[zosima]

A large part of this confusion has been caused by Tegnell and folkhälsomyndigheten (FHM).

Tegnell and folkhälsomyndigheten (FHM) have clarified their strategy as:

Keep the number of infected people down at any one time to not overwhelm the health system.

Groups at risk for severe disease should quarantine themselves.

But they have also repeatedly indicated that they don't want to stop the spread of infection completely.

And that they are not running a strategy aiming at herd immunity, though when most people have been infected there will be herd immunity.

That sort of communication leads to confusion, as the difference between a strategy that aims for herd immunity and one that will lead to herd immunity, at best is purely semantic.

[alkonaut]

> That sort of communication leads to confusion, as the difference between a strategy that aims for herd immunity and one that will lead to herd immunity, at best is purely semantic.

I think it's a bit more than semantic at least. "use mitigations that are as effective as possible while still being sustainable in the long term". So long as healthcare isn't overwhelmed and R is kept under 1, these mitigations aren't leading to herd immunity because the outbreak is going to disappear before that, most likely.

If you accept an R on or over 1 then you are using a strategy that will lead to herd immunity.

[zosima]

Again I think we are getting into semantics, where there's no reason to not be clear.

If you make R < 1 you are in fact suppressing the disease. However slowly. If you are keeping R around 1 or above, you are mitigating.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172840/

Currently, it seems the disease is being suppressed in Sweden. I have no idea what Folkhälsomyndigheten or Anders Tegnell thinks about that.

[alkonaut]

Of course it’s being suppressed. R has been below 1 since what, mid-April? (Deaths and hospitalizations peaked on apr 24).

[heracles]

I agree a bit, I'm not certain exactly what their game is either. The one thing that feels consistent is the priority to endurance, to push for actions that are sustainable in the long run.

Of course, in the long run we are all dead anyway, so I'm not certain what's best!