sweden and coronavirus: part two

How to tackle Covid has become a political issue as much as a health one:

Jay Doubleyou: the politics of covid

And the country that has given most focus to this debate is Sweden:

Jay Doubleyou: sweden and coronavirus

Two months on, and the debate is hotter than ever...

The libertarian think-tank, the FEE, thinks Sweden has been doing a great job:

5 Charts That Show Sweden’s Strategy Worked. The Lockdowns Failed - Foundation for Economic Education

Sweden Now Has a Lower COVID-19 Death Rate Than the US. Here’s Why It Matters - Foundation for Economic Education

Elon Musk on Lockdowns: ‘Sweden Was Right’! - Foundation for Economic Education

BBC: Sweden’s Economy Is Doing Way Better Than the Rest of the EU During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Foundation for Economic Education

However, the graph the FEE presents is now out of date.

This is from half an hour ago:

Template:COVID-19 pandemic data - Wikipedia

In other words, the numbers are going up - like everywhere else:

Sweden: Students Told To Stop Partying As Coronavirus Cases Rise

Sweden's coronavirus cases keep rising, but official says it is not a second wave | Reuters

This is from today's Time magazine - click on the link below to read the complete piece:

The Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster. It Shouldn’t Be a Model for the Rest of the World

BY KELLY BJORKLUND AND ANDREW EWING

OCTOBER 14, 2020 5:00 AM EDT

Kelly Bjorklund is a writer and human rights activist who has worked on public policy and advocacy with elected officials, civil society and media for two decades.

Andrew Ewing is a professor of molecular biology and chemistry at the University of Gothenburg and a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Swedish COVID-19 experiment of not implementing early and strong measures to safeguard the population has been hotly debated around the world, but at this point we can predict it is almost certain to result in a net failure in terms of death and suffering. As of Oct. 13, Sweden’s per capita death rate is 58.4 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data, 12th highest in the world (not including tiny Andorra and San Marino). But perhaps more striking are the findings of a study published Oct. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which pointed out that, of the countries the researchers investigated, Sweden and the U.S. essentially make up a category of two: they are the only countries with high overall mortality rates that have failed to rapidly reduce those numbers as the pandemic has progressed.

Yet the architects of the Swedish plan are selling it as a success to the rest of the world. And officials in other countries, including at the top level of the U.S. government, are discussing the strategy as one to emulate—despite the reality that doing so will almost certainly increase the rates of death and misery.

Countries that locked down early and/or used extensive test and tracing—including Denmark, Finland, Norway, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and New Zealand—saved lives and limited damage to their economies. Countries that locked down late, came out of lock down too early, did not effectively test and quarantine, or only used a partial lockdown—including Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Spain, Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.—have almost uniformly done worse in rates of infection and death.

Despite this, Sweden’s Public Health Agency director Johan Carlson has claimed that “the Swedish situation remains favorable,” and that the country’s response has been “consistent and sustainable.” The data, however, show that the case rate in Sweden, as elsewhere in Europe, is currently increasing...

Why the Swedish Model for Fighting COVID-19 Is a Disaster | Time

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