In the end, Sweden did the right thing
What two years ago, when covid-19 first hit these beaches, had our politicians not panicked?
What if the government did what it did every time we were confronted with a deadly virus, such as the Spanish flu or polio? Instead of locking up our schools, churches and companies, the government could simply have informed citizens about the risks of getting sick and urged people to be extra careful with hygiene, stay away from cramped places and protect the vulnerable.
It turns out that there was a country that mostly rejected locks and let life go on as normally as possible in difficult circumstances. That country was Sweden.
There were some restrictions and temporary locks, but they were minimal.
The hero of this story is Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist. He was Sweden’s Anthony Fauci, but unlike the now generally discredited Fauci, Tegnell avoided locks. The international media praised him for not following “science”. At first it seemed that the Swedish live-and-let-live strategy was a miserable failure. Death rates rose higher than in other European countries.
But to their credit, the Swedes ignored the “crazy model builders” like Britain’s Imperial College team, who repeatedly predicted that the number of deaths around the world would be more than actually happened.
Sweden made some mistakes in the beginning. Like many states in the United States, Swedes failed to adequately protect elderly residents in nursing homes, which was a significant reason why deaths in Sweden were higher than in neighboring Norway or Denmark. But Tegnell argued that the bilateral damage caused by shutdowns would outweigh what they do on a universal basis. He was right.
Two years later, Sweden’s death rate in COVID-19 is 1,614 per million people – much lower than the United Kingdom (2,335) or the United States (2,836), both of which had much stricter locks.
Sweden seems to have achieved herd immunity much faster and more thoroughly than other nations. So deaths were higher at the beginning of the pandemic but fell much lower than other lockdown nations in the following months.
What is clear today is that the Swedes saved their finances. This year, it is estimated to be 5% larger than before the pandemic, compared with an increase of 2% for Germany and an increase of 1% for the United Kingdom. In addition, the extra debt that Sweden has had to bear is a fraction of that for lockdown countries. So it will not have to spend decades paying for the cost of shutdowns.
Swedish schools were open without face masks. The test results have risen and there is no talk in Sweden of “lost” years of education.
What is sadly ironic about the history of Sweden is that this should have been the United States. We are the land of the free, not Sweden. We are the nation of hard individualism, not Sweden, with its more socialist economy and collectivist way of thinking. We have more solid constitutional protection to guarantee citizens’ rights against harsh governments.
But politicians from local health officials and mayors all the way up to the top federal medical experts and lawmakers chose deadly decisions to shut down the engines of our economy and lock people into their homes. That policy did irreparable damage that will be felt for many years to come. Those who supported this great mistake must be held accountable.
Sweden’s successful intervention strategy reminds us that we must never again close down our operations and schools. I just pray that we have all learned the lasting lesson before another wave of viruses arrives.