From Deborah, Sept.18, 2021:

There was a change in tone yesterday at the weekly press conference, and one feisty journalist - finally!

The change in tone concerned “the unvaccinated”. Previously there had been menacing talk about “extra restrictions” staying in place for unvaccinated after we fully open up at the end of the month - but now they have clarified this to mean there will be some milder “recommendations” for unvaxxed, for example, to continue to take care to wash hands and be mindful when around older fragile people - ie, very watered down. When a journalist asked about unvaxxed care workers in contact with vaxxed elderly patients the answer was: “yes, we have to think about health outcomes, but we have to balance that with labour rights”

Interestingly, no new graphs were produced to support the unvaxxed-clogging-up-health-care mantra - in part because I suspect with the increase in deaths of over 70s, this may not be true anymore. Also, our hospitalization and ICU numbers are starting to go down from a fairly low level, so hard to work up moral outrage at the moment. They do love to bang on about how the “unvaxxed” tend to be poorly-educated foreigners (how do they have this data?), a bit ungrateful imho, as many were doing important delivery and care work during the pandemic.

The other big news here is that much to my surprise, given previous signalling from Tegnell, Sweden will go ahead with vaccinations for the 12-15 age group. Enter the feisty journalist, who challenged the statement that "20 million children" have received the vaccine worldwide and they have lots of cost-benefit data:

“How many of the 20 million are in the 12-15 age group?”, “I don’t have that data handy”
“How many children in the 12-15 age group are currently hospitalized?”, “I don’t have that data handy, perhaps a few?”. “No, there are no children in the 12-15 age group hospitalized”
“Why aren’t you waiting for the Norwegian research coming out shortly on this issue?"
“We will begin the program in November, so have time to include that data. We have to wait and prioritize adults”.

Otherwise, life here really feels back to normal, aside from omnipresent “stay apart” signs, I hope they are removed at the end of the month. Public transportation is cheek-to-jowl packed. I went to see Dune in a very crowded movie theatre and then had dinner at a very crowded restaurant - where it was hard to get a reservation - people are out having fun again! Even my most worried friends have reappeared.

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