Claims about Sweden’s covid lockdown policy are not correct
Mr. Hill makes the elementary mistake of comparing like with unlike.
Swedish society and lifestyle are very different from our own.
What worked there cannot be safely assumed to work here.
Either way, there are serious questions about whether Sweden’s lockdown during the pandemic was anywhere near as effective as some of the wilder right-wing claims in this country would have us believe.
Many in Sweden were certainly and remain very unhappy about it, and point to the much lower death rates in Finland, Denmark and Norway, countries that went into lockdown and which bear more direct comparison.
All of these states have much better funded health systems than we do after years of ideological “austerity” and much more developed social care systems.
Despite that, the pandemic’s fatal effect on nursing homes in Sweden is considered scandalous there.
For us not to have locked in the absence of all the necessary preparations would have been even more disastrous than it was.
As it is, we still failed to deal with a predictable and expected public health crisis in a manner befitting a civilized country.
Barry Tempest
Dorchester