by George J. Dance
Lockdown advocates hate Sweden, for good reason. Back in March, Europe (not to mention the rest of the world) seemed to face a choice between mass lockdown or mass death. Only Sweden and Britain resisted the pressure to confine their societies and shut down their economies (and British resistance crumbled in two weeks). Immediately Sweden was condemned for its risky "experiment" with its citizens' lives. (Never mind that nation-wide lockdown was actually the novel, untried experiment.)
Predictions were dire. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College estimated that 80,000 Swedes would die – and that was before the forecast collapse of the country's health care system (which was the real fear driving the lockdowns). Modellers who looked at the latter scenario found even more deaths, as in this study's summary:
The mass death never happened. Yet that has not stopped the pro-lockdown media from pretending it has, giving us lurid stories about the "COVID-19 disaster" of Sweden's "shocking death toll," "the highest number of COVID-19 deaths per capita in Europe," even "one of the highest per-capita rates of coronavirus death in the world." And the false narrative continues: In its latest iteration, even the Swedes have recognized the danger of letting people work, shop, and visit friends. This week, Business Insider reported:
That tragedy and scandal should be investigated, in Sweden and in those other jurisdictions; not to assign blame, but to figure out how to prevent such a tthing from ever happening again. If the lockdown advocates are interested in helping in that goal, their assistance is welcome. But if they are only interested in propagandizing for their new pet social engineering scheme, thanks but no thanks.
Lockdown advocates hate Sweden, for good reason. Back in March, Europe (not to mention the rest of the world) seemed to face a choice between mass lockdown or mass death. Only Sweden and Britain resisted the pressure to confine their societies and shut down their economies (and British resistance crumbled in two weeks). Immediately Sweden was condemned for its risky "experiment" with its citizens' lives. (Never mind that nation-wide lockdown was actually the novel, untried experiment.)
Predictions were dire. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College estimated that 80,000 Swedes would die – and that was before the forecast collapse of the country's health care system (which was the real fear driving the lockdowns). Modellers who looked at the latter scenario found even more deaths, as in this study's summary:
Our model for Sweden shows that, under conservative epidemiological parameter estimates, the current Swedish public-health strategy will result in a peak intensive-care load in May that exceeds pre-pandemic capacity by over 40-fold, with a median mortality of 96,000 (95% CI 52,000 to 183,000).Now it is July, and there have not been 96,000 deaths from COVID-19 in Sweden – or 80,000 – or even the low-ball estimate of 52,000. There have been 5,400, in a population of 10 million. For comparison, Quebec has 5,500 COVID-19 deaths in a slightly smaller population (8.5 million). Nor, as the historical chart makes clear, is the country on track to reach 52,000 deaths anytime soon:
COVID-19 deaths in Sweden, 11/3/20 - 29/7/20 - courtesy statista.com
The mass death never happened. Yet that has not stopped the pro-lockdown media from pretending it has, giving us lurid stories about the "COVID-19 disaster" of Sweden's "shocking death toll," "the highest number of COVID-19 deaths per capita in Europe," even "one of the highest per-capita rates of coronavirus death in the world." And the false narrative continues: In its latest iteration, even the Swedes have recognized the danger of letting people work, shop, and visit friends. This week, Business Insider reported:
Sweden's prime minister orders an inquiry into the failure of the country's no-lockdown coronavirus strategyNotice that Lofven does not himself mention "lockdown" (despite the word's prominence in the article). There is a reason for that, though you have to read to the end of the article to discover it: he was not criticizing the country's "no-lockdown policy," but a different part of the national strategy:
Sweden's prime minister has ordered an inquiry into the country's decision not to impose a coronavirus lockdown after the country suffered thousands more deaths than its closest neighbours.
- Sweden has launched an inquiry into its no-lockdown policy after thousands of coronavirus deaths in the country.
- Sweden now has the fifth-highest per capita death rate in the world with a larger death toll than all of its neighbours' combined....
"We have thousands of dead," Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven said at a press conference on Wednesday, while admitting that the country's handling had exposed Sweden's "shortcomings," The Times of London reported.
"Now the question is how Sweden should change, not if." (stress added)
The inquiry announced by Lofven will first consider why approximately half of Sweden's deaths have taken place in its care homes, The Times of London reported.Precisely: Just like in Quebec (and Ontario, and many U.S. states), Sweden's policy failed to protect the vulnerable elderly in nursing and long-term-care homes. That failure was a tragedy and a scandal, but it cannot have been caused by the country's "no-lockdown policy," since the same failure occurred in multiple jurisdictions that did lock down.
"We did not manage to protect the most vulnerable, the elderly, despite our best intentions," the prime minister said.
That tragedy and scandal should be investigated, in Sweden and in those other jurisdictions; not to assign blame, but to figure out how to prevent such a tthing from ever happening again. If the lockdown advocates are interested in helping in that goal, their assistance is welcome. But if they are only interested in propagandizing for their new pet social engineering scheme, thanks but no thanks.
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