If you’ve been following COVID news you will have noticed conflicting stories about Sweden and it’s non lockdown approach. One side says Sweden is a basket case and the other says Sweden will eventually be proven right.
On the former side we have Jesse Mulligan and on the latter we have the great Sir Bob Jones. Jesse, by the way, says we should listen to the experts. So what are the experts saying according to Jesse?
People are saying we should be more like [Sweden] – stop trying to keep COVID-19 out, save the economy, and live with the comparatively small number of deaths among people who are mostly elderly.
But this is bollocks.
[…]This is about facts v “reckons”. So here are some facts about Sweden.
First, Sweden’s number of COVID-19 cases is going up. The coronavirus is not under control.
Though deaths are down, Sweden is seeing more infections every day and the graph is going in the wrong direction.
Actually, not according to a Google search of “Covid cases Sweden”:
[…]People like to tell you if we were prepared to lose a few old people that were going to die anyway, we could save the economy.
But Sweden is showing the opposite. Its economy has tanked more than their neighbours who moved to lockdown, and Sweden’s actually more locked down than we are at alert level 1 or 2.
Here Jesse’s experts are being possibly disingenuous. While it’s true that Sweden’s neighbours have done better, Sweden is doing much better than Spain, and better than France, Italy and Germany. Also as the BBC article points out, Sweden’s economy is highly dependent on exports, which have been hit by lack of demand thanks to COVID.
While we bounced out of lockdown, Sweden is in a permanent state of suppression.
You can’t play sport, go to a bar or attend a wedding there – and there’s no sign you’ll be able to in the next year either.
Here Jesse’s experts are simply telling porkies. While group gatherings in Sweden are limited to 50, you can still go to bars, attend weddings, and play sports. Plus keep a safe distance, of course.
But isn’t Sweden heading for herd immunity?
Nah, it’s not even close.
Experts predicted Sweden would have 40 percent immunity by May, but it’s mid-August and it’s still about 6 percent – they need to get to 60 or 70 percent.
Here it gets tricky. Jesse’s experts could well be right, but as another expert, Dr Julian Tang, Honorary Associate Professor in Respiratory Sciences, University of Leicester, points out:
“Yet, if we assume that the Norway and Finland seropositivity rates were similar at the time to that of Denmark (2%, April, Table 2), where similar levels of interventions had been implemented (Table 3), you may well end up with the COVID-19 mortality plots shown in Figure 1b. As these are shown up to the end of June 2020, these also imply that the seropositivity rates for Sweden would be much higher than Norway and Finland at that time, given the number of daily new COVID-19 deaths per million population shown (since the more severe infections are likely to produce seroconversion).
“Ideally, we would really need to see the SARS-CoV-2 IgG seropositivity rates for June/July 2020 to compare the current levels of herd immunity across all these locations.
“So the authors’ conclusion from their title: “Four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden’s prized herd immunity is nowhere in sight” may not be entirely accurate and a bit premature – because we have not seen and compared the updated seropositivity rates for June/July 2020 across these same locations – at least from what I can see presented in the paper.”
Jesse continues …
Those are the facts but here’s a useful fact too. Look at the people calling for us to be more like Sweden – it’s not the experts; it’s talkback radio hosts and newspaper columnists.
They’re no smarter than you, they’re just louder. So, don’t listen to them.
In fact, don’t listen to me either – listen to the experts.
Nope, don’t listen to the experts, look at the evidence. Sure, it’s a lot more work and you have to actually think for yourself but at the end of the day it’s well worth it. Also if anyone challenges you you can answer back without having to reply “the experts say …”
[…]But let’s focus on that stuff and not worry that we’ve got the plan wrong. We’re better than Sweden and we’re officially better than every country on Earth.
If you take into account population I’d say Japan is doing better than us and that’s just one example.
What about the Great Sir Bob? Here is his take on it all:
Back in March on this blog I predicted that when this pandemic is all done and dusted, the Swedish approach will prove to have been the only sensible one. This led to an orgy of halfwits responding, citing Sweden’s infection and death rates, ignoring the critical “when it’s all done and dusted” qualification. That said, over the past month there’s been a swag of articles in the serious foreign media making the same Swedish point I made five months ago. Even the Norwegian Prime Minister, despite Norway’s low infection and fatality figures has now said Sweden was right.
Surely it’s indisputable that every time there’s a fresh outbreak, we cannot keep closing down the nation. Furthermore, we now know enough about the virus to realise this extremism is unnecessary.
Sooner or later the world will realise that Sweden got it right.
Given the evidence, this sounds like the most sensible position to me.
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