Quote: As their history also tells us, Swedes are not given to mass hysteria, fear, or believing in hasty actions. So, when COVID-19 appeared they examined the threat and dealt with it calmly and logically. Unlike the U.S. and other industrialized countries, they did not lock down their country. Instead, the Swedish government simply banned meetings of more than 50, asked citizens to use social distancing, and asked senior citizens to avoid contact with others as much as they could. Masks were not required or even suggested. Instead, Swedes were asked to exercise, work, keep their businesses open, and lead their lives as if they were experiencing an annual flu season. Schools, shops, restaurants, and industry remained open.
Despite the admiration the media and progressive politicians have for Sweden’s quasi-socialist economy, often urging us to “be more like Sweden,” in this case they savagely lambasted the Swedes as being a danger to themselves and others for not following the advice of medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and vaccine experts like Bill Gates.(expert?) Their selected data analysts also predicted Sweden would suffer an enormous death rate, become a dangerous COVID-19 hot spot and economically implode.
As headlines collected by The Epoch Times newspaper show, the U.S. media has been savage in their criticism of Sweden’s no-lockdown policy:
Sweden becomes an example of how not to handle COVID-19, CBS News
Lack of Lockdown Increased COVID-19 Deaths in Sweden, U of V Newsroom
Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale, New York Times
Sweden Stayed Open And More People Died Of Covid-19, But The Real Reason May Be Something Darker, Forbes
Sweden hoped herd immunity would curb COVID-19. Don’t do what we did. It’s not working. USA Today
Sweden’s coronavirus death toll is now approaching zero, but experts are warning others not to hail it as a success, Business Insider
Lack of COVID-19 Lockdown Increased Deaths in Sweden, Analysis Conclude, Virginia.edu
Sweden COVID-19 Deaths Linked to Failure to Lockdown as Country Prepares for Second Wave, Newsweek
Sweden Tries Out a New Status: Pariah State, New York Times
On the other hand, sources more credible than the U.S. mainstream media are far less dire with their analyses of nations that did not lock themselves down. An article in The Evening Standard (UK) has that attitude. It describes a study in the Lancet’s online journal EClinicalMedicine:
Lockdowns made little difference in the number of people who die from coronavirus, a study has claimed. Researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Texas found that whether a country was locked down or not was “not associated” with the COVID-19 death
“Experts compared mortality rates and cases in 50 badly-hit countries up until May 1 and calculated that only 33 out of every million people had died from the virus… The study found that imposing lockdown measures succeeded in stopping hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, but it did not translate into a significant reduction in death rates.
“Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.”
Whatever differing studies, opinions, and statistics may conclude, the graph below shows the effect that Sweden’s no-lockdown policy has had on the actual number of Swedes who died of COVID-19.
Now approaching zero, the Swedish death rate due to COVID-19 is lower than that of Britain, Spain, and Belgium – all of which locked down. The virus is definitely not raging out of control in Sweden and, in fact, Sweden would have done even better if its national healthcare system had not rationed medical treatment for nursing home patients in the first months of the year, a problem rarely mentioned by U.S. media or progressive critics. Sweden, to its credit, quickly increased its national healthcare system’s limits for seniors.
What did Sweden’s doctors understand before their government decided on a no lockdown policy? The Swedish medical establishment, unlike ours, recognized that COVID-19 is just another member of the flu virus family, whether modified by Chinese laboratories or not. The difference is that the new virus is more communicable, but not more deadly. They reasoned that a lockdown would, therefore, be counter-productive and not lead to the “herd immunity” that occurs naturally when people are exposed to the virus in everyday activities, as has happened in every “flu season” around the world since the 1918 epidemic. Of course, exposure to any flu virus can be particularly dangerous to the elderly or those with existing conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart problems, and asthma.
This is shown in graphs created by J.Kim and posted on 4 August on the Maalamalama news site under “pandemic lockdowns.” The graphs are from data by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Folkhälsomyndigheten, the Public Health Agency of Sweden.
The first graph (below) compares Sweden’s mortality rate for COVID-19 to the U.S. mortality rate for the common flu. In the group of all ages younger than 60, the Swedish mortality rate of COVID-19 was less than 1/3rd of the American mortality rate for the common flu! And, unlike the U.S. common flu mortality rate in the 60-79 age group, the vast majority of Sweden’s COVID-19 deaths occurred in those older than 80!
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