A Warning From Sweden’s Coronavirus Response

Sweden now has among the highest per capita death rates from Covid-19 in the world. Why?

The answer is simple. Sweden was lax in its implementation of protective measures in the face of the outbreak, refusing to implement broad stay at home orders for residents, or to enforce recommendations to wear masks or social distancing measures. Other than the government decision to shut down universities and high schools, compliance to public health recommendations was entirely voluntary.

Early on, my Swedish friends seemed proud of their exceptionalism. They sent many of their children to school without many of the protections that are both in place and under consideration in many other countries. Outside the country, many voiced their praise of Sweden’s “common sense” approach, which they wagered would be less economically destructive than stricter measures and would not lead to any greater number of deaths.

They were wrong. Even the chief architect of the Swedish anti-coronavirus plan is able to admit it. In an interview translated by Reuters, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist told Swedish radio that the country clearly could have done better in fighting the virus and that there was “quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done.” In particular, he said Sweden should have started testing earlier and more extensively and they should have done more to protect older adults in Sweden’s long term care centers, where more than half of all Sweden’s coronavirus-deaths have occurred.

“In truth, I didn’t look through your posting history so if your goalposts have been Dec 2020+ vs May then my apologies. However, they haven’t been pursuing herd immunity officially”

Maybe so, and I won’t bother find the links, or dispute yours, but my recollections is that conversationally they have admitted at times that if their strategy worked their population likely would have more herd immunity, by default; consequentially - “asymptomatic” and “mild” cases they did not try so hard to prevent with lock downs, while intending to give the more vulnerable greater protection and greater care. Intent versus result.

In Sweden, mandates like lockdown etc aren't the domain of the govt but of people like Anders Tegnell: The Swedish constitution prohibits ministerial rule and mandates that the relevant government body, in this case an expert agency – the Public Health Agency – must initiate all actions to prevent the virus in accordance with Swedish law, rendering state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell a central figure in the crisis. The government usually follows agency advice – politicians overruling the advice from its agencies is extremely unusual in Sweden.

And while many Swedes liked the hands-off approach and trust authority figures (and, from what I read, it jived with Swedish zeitgeist), there are many who did not like their approach. It was these anti-hands off people who called it a herd immunity approach, and western media (who probably feared a successful Swedish COVID19 result) latched onto that terminology.

Herd immunity isn't very easy to obtain, which is probably why Dr Tegnell et al didn't push for it as an objective. It does seem to be a soft objective, and Dr Tegnell admitted as much. But with Herd Immunity getting tagged as objective, when the percentage of Swedes with immunity came up at around 7% - way below what some people claimed it would be like 20-40% - then the good Dr did a bit of an apology tour. The high per capita fatality count didn't help, nor that it was chiefly older "defenseless" people.

I would not be surprised if we hear that Dr Tegnell steps down, and some Fauci-like puke takes over and drives the country further into the ground with a Michigan style of dictatorship. And that would be a tragedy.

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