Dear Reader:

1. An update on the concern in the scientific community that the virus, SARS-Cov-2, can re-infect recovered individuals: an article four hours ago, www. msn. com/ en-us/ health/ health-news/ recovered-coronavirus-patients-are-testing-positive-again-can-you-get-reinfected reads: “health officials are trying to solve a mystery: why 163 people who recovered from coronavirus have tested positive.. The KCDC (Korean Center of Disease Control and Prevention) has re-investigated three cases from the same family where patients tested positive after recovering, Kwong says. In each of these cases, scientists tried to incubate the virus but weren’t able to- that told them there was no live virus present… RT-PCR test works by finding evidence of the virus’s genetic information-or RNA- in a sample taken from the patient. According to Kwong, these tests may still be picking up parts of the RNA even after the person has recovered because tests are so sensitive… The same theory was posted by one of China’s top respiratory experts, Zhong Nanshan. In a press conference earlier this week, he said that a recovered person can test positive because fragments of the disease remained in their body. “I’m not too worried about this issue,” he added”

– good news then: Cov-2 is not expected to re-infect recovered individuals so soon after recovery.

2. Update regarding the Scandinavian countries where Sweden is the only country of the four that didn’t issue lockdowns and where citizens’ responses to the pandemic is up to them, in four days since my last report, above (April 14):

Sweden reports an increase of 2,377 cases (a 21% increase), an increase of 478 deaths (a 46% increase), 150 deaths per million (a 68% increase). 9% of patients are in serious or critical condition, and 91% are in mild condition (same as four days ago). Sweden’s Daily New Cases graph does not show a flattening of the curve, to me.

Denmark reports an increase of 731 cases (a 11% increase), an increase of 47 deaths  (a 16% increase), 60 deaths per million (a 15% increase); 2% of patients are in serious or critical condition and 98% are in mild condition. Their New Cases graph looks flattening to me (as in the desired flattening of the curve).

Norway reports an increase of 413 cases (a 6% increase), an increase of 24 deaths (a 17% increase), 30 deaths per million (a 15% increase), and their New Cases graph looks very flattening to me.

Finland reports an increase of 520 cases (a 16% increase), an increase of 26 deaths (a 41% increase), 16 deaths per million (an increase of 33%), 4% of patients are in serious or severe condition and 96% are in mild condition. Their New Daily Cases graph looks flattening, but has a very recent spike to it.

My summary of this four day update: Sweden is still leading the way as far as increased number of cases (almost double the increase of Denmark and more than 3 times the increase in Norway, but only slightly more than the increase in Finland. Sweden also leads the way in the increase of deaths, almost 3 times the increase in Denmark and Norway, but slightly more than that of Finland. For some reason Finland is not doing well lately, according to these numbers. The country doing the best of the four is Norway, and the country doing the worst is Sweden.

* An article from April 4 in nationalinterest. org/ blog/ buzz/ Nordic-countries-have-radically-different-coronavirus-strategies-lets-compare, reads: “As of March 28, the reproductive numbers (Ro) for Sweden and Norway are estimated to be 2.47 and 0.97 respectively”, which means that the virus, Cov-2 is 2.54 times more contagious in Sweden than it is in Norway.

“Unsurprisingly, the spread of the virus is also estimated to be among the highest in Sweden and lowest in Norway.. likely reflecting the radically different containment strategies.”

anita