ON THE ARGUMENT THAT SWEDEN HAS MORE DEATHS PER CAPITA THAN HER NEIGHBORING NORDIC COUNTRIES:
It is true that Sweden has had more coronavirus fatalities than other Nordic states. But remember that the lockdown was only intended to buy time. Infection rates are now rising faster in the rest of Scandinavia as things catch up.
In any case, though, so what? The argument for the lockdown was that there was no alternative. For that argument to work, it is not enough for Sweden to lag a bit behind Finland. Sweden would have to stick out like a sore thumb on every graph. It doesn’t.
AS FOR THE ARGUMENT THAT SWEDEN HAS TAKEN A BIG ECONOMIC HIT AS WELL:
As for the argument that the Swedish economy has taken as bad a hit as everyone else’s, it is nonsense. Obviously, a medium-sized country will be affected by a global downturn, as well as by its own voluntary distancing measures.
But Sweden got off more lightly than most. Its GDP dropped by 8.3% in the second quarter of this year (compared to 2019). In the United States, the drop was 9.5%, in Germany 11.7%, in Canada 13.5%, in Britain 21.7%, and in Spain 22.1%. In 2020 as a whole, according to a new paper by Danske Bank, Sweden is expected to see a 3.3% contraction, compared to 4.3% for the U.S., 5.8% for the United Kingdom, and 8.3% for the eurozone.