events, swimming pools, shopping malls or many other situations. Starting April 1, the government restricted visits to retirement homes (which reopened to visitors on Oct. 1 without masks recommended for visitors or staff). But all these recommendations came later than in the other Nordic countries. In the interim, institutions were forced to make their own decisions; some high schools and universities changed to on-line teaching and restaurants and bars went to table seating with distance, and some companies instituted rules about wearing masks on site and encouraging employees to work from home.

Meanwhile Sweden built neither the testing nor the contact-tracing capacity that other wealthy European countries did. Until the end of May (and again in August), Sweden tested 20% the number of people per capita compared with Denmark, and less than both Norway and Finland; Sweden has often had among the lowest test rates in Europe. Even with increased testing in the fall, Sweden still only tests only about one-fourth that of Denmark.

Sweden never quarantined those arriving from high-risk areas abroad nor did it close most businesses, including restaurants and bars. Family members of those who test positive for COVID-19 must attend school in person, unlike in many other countries where if one person in a household tests positive the entire family quarantines, usually for 14 days. Employees must also report to work as usual unless they also have symptoms of COVID-19, an agreement with their employer for a leave of absence or a doctor recommends that they isolate at home.

On Oct. 1, the Public Health Authority issued non-binding “rules of conduct” that open the possibility for doctors to be able to recommend that certain individuals stay home for seven days if a household member tests positive for COVID-19. But there are major holes in these rules: they do not apply to children (of all ages, from birth to age 16, the year one starts high school), people in the household who previously have a positive PCR or antibody test or, people with socially important professions, such as health care staff (under certain circumstances).

There is also no date for when the rule would go into effect. “It may not happen right away, Stockholm will start quickly but some regions may need more time to get it all in place,” Tegnell said at a Oct. 1 press conference. Meanwhile, according to current Public Health Agency guidelines issued May 15 and still in place, those who test positive for COVID-19 are expected to attend work and school with mild symptoms so long as they are seven days post-onset of symptoms and fever free for 48 hours.

Sweden actually recommends against masks everywhere except in places where health care workers are treating COVID-19 patients (some regions expand that to health care workers treating suspected patients as well). Autumn corona outbreaks in Dalarna, Jönköping, Luleå, Malmö, Stockholm and Uppsala hospitals are affecting both hospital staff and patients. In an email on April 5, Tegnell wrote to Mike Catchpole, the chief scientist at the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC): “We are quite worried about the statement ECDC has been preparing about masks.” Tegnell attached a document in which he expresses concern that ECDC recommending facemasks would “imply that the spread is airborne which would seriously harm further communication and trust among the population and health care workers” and concludes “we would like to warn against the publication of this advice.” Despite this, on April 8 ECDC recommended masks and on June 8 the World Health Organization updated its stance to recommend masks.

Sweden’s government officials stuck to their party line. Karin Tegmark Wisell of the Public Health Agency said at a press conference on July 14 that “we see around the world that masks are used in a way so that you rather increase the spread of infection.” Two weeks later, Lena Hallengren, the Minister of Health and Social Affairs, spoke about masks at a press conference on July 29 and said, “We don’t have that tradition or culture” and that the government “would not review the Public Health Agency’s decision not to recommend masks.”

All of this creates a situation which leaves teachers, bus drivers, medical workers and care home staff more exposed, without face masks at a time when the rest of the world is clearly endorsing widespread mask wearing.

On Aug. 13, Tegnell said that to recommend masks to the public “quite a lot of resources are required. There is quite a lot of money that would be spent if you are going to have masks.” Indeed, emails between Tegnell and colleagues at the Public Health Agency and Andreas Johansson of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs show that the policy concerns of the health authority were influenced by financial interests, including the commercial concerns of Sweden’s airports.

Swedavia, the owner of the country’s largest airport, Stockholm Arlanda, told employees during the spring and early summer they could not wear masks or gloves to work. One employee told Upsala Nya Tidning newspaper on Aug. 24 “Many of us were sick during the beginning of the pandemic and two colleagues have died due to the virus. I would estimate that 60%-80% of the staff at the security checks have had the infection.”

“Our union representatives fought for us to have masks at work,” the employee said, “but the airport’s response was that we were an authority that would not spread fear, but we would show that the virus was not so dangerous.” Swedavia’s reply was that they had introduced the infection control measures recommended by the authorities. On July 1, the company changed its policy, recommending masks for everyone who comes to Arlanda—that, according to a Swedavia spokesperson, was not as a result of “an infection control measure advocated by Swedish authorities,” but rather, due to a joint European Union Aviation Safety Agency and ECDC recommendation for all of Europe.

As early as January, the Public Health Agency was warning the government about costs. In a Jan. 31 communique, Public Health Agency Director Johan Carlsson (appointed by Löfven) and General Counsel Bitte Bråstad wrote to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, cautioning the government about costs associated with classifying COVID-19 as a socially dangerous disease: “After a decision on quarantine, costs for it [include] compensation which according to the Act, must be paid to those who, due to the quarantine decision, must refrain from gainful employment. The uncertainty factors are many even when calculating these costs. Society can also suffer a loss of production due to being quarantined [and] prevented from performing gainful employment which they would otherwise have performed.” Sweden never implemented quarantine in society, not even for those returning from travel abroad or family members of those who test positive for COVID-19.

Not only did these lack of measures likely result in more infections and deaths, but it didn’t even help the economy: Sweden has fared worse economically than other Nordic countries throughout the pandemic.

The Swedish way has yielded little but death and misery. And, this situation has not been honestly portrayed to the Swedish people or to the rest of the world.

A Public Health Agency report published July 7 included data for teachers in primary schools working on-site as well as for secondary school teachers who switched to distance instruction online. In the report, they combined the two data sources and compared the result to the general population, stating that teachers were not at greater risk and implying that schools were safe. But in fact, the infection rate of those teaching in classrooms was 60% higher than those teaching online—completely undermining the conclusion of the report.

The report also compares Sweden to Finland for March through the end of May and wrongly concludes that the ”closing of schools had no measurable effect on the number of cases of COVID-19 among children.” As testing among children in Sweden was almost non-existent at that time compared to Finland, these data were misrepresented; a better way to look at it would be to consider the fact that Sweden had seven times as many children per capita treated in the ICU during that time period.

When pressed about discrepancies in the report, Public Health Agency epidemiologist Jerker Jonsson replied on Aug. 21 via email: “The title is a bit misleading. It is not a direct comparison of the situation in Finland to the situation in Sweden. This is just a report and not a peer-reviewed scientific study. This was just a quick situation report and nothing more.” However the Public Health Agency and Minister of Education continue to reference this report as justification to keep schools open, and other countries cite it as an example.

This is not the only case where Swedish officials have misrepresented data in an effort to make the situation seem more under control than it really is. In April, a group of 22 scientists and physicians criticized Sweden’s government for the 105 deaths per day the country was seeing at the time, and Tegnell and the Public Health Agency responded by saying the true number was just 60 deaths per day. Revised government figures now show Tegnell was incorrect and the critics were right. The Public Health Agency says the discrepancy was due to a backlog in accounting for deaths, but they have backlogged deaths throughout the pandemic, making it difficult to track and gauge the actual death toll in real time.

Sweden never went into an official lockdown but an estimated 1.5 million have self-isolated, largely the elderly and those in risk groups. This was probably the largest factor in slowing the spread of the virus in the country in the summer. However, recent data suggest that cases are yet again spiking in the country, and there’s no indication that government policies will adapt.

Health care workers, scientists and private citizens have all voiced concerns about the Swedish approach. But Sweden is a small country, proud of its humanitarian image—so much so that we cannot seem to understand when we have violated it. There is simply no way to justify the magnitude of lost lives, poorer health and putting risk groups into long-term isolation, especially not in an effort to reach an unachievable herd immunity. Countries need to take care before adopting the “Swedish way.” It could have tragic consequences for this pandemic or the next.

The Swedish #COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster. It Shouldn’t Be a Model for the Rest of the World
▻https://news.yahoo.com/swedish-covid-19-response-disaster-090039825.html

Sweden and the U.S. essentially make up a category of two (▻https://seenthis.net/messages/881265): they are the only countries with high overall mortality rates that have failed to rapidly reduce those numbers as the pandemic has progressed.

#Suède

Op-Ed : The Sweden Myth | MedPage Today
▻https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/89017

https://clf1.medpagetoday.net/media/images/89xxx/89017.jpg

Mythe, mais la mortalité est devenue très faible.

One point in Sweden’s favor is that while new cases haven’t gone away (about 500 per day recently, up noticeably from a nadir in early September, and more than twice per capita than in the U.S. ), it has been reporting just one or two deaths most days since late July. That’s a (very crude) case fatality rate of 0.4%, versus about 1.75% in the U.S. on the same basis.

Reasons for the difference aren’t clear. Sweden’s testing policy focuses on symptomatic cases and contact tracing. While the latter is considerably more robust than in the U.S., thus increasing the number of asymptomatic cases diagnosed, it wouldn’t explain the fourfold discrepancy in case fatality. Perhaps Swedish healthcare is generally superior; or its COVID death toll is undercounted; or Americans are unhealthier overall ; or the COVID deniers’ favorite, the U.S. overcounts deaths. Data on excess deaths, however, indicate the lethality gap is real. Maybe someday we won’t need to guess at why.

#Suède #covid-19

‘It’s been so, so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash | Science | AAAS
▻https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fier

https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_main_large/public/Sweden-preview.jpg?itok=zX5lzP4f

En #Suède même, le laissez-faire suédois a ses critiques parmi les scientifiques et ces derniers subissent de très grosses pressions.

... within Sweden’s scientific and medical community, a debate about the strategy has simmered and frequently boiled over—in the opinion pages of newspapers, within university departments, and among hospital staff. A group of scientists known as “the 22” has called for tougher measures since April, when it published a blistering critique of the country’s public health authority, the Folkhälsomyndigheten (FoHM). The group, which has grown to include 50 scientists and another 150 supporting members, now calls itself the Vetenskapsforum #COVID-19 (Science Forum COVID-19).

Pas de masques en Suède, où les contaminations continuent de baisser
▻https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/chimie-pharmacie/pas-de-masques-en-suede-ou-les-contaminations-continuent-de-baisser-856016

Dans une Europe masquée, la Suède fait de nouveau cavalier seul. Mais contrairement à de nombreux pays d’Europe qui connaissent une recrudescence des nouveaux cas, comme la France, les Pays-Bas, l’Allemagne ou la Belgique, les données pour la Suède sont en baisse depuis juin.

NatureGate et la fable du confinement aveugle
▻https://diasp.eu/p/11503822

NatureGate et la fable du confinement aveugle

Auteur(s) : Gérard Delépine pour FranceSoir

ANALYSE : Par sa morbidité et sa mortalité la crise du Covid, ne constitue qu’un accident sanitaire comparable aux grandes grippes de l’ère moderne des transports aériens [1]. Elle a cependant réalisé un véritable crash test des institutions démocratiques, de l’économie mondiale, de l’éthique de la recherche et de la fiabilité des plus grandes revues médicales.

▻http://www.francesoir.fr/opinions-tribunes/naturegate-et-la-fable-du-confinement-aveugle

#confinement #coronavirus #covid #covid-19 #covid19 #Lancetgate #Naturegate #epidemie #pandemie #confinementaveugle #suede #paysbas #france (...)

How Did Sweden Flatten Its Curve Without a Lockdown? | MedPage Today
▻https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/87812

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Th[e] response hasn’t changed over time, through the June surge and into today’s decline, so there’s no definitive explanation for the flattening, though, and experts have several theories.

“Swedes in general have changed their behavior to a great extent during the pandemic and the practice of social distancing as well as physical distancing in public places and at work has been widespread,” said Maria Furberg, MD, PhD, an infectious diseases expert at Umea University Hospital in northeastern Sweden.

“During the months of March to early June, all shops were practically empty, people stopped dining with friends, and families stopped seeing even their closest relatives,” Furberg told MedPage Today. “A lock-down could not have been more effective. Handwashing, excessive use of hand sanitizers, and staying home at the first sign of a cold became the new normal very quickly.”

Mozhu Ding, PhD, an epidemiologist at the famed Karolinska Institute, said the decline is “likely to be a combination of measures taken by individuals, businesses and a widespread information campaign launched by the government.”

“Even without a strict lockdown order, many businesses allowed employees to work from home, and universities are offering distance courses to the students,” Ding told MedPage Today. “Individuals are also taking personal hygiene more seriously, as items like hand sanitizers and single-use gloves are often sold out in pharmacies and grocery stores.”

Experts told MedPage Today there weren’t clear data to prove Tegnell’s assertion of widespread immunity in Sweden.

Furberg said there is likely “some sort of unspecific immunity that protects parts of the population from contracting #COVID-19” but it’s not necessarily secondary to #SARS-CoV-2 exposure.

For instance, a study by the Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital recently found that about 30% of people with mild or asymptomatic COVID showed T-cell-mediated immunity to the virus, even though they tested negative for antibodies.

“This figure is [more than] twice as high as the previous antibody tests, meaning that the public immunity to COVID-19 is probably much higher than what antibody studies have suggested,” Ding told MedPage Today. “This is of course very good news from a public health perspective, as it shows that people with negative antibody test results could still be immune to the virus at a cellular level.”

#suède

The effectiveness of lockdowns: Learning from the Swedish experience | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal
▻https://voxeu.org/article/effectiveness-lockdowns-learning-swedish-experience

a lockdown would have reduced the number of infections in Sweden by approximately 14,000 and the number of deaths by about 1,200

#in_retrospect #suède

Swedish Covid Expert Says the World Still Doesn’t Understand - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-28/sweden-s-covid-expert-says-the-world-still-doesn-t-understand

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“Sweden’s approach has been widely misrepresented as doing nothing. It’s not,” [William] Hanage, [associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s School of Public Health in Boston] said. “Given a starting point in which it has been decided an outbreak is inevitable, the question becomes how to mitigate it and preserve health care, and the earlier on in the outbreak you take action to slow transmission, the less intense that action needs to be — initially.”

“Sweden’s strategy, in that sense, has been smarter than those countries’ that encouraged transmission until shutdowns became necessary,” Hanage said. “However, it has come at a great cost in terms of mortality in vulnerable groups...It also needs to be flexible and responsive; if a surge is building, you need to be able to detect it and know what you will do to avert it.”

“As for the overall outcome,” Hanage said, “time will tell.”

#Suède #covid-19

Sweden Says Covid Immunity Can Last 6 Months After Infection - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-21/sweden-says-covid-immunity-can-last-half-a-year-after-infection

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“We don’t see cases of people falling ill twice from Covid-19,” state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said during a press conference in Stockholm. “Hence, our assessment is that if you do get #Covid-19 you are immune, even if you don’t develop antibodies.”

But the agency also said that people deemed to be immune can still act as carriers of the virus in society, and must therefore continue to observe social distancing and hygiene guidelines.

#Suéde #immunité

Le choc et la panique à la rescousse des traités pour fragiliser l’Etat
▻https://www.investigaction.net/fr/le-choc-et-la-panique-a-la-rescousse-des-traites-pour-fragiliser-let

Nos gouvernements vont-ils profiter du contexte de la crise pour passer des réformes impopulaires selon la stratégie du choc dévoilée par Naomi Klein ? C’est ce que redoute Carlos Perez. Auteur de L’Enfance sous pression et d’Au-delà du geste technique, il dénonce les atteintes à la démocratie qui pourraient ouvrir la voie à de nouvelles percées du néolibéralisme. (IGA)

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Comme le souligne Naomi Klein dans son essai « Stratégie du Choc : La montée d’un capitalisme du désastre », les États profitent et se servent de la crise et de la panique pour s’accorder des pouvoirs spéciaux et mettre en place des réglementations liberticides et par la même occasion affaiblir les services sociaux.

La stratégie consiste à profiter du choc et de la désorientation pour faire passer des politiques impopulaires. En voici quelques exemples récents en pleine période de pandémie :

1° En Belgique, le ministre-président flamand, Jan Jambon (N-VA), veut voir davantage de gens au travail, entre autres dans les secteurs de la construction et des titres-services où le mécanisme du chômage temporaire est, à ses yeux, parfois trop rapidement demandé, a-t-il indiqué mercredi 25 mars au parlement flamand1.
On voit bien là un confinement de classes sociales à deux vitesses : déjà qu’ils n’ont pratiquement pas de matériel de protection pour sauver leur propre vie, les ouvriers n’ont pas les mêmes droits face à la pandémie.

2° En France, le Sénat a voté, dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi (19-20 mars), la loi dite d’adaptation au coronavirus (la loi « urgence coronavirus ») à 252 voix pour, 2 contre, et 90 abstentions. « Ce texte, qui acte le report des élections municipales « au plus tard en juin », constitue une attaque importante contre les droits des travailleurs, tant sur le plan social que démocratique. (…)Macron et son gouvernement instrumentalisent ainsi la crise sanitaire, pour faire les cadeaux dont ils rêvaient au patronat ».2 Entré en vigueur en mars, l’état d’urgence était fixé pour une période de deux mois. Il a ensuite été prolongé jusqu’au 10 juillet.

3° Les États-Unis, qui n’en sont plus à une folie près, envisagent « pourquoi pas » (puisque ce pays n’a pas forcément de sécurité sociale) ni plus ni moins que de laisser mourir les anciens dans cette période de Coronavirus qui va effectivement toucher un maximum de personnes âgées. « Sacrifier les personnes âgées pour sauver l’économie » ce sont les propos chocs du vice-gouverneur Républicain du Texas, Dan Patrick.
De plus, ce même pays va utiliser la pandémie pour réduire les libertés individuelles et serrer la vis un cran de plus en annonçant que les personnes qui propagent le virus intentionnellement pourraient entrer dans le champ d’application des lois antiterroristes et être poursuivies au pénal, autant dire presque tout le monde se promenant dans la rue3.

4° Pour couronner le tout, au Royaume-Uni, l’ancien Premier ministre britannique, Gordon Brown, appelle à la création d’un « gouvernement mondial » pour lutter contre la menace actuelle. Un groupe de travail international « veillerait à ce que les efforts des banques centrales soient coordonnés », selon M. Brown, qui souhaite que la Banque mondiale et le Fonds monétaire international reçoivent plus d’argent et de pouvoir.

Sans une minute à perdre les banques sont d’ores et déjà à la manœuvre pour régler les problèmes, quelle ironie !4
Comme on le constate les idées et les projets pour détruire nos droits et nos services sociaux ne manquent pas, même en pleine période de chaos pas un moment de répit chez nos réformateurs libéraux pour placer leurs projets politiques.

Les traités sont en place depuis pas mal de temps, il faut juste la bonne excuse pour les sortir du placard. Le but inavoué reste inchangé : passer toutes les lois liberticides et proposer des traités toxiques qui doivent déréguler l’État.

Si nos gouvernements promettent de renforcer les soins de santé, ils assurent aussi qu’il faudra retrouver l’équilibre budgétaire après s’être massivement endetté, en bonne partie pour « rassurer les marchés ». Des milliards d’euros ont ainsi été déversés pour sauver une finance déjà en crise bien avant la pandémie. Le danger, bien réel, est de voir passer de nouvelles réformes et accords qui, une fois de plus, fragiliseront les plus faibles pour tenter de sauver un système qui profite aux plus riches. Nos gouvernements pourraient profiter de la crise pour passer en force des accords impopulaires, parfois négociés en catimini.

On se souvient comment WikiLeaks avait débusqué l’Accord sur le Commerce des Services (ACS), connu sous son acronyme anglais TiSA (pour Trade in Services Agreement), concocté en douce en 2013 à l’initiative des États-Unis et de L’Australie.

« TISA quatre lettres qui vont changer le monde ou qui font peur ? TISA serait l’accord fondateur du commerce mondial libéré des grandes contraintes des États d’une cinquantaine de pays, dont les États-Unis et l’Union européenne ».

« C’est en 2013 que les négociations TISA ont vraiment commencé. Les négociateurs sont représentatifs de 70% du commerce mondial. Et le traité porte sur le lissage des règles communes, ouvrant ainsi les portes à un desserrement des liens qui entravent les entreprises en activités dans le secteur des services »5.

C’est un marché mondial de 44.000 milliards de dollars, selon le département du Commerce américain. Les services représentent plus des trois quarts du produit intérieur brut (PIB) des pays développés (75% aux États-Unis et 78% dans l’Union européenne).

Mais au plan du commerce international les exportations de services sont bien moins élevées que celles des marchandises et c’est peut-être là que le bât blesse. Il faut libéraliser cette caverne d’Ali Baba seul. Les services de l’État du ressort exclusif du régalien sont exclus de la négociation.

Sinon tout est sur la table : services financiers, commerces de détail, transports maritimes et routiers, conseils, approvisionnements en énergie, santé, éducation, gestion de l’eau, etc. bref tous nos services sociaux sont susceptibles d’être privatisés et libéralisés. Voilà l’imposture qui peut nous tomber sur la tête si nous ne prenons pas le dessus très rapidement sur la peur du moment et repartons sur nos propres revendications chacun dans son secteur. Une doctrine de choc qui spécule sur les catastrophes et qui va encore approfondir les inégalités pourrait nous être imposée.

Dans mon secteur d’activité, le sport, parent pauvre des services sociaux, cette stratégie de dérégulation est depuis bien longtemps en action par le truchement du partenariat public-privé (« PPP ») dans l’investissement de mégaprojets d’infrastructures. Une façon sournoise de socialiser les pertes tout en privatisant les bénéfices, ce sont des millions d’argent public qui sont détournés. 

Si on veut penser à l’après-crise, chacun doit le faire dès maintenant dans chaque secteur et se poser les bonnes questions. Dans le domaine du sport, prendre réellement soin de la population est une urgence que tout le monde a bien comprise. À travers cette crise, qu’est-ce que cela signifie ? C’est à ce stade qu’intervient ma modeste contribution.

Les solutions sont à portée de main et ne vont pas forcément dans le sens des grandes rencontres sportives de prestige qui devraient démarrer très vite et redonner des jeux et du pain à la plèbe pour masquer la tragédie et l’irresponsabilité de nos représentants politiques. 
Ce confinement nous a bien démontré à quel point le sport-compétition est futile et inutile et que l’éducation motrice sanitaire, la culture physique était le meilleur outil à notre disposition pour favoriser et surmonter les altérations physiques et psychologiques dues au confinement, en plus de permettre une meilleure adaptation et résilience individuelle et collective et donc un véritable outil de santé publique.

Si on parle du sport comme outil de santé publique, il faut au contraire et inéluctablement dans ce secteur clé de la prévention s’orienter vers des revendications claires. Le sport n’est pas une marchandise, mais un droit, le droit au bien-être, aux soins et à la santé pour tous et accessible à tous : 

1° Cela commence par une planification intégrée : mettre au service de la population et prioritairement de nos anciens et de nos jeunes une vraie prévention sanitaire. Cela semble véritablement nécessaire comme on l’a constaté dans cette dure épreuve de pandémie où le taux de morbidité critique a été une cause de l’inflation de personnes en danger de mort.

Avec l’aide de tous les professionnels de la prévention, de l’hygiène et de la santé, médecins nutritionnistes spécialistes de la motricité, tous doivent collaborer c’est-à-dire dans les petits clubs et dans les petites structures qui s’occupent de plus de 90% des affiliés dans le sport et pas au service des clubs de première division qui ont des budgets cotés en bourse et qui représentent une infime minorité de personnes. La santé de tous doit passer avant l’argent de quelques-uns. 

2° Il faudrait mutualiser toutes les ASBL qui représentent plus de 90% des affiliés et les organiser en coopératives en y développant pourquoi pas une véritable politique de masse salariale au lieu de la comprimer , ASBL qui bien souvent pour fonctionner ont du personnel bénévole précarisé et instable et où les gens doivent faire don de leur argent et de leur travail. Ce sont des milliers d’heures non rétribuées, en gros ce sont des sous-traitants de l’État paupérisés et marginalisés.

 
3° Même si la mesure peut paraître radicale sur la forme, sur le fond elle est essentielle et empreinte de justice sociale, les multinationales ne peuvent pas avoir la clé de notre santé : réquisitionner toutes les structures de grandes marques « Low Cost » disséminées à travers le pays et les mettre à la disposition du citoyen comme service public pour soutenir les populations dans les quartiers en y incorporant une véritable masse salariale c’est-à-dire des salariés compétents et au service de tous. 

Généraliser la question d’utilité publique au sport qui est un outil d’émancipation, d’hygiène et de progrès social, est la seule démarche logique saine et indispensable, le constat est très clair et largement partagé. Ce secteur, en dehors de la compétition, du tri, de la sélection et de la relégation, est un outil essentiel pour renforcer la colonne vertébrale sanitaire, pour sortir de périodes difficiles voir d’émulation générale. Si l’utopie est le début de la transformation, alors soyons utopiques et préparons notre avenir, l’intelligence collective viendra toujours d’en bas !

Fils d’immigrés espagnols ayant fui le franquisme pour travailler dans les mines de Belgique, Carlos Perez est préparateur physique. Il a notamment animé un centre sportif dans un quartier populaire de Molenbeek. Il y a été confronté à des problèmes récurrents qui l’ont amené à questionner l’impact de notre modèle économique et de notre système scolaire sur la santé des jeunes et des travailleurs. Dans son dernier ouvrage qui vient de paraître chez Aden ►http://www.aden.be/index.php , Carlos Perez lance les bases d’une nouvelle pratique, l’écomotricité, pour un développement durable de l’être humain.

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#néolibéralisme #capitalisme #capitalisme_du_désastre #Stratégie_du_Choc #Angleterre #Belgique #France #USA #ACS #TISA #PPP #Sport #pandémie #covid-19 #coronavirus #santé_publique #low_cost

Entre la Suède et la Norvège, le douloureux retour des frontières : « C’est comme si un rideau de fer s’était abattu »
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/07/10/entre-la-suede-et-la-norvege-le-douloureux-retour-des-frontieres-c-est-comme

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« Comment saboter un pipeline »
▻http://carfree.fr/index.php/2020/07/01/comment-saboter-un-pipeline

Dans un manifeste intitulé « Comment saboter un pipeline, » le chercheur suédois Andreas Malm défend une radicalisation des modes d’action contre le changement climatique. Face à l’aggravation du #Réchauffement_climatique, tous Lire la suite...

#Livres #action_directe #actions #climat #énergie #pétrole #suède #violence