Name:   GoneFishin - Subject:   SWEDEN VS USA and 19 Date:   4/28/2020 11:02:23 PM

Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency (USATODAY) What’s your take on the US strategy?

Tegnell: I don’t know it well enough but it still seems to me that the Americans let coronavirus go too far before any real strategy came into place. One of the real big problems in the beginning was the lack of testing. I’m also not really sure how well the U.S. health system can change as dramatically as we in Sweden have been able to, for example. We have almost double the intensive care capacity that we had a couple of weeks ago. Being centrally organized and steered (as part of a state-funded system) allows for greater flexibility in changing the health system. I’m not sure how well that can be done in the U.S. with all the private actors and insurance firms. It may make it more difficult to handle this kind of situation.

Here are 2 charts....first compares Sweden and other Nordic countries with similar demographics but different behavior towards 19. The other shows deaths per million population for Sweden and USA.