As an American, I have no place to judge how other countries are handling or mishandling their pandemics. America, as a country, is riddled with coronavirus. The selfishness, the short-sightedness and the absolute dumbf–kery of Americans has been revealed during the pandemic. All that being said, Sweden knows that their strategy sucked too. Sweden kind of stood alone in Europe as adopting a more hands-off approach to shutdowns and quarantines, and I’ve heard that very few Swedes were wearing masks, and there was no national mask mandate for months. There was some talk of Sweden aiming for herd immunity. But after eight months, Swedes now completely regret their coronavirus strategy. And now the two most attractive Swedish royals have the virus:
Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip and his wife Princess Sofia have tested positive for coronavirus. The pair, aged 41 and 35, are suffering ‘light flu symptoms’ and are isolating at their home in Stockholm with sons Prince Alexander, four, and Prince Gabriel, three. King Carl XVI Gustaf, 74, and Queen Silvia, 76, will now be tested as a precaution, a royal spokesman said, along with Crown Princess Victoria, 43, and her husband Prince Daniel, 47.
Prince Philip and Princess Sofia’s diagnosis was first reported on Thursday, a week after the royals gathered for the funeral of Walther Sommerlath, the queen’s brother. The funeral was attended by fewer than 10 people, a royal spokesman revealed, and precautions were in place throughout the ceremony. Tests were also carried out on all attendees before the gathering took place and all came back negative, tabloid Aftonbladet reported. Contact tracing is now underway within the royal household to find the source of the infection, and test anyone they came into contact with. The royal family doctor has recommended that all royals be tested as part of the contact tracing.
It is unclear exactly when the royal pair tested positive, but a spokesman said Sofia is swabbed as part of her work at Sophiahemmet – a private hospital in Stockholm. She has been pictured donning scrubs while treating coronavirus patients at the hospital amid Sweden’s outbreak.
Sweden is currently in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus that is among the fastest-growing outbreaks in Europe. The country, which until now has taken a soft-touch approach to fighting the disease, has been forced to rush in lockdown measures as cases have spiralled. Sweden’s seven-day average case figure now stands at 4,867. That figure is more than four times what it was at the height of the first wave, when a lack of testing led to cases being under-reported.
I mean… I would think that Sofia caught the virus from her work in the hospital, then gave it to her husband and who knows who else. Swabbing every day will not catch every positive case (neither will taking temperatures to enter a building). There are false positives and false negatives, especially with rapid testing. Anyway, I feel sorry for Sofia and Carl-Philip. At least Sofia was *trying* to do some good pandemic work, unlike most royals throughout Europe.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I feel like Swedes compared with Brits and Americans get a lot more trust from their government to ‘behave/be sensible’ hence the strategy. That and they have a great healthcare system which can give countries a higher sense of security in their ability to provide beds for people.
Greece for example recognised early on that it’s hospitals wouldn’t be able to cope and so immediately locked down despite very few cases back in March.
I agree with this. It’s certainly easier to not impose as many rules when you have a good health care safety net. However, I also remember Swedish citizens posting here that in reality there were more restrictions than we were led to believe. In any case, the virus just doesn’t care. Kudos to Sofia for her volunteer work. Hopefully, she and her family recover soon.
That just shows that you can’t count on peoples common sense.
Sweden has one of the highest infection rates in Europe and over 6000 people died. Sweden’s way didn’t work.
Thank you.
I refuse to judge anyone who gets this virus. My son’s live in gf is a nurse’s assistant in a nursing home. She caught the virus from a patient who caught it from a visiting family member who was asymptotic and passed the nursing home’s screening procedures before visiting. And my son tested positive this morning although he also has no symptoms. So far the kids have no symptoms and their pediatrician said he won’t test them until they do but just treat it as if they are positive and all hunker down for the next 10 days. I have been super cautious and haven’t seen them in six weeks since I returned to work.
me neither and thank you Ohpioneer – I had been home for 12 days when I got myself tested and had a positive result. I got it from my teen daughter who was asymptomatic – I got her tested because I hadn’t been anywhere and she had very slight nasal congestion for 2 days a bit before I developed a cough. Hers came back positive. My other daughter and husband (who had slept in the same bed as me for days) were negative. Our kids are in school here (Canadian prairies) and have masks and socially distance, but their classes range from 34 kids to 43 kids and they are closer together than they should be.
We did everything right – limited our cohorts, I only grocery shopped in the early mornings, we have thieves oil everywhere and use it. It is frustrating, but I am sure it was not intentional and was spread through school (despite our very own Covid deniers saying kids can’t spread it).
I live in Canada, and my mother got someone else’s result from a city 100kms away, my close friend couldn’t make it to her testing appointment and got a positive result sent to her even though she didn’t even get a test, and another who got a positive result and then was sent another notice 4 days later that it was a ‘false positive”. After hearing about these incidents first hand, I can absolutely say that the testing is flawed. Far more people are walking around with it who are asymptomatic than we know and thus could infect us and others are being told they are positive but they’re not. I’ll follow the rules, but I’m really doubting the accuracy of numbers here.
“I refuse to judge anyone who gets this virus. ”
And rightly so.
My husband and I were among the first among our friends and family who took this seriously back in February. We stopped going out and didn’t meet with anyone basically. We wore gloves and face coverings to the store and we changed to “clean” clothes after had been outside. We also cleaned all groceries and mostly ordered amazon fresh. People thought we were crazy and paranoid. We also got the corona virus on April 1st, or at least my husband showed his first symptoms around April 4th. We don’t know how or from who, but we were so careful and still got it.
Just wanted to say… compare the looks on these smokeshows (his mother and his wife both commoners) and the average look of the British Royal Family…
Inbreeding is one helluva drug.
King Carl Gustav of Sweden has the same great grandparents as BOTH Prince Philip and The Queen. (Actually, it’s their great great grand parents.) So you’re not wrong.
Shallow note- this couple is gorgeous. The best looking royal couple around, imho.
Then you haven’t seen Felipe and Letizia. Or Princess Madeleine all on her own (Chris appears to be a sweetheart but he isn’t a looker).
Aw this is unfortunate. Princess Sofia has been doing some serious volunteer work, correct? Gosh they are a stunning couple.
I’ve been very impressed with her. She is the only royal i know of who got a real front line job and actually did anything useful.
Most royals seem to be more on the level of- I guess we’ll have to cancel our luxury vacation – look how we’re sacrificing.
She has a job that involves scrubbing.
Good for her for not being a useless twit.
she put all the Royals to shame!
I can’t imagine daily swab testing. I had it done once and it hurt like crazy for days afterwards. I”m not coming out of my cocoon for anything until it’s time for a vaccine.
They don’t stick it that far up your nose now. I got a test in the summer and it was crazy deep but I had another one a couple weeks ago and they only stuck it up halfway.
It depends on where you go/who does your test. My teenager was exposed, so our entire family was tested. My internist is part of a hospital-based practice, so I had to go to the hospital for my test – I thought they were trying to scrape my brain out. The teenager went to their pediatrician’s office. They were nice and only went halfway up.
we have had throat swabs and they are not bad at all.
just fyi, I’m hearing from an ER MD friend that the virus has mutated and is more contagious than earlier strains, so just when we’re most vulnerable w the holidays and the cold, it’s easier to get even with masks on, esp if indoors and together for more than a few minutes. It’s so hard to stay vigilant still but she says the virus is sneaky and will look for any in, any weakness, mine is my parents but I’ve set v clear boundaries w virtual visits only. anyway, happy holidays and stay safe everyone.
That’s unfortunate and hope they recover soon. I remember over the summer so many articles written about Sweden’s approach to the virus, that made it seem that their policy was the envy of Europe and what they were doing seemed to be working instead of full lockdown and mask mandates.
I know this is not the point…but…he might be the most attractive man I have ever seen in my entire life.
Pretty much any country that gets inundated with cases is irresponsible. When the world first heard of this virus (if one actually reads the news) it seemed it was serious. When it was announced that an entire city would be quarantined it was pretty obvious that this was a vicious virus. Add to the fact that 11 million people were in that city, the army was going to be patrolling, as well as being stationed throughout to make sure people did not get out. Then reading it was other cities as well and constructing 2 hospitals to handle all the cases. Abandoned buildings were also constructed to handle all the possible patients. All together there were almost 50 million people who were quarantined and almost 40 thousand ore beds added to the Chinese healthcare system. If I knew this so did the governments. Especially western countries, all dropped the ball. Back when It was announce Sofia would do this work, I figured she would be infected at some point. Hope all will recover with no lasting side affects.
I got tested for antibodies (past and present) and it came back negative. I paid for it myself as I was in the midst of a very strong flu and my health care provider was handling 12 hour virtual assessment bookings. I finally was told to get swabbed as antibodies tests can give false negatives… result was negative, too. However, now swabbing can throw a false negative, too?
When will this nightmare end?
Sweden has great universal healthcare and a way healthier general population than here in the US and they still suffered. As an American I’m so sick of people not taking this seriously and refusing masks. We are a country of crappy to no healthcare, horrible diets and tons of diseases we gave ourselves from eating crap and neglecting our health. Of course this pandemic was going to be awful here and still people can’t just wear a mask and stay the fuck home. It’s a never ending nightmare thanks to our stupidity.
Is it just me or is there an enormous distance between his shoulders and the top of his head? This guy has got quite a noggin.
@Midge
I scrolled back up and holy cow you are absolutely correct. How did I never notice that?
It’s not the Swedes’ fault that we’re selfish dumbasses but I heard SO many people quoting the Swedish system as to why we shouldn’t/didn’t need to wear masks here. Of course this was pushed by Fox and other media of that ilk.
Every third death in Sweden right now is Covid related. Fox should mention that too. And over 240,000 cases with a population of only 10 million people is A LOT.