@amigadave

Yes there is indeed a max limit to the amount you get, far from everyone gets 80% (indeed not the rich CEO’s ), I should perhaps have mentioned that. Right now the SEK is extraordinarily weak to the USD (as well as to the EUR), but by more “normal” exchange rates the cap in absolute amounts should measure slightly below $100 USD per day. The percentage or cap level itself isn’t the new thing, that’s the normal level of “sick salary” as we call it (it’s also the same money you get per day when staying at home with your sick kids younger than 12 years old, which is an unquestionable right as a parant of any gender, as well as what you get the first 390 days (could be split by mother/father, and prolonged by lowering daily amount to, say, 75% per day for the parent staying at home) after having a newborn or adoptive child (counted by weekdays (5 days per week, not 7)) and after that you get 90 more days at ridiculously low rate).

What’s new here is the fact that they dropped the first qualifying day of sickness *without* pay (thus lowering the threshold *considerably* IMHO to go home *at first noticeably symptom*) and that they have prolonged the time until you need a doctor to verify your illness for further payments up to 21 days (no questions asked). But you couldn’t of course translate this money figure straight off to American standards, because our costs of living is very much higher due to very high taxes, including a 25% VAT on many (but not all) goods. But the important part is that most peoples personal economies are kind of *tuned* so that you could get by without greater efforts for a shorter period of time with “sick salary”. Just cut back on the the restaurant visits that month.

Anyway, this was among the first and earliest responses the Swedish authorities made in our local corona outbreak. But maybe it was what meant the most? The idea was to make it easy for people to *take personal responsibility* for *our common* problem. As mentioned in other posts above there are many things they haven’t done yet, like shutting down schools. Believe me, this has been heavily debated. But the official line is that actions like that early on might have been a cosmetic sign of political strength, but it was deemed to have big negative impact on society (without actually affecting the outbreak much), including the healthcare system, where nurses and doctors would have been forced to leave work in order to take care of their own kids at home (the traditional help from grandparents being a huge *NO*, since they are in the high risk group that needs to be protected), thus reducing the capacity of hospitals when capacity would be needed the most. The authorities also factored in that reducing people’s liberties *early on* would reduce the populations willingness to volunteer and to cooperate when it was needed the most. The fear has been that after a few couple of weeks of curfew, people will have had it and start doing all kinds counterproductive stuff.

Honestly, the Swedish health care system wasn’t ready, not prepared. There has been a race. Extra help from volunteering retired doctors and nurses, as well as from med students. All planned non-critical surgeries has been delayed. Two military field hospitals has been deployed (not yet used). I saw on the news that (now unemployed) aircraft cabin service personnel are being quick-schooled into simpler health care work. Automotive industry workers has been redirected into ventilator production. Clothing companies like H&M producing protective gear. Etc.

The goal of all efforts has been to “flatten the envelope”, to *delay* (not to prevent) the peak in order for the health care system to cope.

There is a delay of some 14 days of every action, and it’s still too early to draw any conclusions from the last 4-5 days of rather positive developments, but for whatever it means, this was from the news today:

(Click!)


(Edit: The source of info at the lower right reads: "John Hopkins University")

Y-axis: "Antal döda/miljon invånare" = "Number of deceased/millions of citizens"
X-axis: "Antal dagar" = "Number of days"

"döda" = "dead"
"dag" = "day"

"Italien" = "Italy"
"Spanien" = "Spain"
"Tyskland" = "Germany"
"Sverige" = "Sweden"

It was also said that *about now* will be the most effective time to add more offensive actions. Preparations has been made, including to shut down schools.

(Edit #2: Thanks for your concerns about my family! We are all OK. )

[ Edited by takemehomegrandma 31.03.2020 - 04:08 ]