Sweden weathered covid-19 relatively successfully without violating people’s rights or dignity on a mass scale. Things were not perfect in Sweden but they fared better than most. Almost entirely, the government refrained from mandating masks or even recommending them.1 They did not lock down or force people to social distance almost without exception.2 According to a paper published August 23, 2023 by the CATO Institute,
Sweden’s economy got through the pandemic better than comparable countries, and elementary school students have not suffered learning losses. These benefits do not seem to have come at the expense of human health. Remarkably, total excess deaths were smaller in Sweden than in any other European country during the three pandemic years (2020–2022), and the rate was less than half of America’s. In the absence of strict government control, Swedes adapted their behavior voluntarily.
This hands-off approach by the Swedish government was in line with the way of the Swedish people3 and was supported by a majority of Swedes but was presented in the corporate media as “highly controversial” and “a dangerous gamble with human lives.”4 The CATO Institute reported,
The rest of the world wanted to know why Sweden chose to remain open. Swedes thought that the more pertinent question was: Why did other countries close down?…What set Sweden apart was not some strange, unprecedented experiment, but the fact that Swedes did not suddenly and drastically change course…What set Sweden apart was that it stuck to that plan, and from a Swedish perspective, it looked like it was the rest of the world that was engaging in a risky, unprecedented experiment.
All throughout, the corporate media almost often failed to mention that there are differences between the drugs administered in Sweden and those administered elsewhere. Not all of these drugs were the same.
As one might predict, the disease burned hotter in Sweden at first but in the long run, Sweden did better than most. Their hospitals were not overrun. They had too many deaths as they acknowledged (because any amount is too many) but they navigated with relative success.
To be fair, it seems they did better than almost sources reported because of the different ways different nations define what counts as a death from Covid-19. In Sweden, those who died with Covid-19 were recorded as having died from Covid-19. In neighboring Norway they counted much more narrowly.5 It is not fair to compare Sweden’s death count with other nations under these conditions, but the media compared them anyway.
Also, as one might predict, some, including mainstream media, judged prematurely.6Trump did too,
It may not have helped that Anders Tegnell, the official in charge of Sweden’s response to disease outbreaks, said that their Infection Fatality Rate was “not radically different to what we see with the yearly flu”.7 Meanwhile, people were banned from social media for saying the same thing.
It seems some people did not want other people to know this. As a result, many people didn’t know and many still don’t know. Also, many people do not want to know. We’ll see research that suggests that people in France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, UK and USA vastly overestimated the amount of people in their nation who officially died of Covid-19.
Eventually it became apparent that Sweden’s approach worked, but only to a few. To quote a report from UnHerd on April 12, 2022,8
From a human perspective, it was easy to understand why so many were reluctant to face the numbers from Sweden. For the inevitable conclusion must be that millions of people had been denied their freedom, and millions of children had had their education disrupted, all for nothing.
Contrast the approach of Fauci in the USA who said, “that independent spirit, I can understand that, but now is the time to do what you’re told”9 with that of Anders Tegnell who said “I think a number of countries should have thought twice before taking the very drastic measure of a lockdown…that’s what’s experimental, not the Swedish model”10
Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s Head of Epidemiology & Not an Architect
Anders Tegnell, who is both “loved and loathed”11 and “who has received both death threats and flowers”12was “Sweden’s chief epidemiologist and the architect of its light-touch approach to the coronavirus” and “the architect of the country’s no-lockdown strategy” according to Guardian.
At any rate, was Tegnell acting like an architect?
Tegnell’s Respect for Swedes & Fauci’s Contempt for Americans
In reality, it seems Tegnell respected the Swedish way, presiding over Sweden’s response to the flu-19 as Sweden did what Sweden does with minimal interference from the government. It seems the Swedish way was relatively successful compared to most nations. You see, according to Tegnell, the key to Sweden’s success in the Covid-19 situation
was the tradition, it could be done voluntarily, and people are also listening to that because there is a high level of both respect and trust between the population and the government and the agencies. That’s why we could get quite a lot of impact on doing things on a voluntary basis.
Indeed, according to USA Today, “Polls show the strategy is broadly supported by most Swedes.”
The share of Swedes saying that they approved of their government’s COVID-19 strategy was 53 percent in June 2020; it fluctuated between 42 and 62 percent throughout the pandemic and in January 2022 it was back at almost exactly the starting point, at 52 percent. That is more than twice as many as were critical of the strategy—23 percent.
Anders Tegnell said, “I think a number of countries should have thought twice before taking the very drastic measure of a lockdown,” and “That’s what’s experimental, not the Swedish model” according to a report by Reuters on June 25, 2020.
One might say that Anders Tegnell respects the Swedish way. Contrast Tegnell with Fauci. Does Fauci respect the American way or the way of other nations? Fauci said about the USA and the UK, “because each of our countries have that independent spirit, I can understand that, but now is the time to do what you’re told.”
Dr. Fauci (the unmasked person).
As you read on, notice how Tegnell’s approach is described in very different ways from different angles depending on the source and its apparent motive. Some things are murky.
As we’ll see, some media sources will claim that Tegnell acknowledged that their approach was geared towards flockimmunitet (herd-immunity) in a private email exchange though the source making the claim describes the emails for us which leaves us to wonder what they really say. This detail would be notable because, as we’ll see, Tegnell later publicly denied that their goal was herd-immunity. It is unclear how these private emails were leaked or exactly what they stated (or that they exist). In the first article we will look, they described the email exchange, as they state near the end. It would have been much better if they had transcribed them instead. We have only their word, whatever that is worth.
According to Svenska Dagbadet, the Swedish Daily News, on this day, a woman from Jönköping, Sweden returned from abroad. They reported she had been to Wuhan, China and was “doing well.” They also report that according to the government in China, about 10,000 people there were infected and sick and about 200 of them had died. The government ruling China did not reply to offers of help from the WHO and the America’s CDC. Also…
At least what the outside world knew was that the Chinese authorities had isolated the 11 million residents of Wuhan from the rest of China. But while it was no longer possible to fly from Wuhan to Beijing, it was no problem to get from Wuhan to London, New York, Milan or Stockholm.
Now why would the government ruling China allow for the export of the illness while trying to prevent the import of it back into China and to prevent the spread of it within China?
It’s a mystery. . . or just a coincidence. It’s racist to think they would do such a thing on purpose. In fact, it’s racist to say it came from China. Criticism of the government that rules over people in China is racist against the people it rules over.
January 28, 2020
On this day, the woman in Jönköping, Sweden was reported to be slightly ill.
February 1, 2020
Reportedly, the she received medical attention and it was discovered that she had been infected, which would make her Sweden’s first case and 1 of the 130 cases reported outside of China a that time.
herd immunity – accepting that a part of the population is infected with the coronavirus – was early on an important part of the Public Health Agency's strategy.
They report that on that date, March 6, 2020, Anders Tegnell met with Dr. Jan Albert, an expert on infection prevention and professor of microbiology at the Karolinska Institute, Johan von Schreeb who founded the Swedish chapter of Doctors Without Borders and Denis Coulombier who was formerly the head of the outbreak department at the European infection control authority ECDC in Solna.
Jan Albert began to speak: There is an opportunity to act now, he said. Six days earlier, the sports holiday had ended in Stockholm. Many of those who came back from Italy and Austria had brought an infection home with them.
They carried sars-cov-2 – a virus originating in China that gave rise to a mysterious pneumonia-like illness. Jan Albert had helped Region Stockholm make models of the spread of infection and he was worried about what he saw.
Jan Albert apparently told the reporter that in Spain and Italy, the spread of infection was growing exponentially and that this would soon be the case in Sweden as well. The reporter continued,
Then Denis Coulombier took over. He spoke English and said that the sports holiday was a textbook example of what was called an "amplifying event" - an event that brought the spread of infection to a new level.
If any measures were to be introduced, they would be done now.
Imposing restrictions in an epidemic is a matter of timing. If you do it too soon – when there are only a few cases – the epidemic will only start again when the restrictions are lifted. But if you do it too late, the spread of infection has already gone too far for the rate of increase to be pushed down in a meaningful way.
The three men waited anxiously for what Tegnell would say.
Denis Coulombier was quite sure that his, von Schreeb's and Albert's advice would be heeded. The evidence they had presented was so overwhelming.
But then Tegnell answered: There was no need for it.
The Frenchman raised his eyebrows.
“The Frenchman” is Coulombier. He continues,
Anders Tegnell said that they have not yet found any secondary cases in Sweden - people who have been infected by someone in their home country. So there was no community spread in Sweden yet.
Coulombier felt a rising frustration. You couldn't think like that. If you were dealing with a brand new virus, you couldn't demand perfect data before making a decision. You had to go by your judgment and what other experts guessed.
Anders Tegnell's actions were surprising in more ways than one. In epidemiological circles, he was known as the man who had mass-vaccinated the entire Swedish population against swine flu in 2009 and 2010. No other country had vaccinated such a large percentage of the population.
In retrospect, it had turned out to be an overreaction. The flu became mild and was soon forgotten. Instead, hundreds of children and young people had suffered from narcolepsy as a result of the vaccination.
Now - eleven years later - it was as if Anders Tegnell acted in the complete opposite way.
What had happened?
It seems the answer is that they chose to not repeat their mistake with covid-19.
Later they add that in PHAS, the Public Health Agency of Sweden, global outbreaks were tracked and analyzed by the department for public health analysis and data development, managed by Anders Tegnell. They write that it
was responsible for calculating the probability that Sweden was affected by the infection.
There, the assessment was made that it was not possible to use reproduction numbers to calculate the spread of infection. The head of the unit, Lisa Brouwers, wrote in an email to Tegnell that she believed that the classic models did not work on the outbreak of the new virus. It was not a homogeneous eruption, but several local eruptions.
The report goes on to mention how in France, Germany and in
several other countries, various types of measures were introduced to slow down the infection.
In Sweden, nothing happened.
Of all the outsiders who thought things about what the agency was doing, Tom Britton had a special position.
The article explains that Tom Britton was a mathematician in Sweden who had given warning to PHAS regarding consequences of the Corona virus. They write that along with Johan Giesecke, former state epidemiologist and Tegnell's mentor, Tom Britton
started an interdisciplinary network called the Stockholm Group for Epidemic Modelling.
..and on March 6,
Britton sent his first email to Anders Tegnell.
He struck a humble tone.
"Hurry days for you. Here are some views from someone who doesn't have as good a grasp of reality, but on the other hand, models of the spread of infection."
He made no secret of the fact that he thought the Public Health Agency was too passive
they wrote, but added that
Now week 10 was almost over.
Anders Tegnell stuck to his forecast.
Anders Tegnell confirmed in an email in mid-March that FHM has chosen a strategy to allow some spread of infection to take place. Photo: Björn Lindahl Ill: Staffan Löwstedt
Within a few days it was clear that Jan Albert, Denis Coulombier, Johan von Schreeb and Tom Britton were right in their forecasts - and that the Public Health Agency was wrong.
They go on to explain that on March 15, Peet Tüll, former head of the National Board of Health's infection control unit emailed Anders Tegnell, the current head, in confidence.
"Hello Anders, There are three strategies to stop the epidemic," wrote Peet Tüll.
The first option was a total shutdown of society for four weeks.
The second option was to find as many infected as possible, trace all close contacts and put them in a two-week quarantine.
The third option was: "Let infection spread, slowly or quickly, to achieve a hypothetical 'herd immunity'."
Peet Tüll advocated option two. Sweden was still in a favorable position. In addition, no one knew whether the new virus had the potential to circulate among humans in the future. The closely related SARS virus from 2003 did not have that potential. Choosing option 3, on the other hand, would lead to thousands of deaths.
"It appears to me to be a resigned and headless strategy, which I would never have accepted in my previous role."
A few hours later, in the early afternoon, Anders Tegnell replied: "Well, we've waded through this and landed in 3 after all."
Furthermore,
Anders Tegnell wrote to him that options 1 and 2 probably wouldn't work because Sweden probably had an "extensive silent spread".
In nine days, Anders Tegnell had completely changed his mind about the rate of spread of infection.
On March 6, he had told Jan Albert, Denis Coulombier and Johan von Schreeb that there was no social propaganda going on in Sweden. Now, on March 15, he wrote to Peet Tüll that the spread was so high that it was impossible to trace the infection.
Additionally…
Just a week earlier, "herd immunity" had been an obscure epidemiologic term. Soon it would become one of the most charged words in the corona debate. In other countries, the discussion had already begun
and
the big question now became whether Sweden also had a strategy based on herd immunity.
Tegnell denied it. He said it was just a positive side effect of the strategy. It was an answer he came to repeat several times.
However, judging by the emails described above, it is clear that herd immunity was an important part of the Public Health Agency's line in mid-March.
Notice that they wrote about emails they described. They do no more than describe these emails. They write,
When Anders Tegnell before this publication gets the opportunity to comment on the emails and the entire discussion at the beginning of the pandemic, he says that there is a misunderstanding of what the term means.
- It is not about us sacrificing a lot of people to achieve immunity. This model was the only viable one.
Could it be that the contention over whether or not Tegnell really did affirm in private that their goal was herd-immunity is designed to pull attention away from whether or not that goal is desirable? Intentionally or not, it does indeed draw focus away from what is more important.
Their more moderate response to the pandemic is as much about politics as science
and
The coronavirus epidemic in Sweden — with 10 million population — is already relatively advanced: 3,500 certified infected and over 100 dead. But the Government refuses to ‘lock down’ the country as a response to the virus. They are following something closer to the ‘mitigation’ strategy that Boris Johnson’s government initially seemed to favour, before the sudden pivot to ‘suppression’.
Today, Sweden stands alone in Europe. Schools remain open (except for over 16s and universities, which are judged to function well remotely and don’t take key workers out of circulation) restaurants and bars are open (although only for table service to avoid throngs gathering at the bar). Gatherings of up to 50 people are still allowed, and there is much discussion over whether families all over Sweden should travel North for their annual Easter skiing trips at resorts in the mountains — all open for business as usual.
In theory, the difference in approach is a technical one: the Swedish scientists simply take a different view. The Swedish strategy is being led by ‘State Epidemiologist’ Anders Tegnell,
Further on they write,
Sweden’s number of hospital beds per thousand is the lowest in Europe (the UK is the second lowest)
Also,
Tegnell doesn’t like to describe his strategy as ‘herd immunity’ but he talks openly about the inevitability of the disease passing through a large chunk of the population, and even says that containing the disease like South Korea is doing would not even be desirable, since it will surely only come back. His stated goal is to slow the spread of the infection to a manageable pace, and he doesn’t believe a mandated lockdown is necessary to achieve that.
So far, so technical. But look more closely and the difference between the UK and Swedish approaches is as much about politics as science.
Additionally,
First, the fact that they are standing apart is a point of pride as much as concern. There is a note of Swedish exceptionalism, particularly when contrasted with longstanding competitors Denmark and Norway (both of whom have opted for a very thorough lockdown).
Also,
Second, the Government is a centre-Left coalition, which changes everything. Alongside a deep-seated Swedish respect for technical experts, this means that support for the more moderate strategy is considered the enlightened left-liberal position; unlike the UK or the US, the knowledge class are fully on-side. Anders Tegnell himself has a left-of-centre feel about him, making regular reference to the importance of equality in the government’s chosen course. This means, although he continues to meet with criticism, there are no online hoards of political activists demanding a lockdown.
Again, this was early in the panic. At this time, they predicted,
If, at the end of this grisly period, the deaths per capita in Sweden are much higher than neighbouring Denmark and Norway, the more draconian approach will seem to have been worth it; but if the Swedish experience remains roughly in line with those countries, justifying the enforced lockdown will be much harder, and questions with profound consequences will rightly be asked about the decisions of the UK and the wider world.
Closedown, lockdown, closing borders — nothing has a historical scientific basis, in my view. We have looked at a number of European Union countries to see whether they have published any analysis of the effects of these measures before they were started and we saw almost none.
Closing borders, in my opinion, is ridiculous, because COVID-19 is in every European country now. We have more concerns about movements inside Sweden.
Sweden, unlike its Nordic neighbors Denmark and Norway – and virtually every other country in the western world – has resisted extensive lockdown restrictions to stem the coronavirus outbreak
…and that…
Polls show the strategy is broadly supported by most Swedes.
For this piece, they interviewed Anders Tegnell who stated,
we probably had a transmission peak in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago, which means that we are probably hitting the peak of infections right about now. We think that up to 25% of people in Stockholm have been exposed to coronavirus and are possibly immune. A recent survey from one of our hospitals in Stockholm found that 27% of staff there are immune. We think that most of those are immune from transmission in society, not the workplace. We could reach herd immunity in Stockholm within a matter of weeks.
They added,
(Editor's note: The World Health Organization has warned that individuals who have had COVID-19 are not necessarily immune, by the presence of antibodies, from getting the virus again. They might be, but the scientific work hasn't reached the stage where that has been conclusively proved. Tegnell said that, at the population level, if antibodies can't be viewed as an indication of immunity then this undermines the whole rationale for developing a vaccine. "If you can't get population immunity how can we then think a vaccine will protect us?" he said.The precise percentage required for "herd immunity" changes based on the disease. Britain briefly entertained a "herd immunity" strategy before altering course amid a rapidly rising death toll. Britain's chief scientific officer concluded that a figure of 60% might be needed for COVID-19. It could be months before a fuller picture emerges of who remains vulnerable to coronavirus.)
Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell on April 20, 2020 in Solna, Sweden. AFP Via Getty Images
It is important to know that ‘vaccines’ in the case of Sweden is not the same as ‘vaccines’ elsewhere. Sweden did not follow the example of other nations in terms of what drugs to use and who they gave them to. See Sweden against giving EU-approved COVID jab to under-30s by Euractiv from November 3, 2022. Getting back to USA Today’s April 28, 2020 article, they quote Tegnell as stating,
The amount of cases has been stable for the last two-to-three weeks. We believe herd immunity will of course help us in the long run, and we are discussing that, but it's not like we are actively trying to achieve it as has been made out (by the press and some scientists). If we wanted to achieve herd immunity we would have done nothing and let coronavirus run rampant through society. We are trying to keep the transmission rate as low as we can. We have taken reasonable measures without really hurting health care or schools. We are going for a sustainable strategy; something we can keep on doing for months. Coronavirus is not something that is just going to go away. Any country that believes it can keep it out (by closing borders, shuttering businesses, etc.) will most likely be proven wrong at some stage. We need to learn to live with this disease.
Here’s more of the interview…
Have Sweden's voluntary measures led to more deaths more quickly than if it had imposed a mandatory lockdown?
Tegnell: We don't really know yet. What the crisis has shown is that we need to do some serious thinking about nursing homes because they have been so open to transmission (more than a third of Sweden's COVID-19 fatalities have been reported in nursing homes) of the disease and we had such a hard time controlling it in that setting. However, this is only indirectly related to our strategy because the strategy was to protect those people and that part of it did not work out. This is perhaps not a surprise because there has always been a problem with running these homes safely in Sweden going back a long time. That's something we are taking advice on now and that we intend to do better on.
(Editor's note: Sweden has a population of 10 million people, about twice as large as its nearest Scandinavian neighbors. As of April 28, the country's COVID-19 death toll reached 2,274, about five times higher than in Denmark and 11 times higher than in Norway, according to John Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker.)
They quoted Tegnell as stating,
If you compare us to other countries in Europe who have severe lockdowns we are doing at least as good as them and in many cases better. Every country is wondering whether they are doing the right thing. What's happening now is that many countries are starting to come around to the Swedish way. They are opening schools, trying to find an exit strategy. It comes back to sustainability. We need to have measures in place that we can keep on doing over the longer term, not just for a few months or several weeks.
and,
We could reach herd immunity in Stockholm within a matter of weeks.
What about the issue of Tegnell’s statements regarding herd-immunity as a goal? Their report stated that Tegnell
denied that "herd immunity" formed the central thrust of Sweden's containment plan, in an interview with USA TODAY. Yet he also said the country may be starting to see the impact of "herd immunity."
Further on in their article, we find,
What is Sweden's COVID-19 strategy?
Tegnell: We are trying to keep transmission rates at a level that the Stockholm health system can sustain. So far that has worked out. The health system is stressed. They are working very hard. But they have delivered health care to everybody, including those without COVID-19. That is our goal. We are not calculating herd immunity in this. With various measures, we are just trying to keep the transmission rate as low as possible. The amount of cases has been stable for the last two-to-three weeks. We believe herd immunity will of course help us in the long run, and we are discussing that, but it's not like we are actively trying to achieve it as has been made out (by the press and some scientists).If we wanted to achieve herd immunity we would have done nothing and let coronavirus run rampant through society. We are trying to keep the transmission rate as low as we can. We have taken reasonable measures without really hurting health care or schools. We are going for a sustainable strategy; something we can keep on doing for months. Coronavirus is not something that is just going to go away. Any country that believes it can keep it out (by closing borders, shuttering businesses, etc.) will most likely be proven wrong at some stage. We need to learn to live with this disease.
Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown. As of today, 2462 people have died there, a much higher number than the neighboring countries of Norway (207), Finland (206) or Denmark (443). The United States made the correct decision!
The Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, told the Aftonbladet daily that the country’s overall approach “has been right”, but it had failed to protect care homes where half of all Sweden’s Covid-19 deaths have occurred.
Further on,
the policy, which Tegnell has said was aimed not at achieving herd immunitybut at slowing the spread of the virus enough for health services to cope, has been increasingly and heavily criticised by many Swedish experts as the country’s death toll has increased.
Sweden’s 4,468 fatalities from Covid-19 represent a death toll of 449 per million inhabitants, compared with 45 in Norway, 100 in Denmark and 58 in Finland. Its per-million tally remains lower than the corresponding figures of 555, 581 and 593 in Italy, Spain and the UK respectively.
Sweden, which has shunned the strict lockdowns that have choked much of the global economy, emerged from 2020 with a smaller increase in its overall mortality rate than most European countries, an analysis of official data sources showed.
Deaths in Sweden, though, have been eight times higher than in Denmark and 19 times higher than in Norway, even though Sweden is only double each neighbors’ size. The outbreak appears to be continuing to course through their society, even while most other European countries seem to have gotten things under control, at least for now. And because Sweden’s economy is tightly bound to the rest of Europe’s, it also has suffered, although not as badly as others.
They also report,
Swedish leaders also have gone against the tide by eschewing face masks, saying they could make things worse, even as other previously skeptical governments have mandated their use.
“There is a risk of a false sense of security, that you believe that you can’t be infected if you wear a face mask,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told reporters last month.
Also,
Public health officials in Norway and Denmark have come to agree with Sweden’s open-door approach to schools, saying it may not have been necessary to close them for children under age 14 because of limited evidence that they contribute to the spread of the coronavirus.
Later Wednesday, Tegnell appeared to walk back his comments slightly.
“We basically still think that this is the right strategy for Sweden that we are doing,” Tegnell told reporters at a Stockholm news conference, where he was dressed in an olive-green sweater and plain brown pants, as though he had just come in from a long hike. “This is a bit like having an ocean liner and trying to steer it, but with a lag of about three or four weeks.”
The official Swedish death toll rose to 4,468 on Wednesday, a toll of 44 per 100,000 residents, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States stood at roughly 33 deaths per 100,000 residents. Britain, Italy, Spain and Belgium are worse off than Sweden, according to the data. But many Swedes say the best comparison is with their immediate neighbors in Scandinavia, which have been relatively spared, even though they have similar population density, political systems and cultures.
At certain points in May, Sweden had the highest death rate in Europe relative to population.
Swedish public health leaders initially said that even if they could not eliminate the virus from society, they could protect the most vulnerable by managing a slow but steady rate of infection among younger, healthier people. A less-closed-down approach would get them there, they said.
But studies of coronavirus antibodies among the Swedish population have so far proved disappointing. An analysis of 1,104 blood samples taken in late April and early May found that 7.3 percent of residents tested in the Stockholm region had antibodies, a rather limited number given the death toll, scientists said.
Tegnell has said that weeks-old samples would not give an up-to-date picture of antibody levels and that “20 percent plus” have probably been exposed in the Stockholm region by now.
But as even the hardest-hit countries in Europe, such as Britain, Spain and Belgium, reduce their infection numbers and step blinking back into the sun, Sweden appears to remain on a different trajectory.
“You look at everyone else’s curve, it is typical. You go up, you peak, then you go down on the other side. But in Sweden you have a plateau at a pretty high level,” said Bjorn Olsen, a professor of infectious medicine at Uppsala University and one of Sweden’s leading researchers of pandemics, who has been sharply critical of the government’s response.
“I know that many countries looked at Sweden as a good example of an open society. We had a relatively low number of cases. And then it started to skyrocket. We understood absolutely nothing,” he said.
Olsen said the Swedish approach had been spurred by a mistaken belief that covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, behaved like the seasonal flu, which is extremely fast-spreading and contagious. Instead, he said, it appears to concentrate in certain spots and wreak deep devastation.
“I think a number of countries should have thought twice before taking the very drastic measure of a lockdown,”
and
“That’s what’s experimental, not the Swedish model.”
Also
The death rate among Swedish COVID cases has fallen about 70% from a peak in April and Tegnell says some countries that adopted hard lockdowns, like Britain, Italy and Spain, have suffered more.
For him, it is the actions of his Nordic neighbors that are the more baffling. “The question is rather whether they had a reason to shut down at all?” he said.
Its decision to carry on in the face of the pandemic has yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage — a red flag as the United States and Britain move to lift lockdowns.
Furthermore,
This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.
They are clearly complaining when they get around to writing that
More than three months later, the coronavirus is blamed for 5,420 deaths in Sweden, according to the World Health Organization. That might not sound especially horrendous compared with the more than 129,000 Americans who have died. But Sweden is a country of only 10 million people. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.
As we go on we will see that these numbers are questionable to say the least.
“I think to a great extent it’s been a success. We are now seeing rapidly falling cases, we have continuously had healthcare that has been working, there have been free beds at any given time, never any crowding in the hospitals, we have been able to keep schools open which we think is extremely important, and society fairly open — while still having social distancing in place in a way that means that the spread of the disease has been limited.
The failure has of course been the death toll … that has been very much related to the long-term care facilities in Sweden. Now that has improved, we see a lot less cases in those facilities.”
Mortality is hardly an afterthought — so why is Sweden’s mortality rate so high? At around 550 per million of population, it sits just under the UK and Italy but far above neighbouring Norway and Denmark. Dr Tegnell offers a collection of reasons: with its larger migrant populations and dense urban areas, Sweden is actually more similar to the Netherlands and the UK than it is to other Scandinavian countries; he believes the Swedish counting system for deaths has been more stringent than elsewhere; also, countries are at different points in the epidemic cycle so it is too early to compare totals.
Further down…
He believes strongly that eradication — the zero-tolerance approach that is increasingly winning the day in the UK and US — is not a viable option.
“I don’t think that this is a disease that we can eradicate – not with the methods that we have right now. It might be a disease that in the long term we can eradicate with a vaccine, but I’m not even sure about that. If you look at comparable diseases like the flu and other respiratory viruses we are not even close to eradicating them despite the fact that we have a vaccine. I personally believe that this is a disease we are going to have to learn to live with.”
Also…
“Of course we are trying to keep the mortality rates as low as possible, but at the same time we have to look at the draconian measures you are talking about. Are they going to produce even more deaths by other means than the disease itself? Somehow we need to have the discussion of what we are actually trying to achieve. Is it better for public health as a whole? Or is it trying to suppress Covid-19 as much as possible? Because getting rid of it I don’t think is going to happen: it happened for a short time in New Zealand and maybe Iceland and those kind of countries might be able to keep it away, but with the global world we have today, keeping a disease like this away has never been possible in the past and it would be even more surprising if it were possible in the future.”
One type of intervention that does not appear to have adverse effects is encouraging, or mandating, the use of masks. This has become an intensely political issue in the US and more recently in the UK. In Sweden mask use is minimal in almost all settings. Why is he not even recommending use of masks?
“One reason is that the evidence base for using masks in society is still very weak. Even if more and more countries are now enforcing them in different ways … we haven’t seen any new evidence coming up, which is a little bit surprising. The other reason is that everything tells us that keeping social distance is a much better way of controlling this disease than putting masks on people. We are worried (and we get at least tales from other countries) that people put on masks and then they believe they can go around in society being close to each other, even going around in society being sick. And that, in our view, would definitely produce higher spread than we have right now.”
The emphasis on spread of the virus to the exclusion of everything else Dr Tegnell believes is misguided, as the number of cases is less and less correlated to the number of deaths.
“Deaths are not so closely connected to the amount of cases you have in a country. There are so many other things that influence the amount of deaths you have. What part of the population gets hit? Is it the elderly people? How well can you protect people in your long-term facilities? How well does your healthcare system continue to function? How can we improve the treatment in ICUs? All of these things have been changing a lot in the past few months… Those things will influence mortality a lot more, I think, than the actual spread of the disease.”
His belief is that, in the final account, the Infection Fatality Rate will be similar to the flu: “somewhere between 0.1% and 0.5% of people getting infected, maybe … And that is not radically different to what we see with the yearly flu.”
On the controversial question of immunity, he suggests that a larger percentage of the population in Sweden is already immune than antibody studies suggest.
Further down they write,
“What we see right now is a rapid fall in the number of cases, and of course some kind of immunity has to be involved in that as nothing else has changed. That means that immunity affects the R value quite a lot in Sweden today.”
The controversial epidemiologist believes lockdown is ‘using a hammer to kill a fly’. Could he be proved right?
Further on in this piece,
Our meeting comes as things appear to be going his way. As coronavirus cases rise in pretty much all other European countries, leading to fears of a second wave including in the UK, they have been sinking all summer in Sweden.On a per capita basis, they are now 90 per cent below their peak in late June and under Norway’s and Denmark’s for the first time in five months. Tegnell had told me the first time we spoke in the spring that it would be in the autumn when it became more apparent how successful each country had been.
Today, the architect of Sweden’s lighter-touch approach says the country will have “a low level of spread” with occasional local outbreaks. “What it will be in other countries, I think that is going to be more critical. They are likely to be more vulnerable to these kind of spikes. Those kind of things will most likely be bigger when you don’t have a level of immunity that can sort of put the brake on it,” he adds.
Herd immunity is one of the most controversial concepts of the Covid-19 crisis. Tegnell is adamant that it was not Sweden’s goal to allow the virus to run its course until enough of the population had been exposed and the infection rate slowed. But he argues immunity is at least in part responsible for the sharp recent drop in Swedish cases and questions how its neighbours will fare without it. “What is protecting Copenhagen today? We will see,” he adds.
Also,
His dislike of national lockdowns is obvious. “It’s really using a hammer to kill a fly,” he insists. Instead, his approach has been about having a strategy that can work for years if needs be, rather than the constant chopping and changing seen in the rest of Europe.
The author of the piece, Richard Milne states that while in Stockholm, Sweden soon before his article was published, going about his usual routine; going to multiple shops for records and for coffee and, he wrote,
Throughout, I barely see a single person with a mask.
Where we live in the USA, not many people wore masks in public other than employees in stores. Some stores had signs saying that masks were required but many people went maskless even in those stores. My point is that there were places in the USA that were like Sweden with regard to who wore masks in what situations. Consider this portion of the article,
In June, Tegnell described the rush to lock down in the rest of Europe and the US as “it was as if the world had gone mad”. He appears more emollient today, but he still displays signs of disbelief at the approaches of others. Adopting face masks is “more of a statement than actually a measure”. He adds: “Face masks are an easy solution, and I’m deeply distrustful of easy solutions to complex problems.”
Finally,
Our conversation ends with Tegnell again swimming against the tide, and warning that a vaccine — if and when it comes — will not be the “silver bullet”. He adds: “Once again, I’m not very fond of easy solutions to complex problems and to believe that once the vaccine is here, we can go back and live as we always have done. I think that’s a dangerous message to send because it’s not going to be that easy.”
says it’s still not clear to what extent transmission rates are reduced when more people have been exposed to the virus.
It is “very hard” to understand, he said in an interview on Tuesday, after briefing reporters.
Tegnell’s doubts about immunity follow developments after the summer, with transmission rates since then surging in Sweden and elsewhere in the northern hemisphere. Herd immunity comes when enough people in a community have either been infected or vaccinated, and are thus immune. For Covid, the percentage is estimated to range from 55% to 82%.
Data published by Sweden’s national health agency in June indicated that about 10% of people in Stockholm -- Sweden’s worst affected area -- haddeveloped antibodies to Covid-19. As of last week, there’d been more than 70,000 confirmed cases and close to 100,000 positive antibody tests in the Stockholm region, which has a population of 2.4 million.
Deaths remained at a relatively low 1.7 daily fatalities per million people, below the European average of 4.3 deaths.
and
Sweden's death rate per capita is many times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours' but lower than in most European countries that have opted for lockdowns.
Sweden, which has shunned the strict lockdowns that have choked much of the global economy, emerged from 2020 with a smaller increase in its overall mortality rate than most European countries, an analysis of official data sources showed.
Infectious disease experts cautioned that the results could not be interpreted as evidence that lockdowns were unnecessary but acknowledged they may indicate Sweden’s overall stance on fighting the pandemic had merits worth studying.
Also…
Preliminary data from EU statistics agency Eurostat compiled by Reuters showed Sweden had 7.7% more deaths in 2020 than its average for the preceding four years. Countries that opted for several periods of strict lockdowns, such as Spain and Belgium, had so-called excess mortality of 18.1% and 16.2% respectively.
Twenty-one of the 30 countries with available statistics had higher excess mortality than Sweden. However, Sweden did much worse than its Nordic neighbours, with Denmark registering just 1.5% excess mortality and Finland 1.0%. Norway had no excess mortality at all in 2020.
Sweden’s excess mortality also came out at the low end of the spectrum in a separate tally of Eurostat and other data released by the UK’s Office for National Statistics last week.
That analysis, which included an adjustment to account for differences in both the age structures and seasonal mortality patterns of countries analysed, placed Sweden 18th in a ranking of 26. Poland, Spain and Belgium were at the top.
They later state that Tegnell told them that
he believed the data raised doubts about the use of lockdowns.
“I think people will probably think very carefully about these total shutdowns, how good they really were,” he said.
“They may have had an effect in the short term, but when you look at it throughout the pandemic, you become more and more doubtful,” said Tegnell, who has received both death threats and flowers as a token of appreciation.
Other health experts warn that interpreting excess deaths data is fraught with risks of ignoring crucial variables.
“All of us have to be really careful interpreting death data connected with COVID-19, whatever its source - none of them are perfect,” Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Britain’s University of Edinburgh, told Reuters.
“They do raise a question about whether, in fact, Sweden’s strategy was relatively successful. They certainly raise that question,” he said, commenting on data first published in Swedish media and checked by Sweden’s statistics office.
It was later in this article where we found the following figures…
43% of Swedes have high or very high confidence in how the pandemic is being handled, while 30% have low or very low confidence, according to a recent survey.
Sweden’s government and health authority have conceded they failed to protect Sweden’s elderly but maintained they did what they could to suppress the disease, while also taking general health of the population into account.
Sweden’s official COVID-19 death toll is more than 13,000, although some people may have died from other causes than the disease.
on the controversies that have characterized . . . work with reference to risk assessments, facemasks, voluntarism, testing, and the protection of the elderly during the pandemic.
They say that their inquiry demonstrated that the risk assessments of the Public Health Agency of Sweden (PHAS)
were initially overly optimistic and their facemask recommendations in conflict with large segments of the scientific community for an extensive period. Yet, their voluntary measures worked moderately well.
The study concluded,
The investigation has revealed that PHAS' risk assessment regarding the general spread of coronavirus in Sweden was overly optimistic until 10 March, where it mirrored the best‐case scenario envisioned by ECDC but was considerably more positive than WHO's global risk assessments and other expert prognoses for Sweden.
Moreover, this analysis has highlighted the continuous refusal of PHAS' to change its position on facemasks or recommend their use in confined and crowded places for the general public. This was despite burgeoning evidence in favor of this protective equipment. As such, PHAS' facemask policy diverged from the stance of WHO, ECDC, RSAS, and large segments of the scientific studies on this area. Remarkably, an investigation of the 36 studies that informed PHAS' perspective on facemasks reportedly revealed that the vast majority of these publications found that facemasks probably do help to stop the spread of the virus and should therefore be adopted. In spite of this, PHAS did not endorse facemasks for the public until December 23, 2020. As a result, a very limited facemask recommendation was implemented in Sweden on January 7, 2021, applying only to individuals born in 2004 or older on public transportation on weekdays between 7–9 a.m. and 4–6 p.m. This recommendation was still far more restrictive than that of WHO and RSAS.
In terms of the highly publicized issue of voluntarism, the present study has revealed thatthe “hands‐off” approach of PHAS has worked moderately well. The data demonstrates that institutions and a significant proportion of the Swedish population have willingly followed the recommendations of the expert agency. Higher education institutions and upper secondary schools have conducted distance learning, while significant proportions of the elderly have avoided crowded places. Additionally, remote working has increased while traveling generally declined in line with PHAS' instructions. A cross‐country comparison found that the voluntary Swedish approach has been roughly as effective as European countries that adopted restrictive measures late but worse than nations that did so early.
Finally,
Overall, these findings could at least partly explain why the corona pandemic has had such an adverse impact on Sweden compared to many other developed countries thus far. For instance, as on February 17, 2021, the death toll in Sweden amounted to 12,598 while the equivalent numbers in Norway were 607, 725 in Finland and 2319 in Denmark (Statista, 2021).
Note that;
12,598 dead in Swedish people would be 0.12% of the Swedish population (10,538,000 people).
However, according to Reuters, the dead in Sweden added up to 5,646 which would make that 0.05% of the population. That is quite a discrepancy, isn’t it?
Anyway…
607 dead in Norway people would be 0.01% of the Norwegian population (5,474,360 people).
725 dead in Finland people would be 0.01% of the population of Finland (5,546,357 people).
2,319 dead in Denmark would be 0.04% of the population of Denmark (5,910,913 people).
Their conclusion continues…
Furthermore, Sweden was listed among the 11 European countries where the COVID‐19 pandemic has been particularly acute (WHO, 2020g). Finally, Sweden was ranked at the bottom of OECD's report on the COVID‐19 crisis in three categories: (1) “Reduction in populations' mobility over the March–May 2020 period, compared to baseline,” “Number of days required to bring estimated Rt below one,” and “Weekly reduction in the number of new ICU admissions” (OECD/European Union, 2020). These grim outcomes resulted despite risk assessments provided by the expert agency on crisis management, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, who had assessed the risk of Sweden being affected by a pandemic within 5–50 years as “high” in 2013 (MSB, 2013). Whereas Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ranked Sweden as the seventh best‐prepared country in the world in the event of a pandemic and on top among the Nordic countries, just before the global outbreak of COVID‐19 (Cameron et al., 2019, p. 11).
Source ABC Australia. Captioned, “Summer in Stockholm ... it's "lockdown lite". Sweden's strategy for fighting coronavirus has been based around individual responsibility.(Reuters: Stina Stjernkvist)”
Sweden’s top epidemiologist said on Tuesday a rapid decline in new critical COVID-19 cases alongside slowing death rates indicated that Sweden’s strategy for slowing the epidemic, which has been widely questioned abroad, was working.
Also,
Tegnell of the public health agency said a rapid slowdown in the spread of the virus indicated very strongly that Sweden had reached relatively widespread immunity.
“The epidemic is now being slowed down, in a way that I think few of us would have believed a week or so ago,” he told a news conference.
Daily COVID-19 death rates as well as the number of infected in intensive care have been slowing gradually since April, with seven new deaths and no new ICU admissions reported by the health agency.
“It really is yet another sign that the Swedish strategy is working,” Tegnell said. It is possible to slow contagion fast with the measures we are taking in Sweden.”
The slowdown in Sweden matched that in several countries that have accredited it to lockdowns. “We have managed to do it with substantially less invasive measures,” he said.
Sweden’s death toll of 5,646, when compared relative to population size, has far outstripped those of its Nordic neighbours, although it remains lower than in some European countries that locked down, such as Britain and Spain.
September 23, 2021
UnHerd published this video interview with Tegnell…
UnHerd spoke to him back in July 2020, when he defended the lack of mask mandates and was hopeful that widespread immunity would protect the Swedes from a bad winter wave — a hope that turned out to be overly optimistic. “Judge me in a year,” he said.
Just over a year later, on the eve of Sweden releasing almost all of its remaining Covid restrictions on September 29th, Freddie Sayers spoke to him again. His message? On the big questions — whether Covid was something we had to live with, whether schools should be shut — he believes he has been vindicated.
As ever, many thanks to Anders for taking the time.
On vaccinations:
I think the big change, since we talked last time, is really the vaccinations. There, we really found the tool that’s going to make the difference. And all the other things we have tried are not going to be very important anymore, because reaching and achieving a high vaccination level is the one way we can get out of this pandemic. There does not seem to be any other way, really.
Again, keep in mind that Sweden did not follow the example of other nations with regard to what drug(s) to administer and to whom. See here. Let’s get back to the interview…
On winning the main argument:
I think we tried to argue from fairly early on that this is a disease we have to learn to live with… And more and more countries are taking that position, because even with a fantastic vaccine, we can control it, but we cannot eradicate it… We have to accept a certain level of spread in the society. We probably have to accept there’s going to be a few cases in our hospitals, with Covid-19 in the foreseeable future, just like we are accepting a few cases of flu or a few cases of many diseases that we cannot control completely.
Tegnell was also quoted as saying,
if you look at excess mortality, for example, Sweden did not fare very badly at all, maybe four or five from the bottom in the European Union.
Here’s more,
Why did Sweden act differently to other countries?
That was the tradition, it could be done voluntarily, and people are also listening to that because there is a high level of both respect and trust between the population and the government and the agencies. That’s why we could get quite a lot of impact on doing things on a voluntary basis. I think that’s one aspect.
Tegnell admitted that Sweden made assumptions about the level of immunity needed to control the virus that were not attainable.
"There was definitely a need of a much higher level of immunity in a population that can only really shift by vaccination to control this disease in any reasonable manner. That's definitely true — we didn't see that."
He also noted that "high vaccination level is the one way we can get out of this pandemic."
Fact check: not all of the drugs that are called vaccines are the same. Some do not even fit the definition of vaccine. See They Changed the Definition of 'Vaccine'!? by yours truly. Many would question if it is even remotely accurate to claim that these drugs in general are that effective. They continue,
Tegnell defended the decision to let children go to school in Sweden. He argued that children there "have definitely been affected by the pandemic, but to a lot lesser degree than children would have been if we had closed the schools."
February 9, 2022
Associated Press reported that the Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced the reopening of the nation earlier in February. Furthermore, they wrote,
For most of the pandemic, Sweden stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response. It never went into lockdown or closed businesses, largely relying instead on individual responsibility to control infections. While coronavirus deaths were high compared with other Nordic countries, they were lower than many other places in Europe that did implement lockdowns.
They wrote that at that time, Sweden ended its limitation on how the number of people who are allowed to group together in buildings, at gatherings, bars, concerts an so on. Also…
Sweden has halted wide-scale testing for COVID-19 even among people showing symptoms of an infection
…and…
The move puts the Scandinavian nation at odds with most of Europe, but some experts say it could become the norm . . .
Notice that they used the term endemic rather than pandemic. They report that in Sweden and indeed across Europe, infection rates are higher but fewer people are hospitalized due to it. In other words, it’s more like the flu than a deadly bioweapon.
Also,
High vaccination rates in Sweden are creating optimism among health officials and a late 2020 study released Tuesday showing antibodies present in 85% of samples.
Dr. Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School in Britain, said that with a substantial percentage of people vaccinated, “an informed, educated and knowledgeable population” can be trusted to isolate if they show symptoms without the need for “wholesale testing that is not going to be value for money.”
“Sweden is leading the way, and other nations will inevitably follow,” Pankhania said. “We don’t need extensive testing for the sake of testing . . . ”
What if two years ago, when COVID-19 first hit these shores, our politicians hadn’t panicked?
What if the government did what it has done every time we were confronted with a deadly virus, such as the Spanish flu or polio? Instead of locking down our schools, churches, and businesses, the government could have simply informed citizens of the risks of getting sick and urged people to be extra careful about hygiene, stay out of crowded places, and protect the vulnerable.
It turns out there was one country that mostly rejected lockdowns and let life go on as normal as possible under dire circumstances. That country was Sweden.
There were some restrictions and temporary lockdowns, but they were minimal.
The hero of this story is Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist. He was Sweden’s Anthony Fauci, but unlike the now widely discredited Fauci, Tegnell eschewed lockdowns. The international media pilloried him for not following “the science.” At first, it seemed the Swedish live-and-let-live strategy was a miserable failure. Death rates soared higher than in other European nations.
But to their credit, the Swedes ignored the “mad modelers” such as Britain’s Imperial College team, which predicted multiple times that the number of deaths around the world would be more than actually occurred.
Sweden made some mistakes at the beginning. Like many states in the United States, the Swedes failed to protect elderly nursing home residents adequately, which was a significant reason that deaths in Sweden were higher than in neighboring Norway or Denmark. But Tegnell argued that the collateral damage of lockdowns would outweigh what good they do on a societywide basis. He was proven right.
Two years later, Sweden’s COVID-19 death rate is 1,614 per million people — much lower than Britain (2,335) or the U.S. (2,836), which both had much more stringent lockdowns.
Sweden appears to have achieved herd immunity much more swiftly and thoroughly than other nations. So deaths were higher at the start of the pandemic but fell much lower than other lockdown nations in succeeding months.
What is clear today is that the Swedes saved their economy. This year, it’s projected to be 5% larger than before the pandemic, compared to a 2% gain for Germany and a 1% gain for Britain. Moreover, the extra debt Sweden has had to take on is a fraction of that of lockdown countries. So it will not have to spend decades paying for the costs of lockdowns.
Swedish schools stayed open with no face masks. Test scores are up, and there is no talk in Sweden about “lost” years of education.
What is sadly ironic about the Sweden story is this should have been the U.S. We’re the land of the free, not Sweden. We are the nation of rugged individualism, not Sweden, with its more socialist economy and collectivist mindset. We have more solid constitutional protections to guarantee citizen rights against heavy-handed government.
But the politicians from local health officials and mayors all the way up to the top federal medical experts and lawmakers opted for deadly decisions to shut down the engines of our economy and lock people in their homes. Those policies did irreparable harm that will be felt for many years to come. Those who supported this great mistake need to be held accountable.
Sweden’s successful response strategy reminds us that we must never again shut down our businesses and schools. I just pray we have all learned that enduring lesson before another virus wave arrives.
March 9, 2022
It was reported that Anders Tegnell would to step down the following week from his post at PHAS and would take up a post with WHO in Geneva. It was also reported that
He will be replaced by Anders Lindblom, who was most recently the infectious diseases doctor for the Swedish region of Dalarna.
Throughout much of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out for its ostensibly successful effort to beat COVID-19 while avoiding the harsh lockdowns and social distancing rules imposed on residents of other developed nations.
Swedish residents were able to enjoy themselves at bars and restaurants, their schools remained open, and somehow their economy thrived and they remained healthy. So say their fans, especially on the anti-lockdown right.
A new study by European scientific researchers buries all those claims in the ground. Published in Nature, the study paints a devastating picture of Swedish policies and their effects.
“The Swedish response to this pandemic,” the researchers report, “was unique and characterized by a morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable laissez-faire approach.”
Also,
The government’s goal appeared geared to produce herd immunity — a level of infection that would create a natural barrier to the pandemic’s spread without inconveniencing middle- and upper-class citizens; the government never set forth that goal publicly, but internal government emails unearthed by the Swedish press revealed that herd immunity was the strategy behind closed doors.
He was referencing the alleged emails we discussed near the top. Indeed, they link to the same article in Swedish that we translated for you (no thanks to the LA Times). More important than what Anders Tegnell allegedly wrote in a private email is the following part of the LA Times column,
Explicit or not, the effort failed. “Projected ‘natural herd-immunity’ levels are still nowhere in sight,” the researchers wrote, adding that herd immunity “does not seem within reach without widespread vaccinations” and “may be unlikely” under any circumstances.
Yet the projected “natural herd-immunity” levels are still nowhere in sight 1.5 years after the start of the pandemic.
1.5 years after the start would be about the summer of 2021. This paper was published in March of 2022. There’s been a lot more time since it was published and they left out 7 months. They ignore the timespan ranging from the summer of 2021 to March of 2022. The LA Times left out that they left out those 7 months. That’s not all they leave out. In their abstract, they ignore 2021 and 2022, looking only at 2020 when they wrote,
During 2020, however, Sweden had ten times higher COVID-19 death rates compared with neighbouring Norway.
The bottom line is that Swedes suffered grievously from Tegnell’s policies.
and then passingly acknowledge that Sweden did better than the USA and other nations. Also, despite this acknowledgement, they still claimed,
Anti-lockdown advocates continue to laud Sweden’s approach even today, despite the hard, cold statistics documenting its failure.
They necessarily imply that Sweden did not do much better than other nations in terms of achieving herd immunity but then acknowledge that Sweden did better than the USA, for example.
Real-world evidence supporting vaccination against COVID-19 in individuals who have recovered from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is sparse. We aimed to investigate the long-term protection from a previous infection (natural immunity) and whether natural immunity plus vaccination (hybrid immunity) was associated with additional protection.
In their methodology section, they say they looked into 3 different categories of people.
Category 1 - Swedes who received no “COVID-19 vaccine” and who had natural immunity paired together by age and sex to people who received no “COVID-19 vaccine” and who were without natural immunity at baseline.
Category 2 - Swedes who received 1 dose of “COVID-19 vaccine” after having been infected (1-dose hybrid immunity) paired with people of the same age and sex who have natural immunity at baseline.
Category 3 - Swedes who received 2 doses of “COVID-19 vaccine” after having been infected (2-dose hybrid immunity) paired with people of the same age and sex who have natural immunity at baseline.
Keep in mind that the drugs administered as vaccines vary and that what Sweden administered is not the same as what was administered in the USA, for example.
Interpretation
The risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection and COVID-19 hospitalisation in individuals who have survived and recovered from a previous infection remained low for up to 20 months. Vaccination seemed to further decrease the risk of both outcomes for up to 9 months, although the differences in absolute numbers, especially in hospitalisations, were small. These findings suggest that if passports are used for societal restrictions, they should acknowledge either a previous infection or vaccination as proof of immunity, as opposed to vaccination only.
Did you catch that and did it sink in? They recommended that people who were previously infected be considered immune. They also state that
vaccines against COVID-19 induce an immunity that effectively reduces the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection [footnotes]and severe COVID-19 disease including hospitalisation and death. [footnotes] Research also shows that individuals who have recovered from an infection can develop naturally acquired immunity, which seems to be at least as protective as vaccine-induced immunity. [footnote]
Although some countries acknowledge a recent documented infection as sufficient proof of immunity, others do not unless the natural immunity has been supplemented by vaccination, [footnote] so-called hybrid immunity.
Also,
Research also indicates a vaccine-induced immune response in individuals with a documented previous infection, [footnote] suggesting that vaccines in people with natural immunity provide additional benefits, with some support also from published [footnote] and preliminary data. [footnote]
Yet, the strongest argument for the immunisation of people with natural immunity is the scarcity of studies investigating the long-term protection from natural immunity and its protection against severe disease, hospitalisation, and death. [footnotes]
One may be wondering why lack of knowledge about long-term natural immunity and its protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death would be a strong argument for immunization.
At any rate, this study suggests that those who have been infected are immune and that natural immunity is a good option.
April 7, 2022
On this date, Hill published Lessons from Sweden’s controversial COVID-19 strategy: study in which they report on the same study from March 22, 2022 that we looked at above, the one that is wrong by omission. Like the LA Times, they should have presented a study that is representative of what happened. But the study was too selective. To their credit, at least Hill wrote,
a group of experts investigates what happened, especially in the first six months to a year of the pandemic
Were millions of people denied their freedom for nothing?
They go on to discuss how wrong the general public is about how many people supposedly died from Covid. They report that in the Spring and Summer of 2021 a global consultant firm called Kek-
As we were saying before we were interrupted by premature laughter, they are called Kekst CNC, not Kek, and in the Spring and Summer of 2021, they reportedly conducted a study of people in France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, UK and USA in which they were asked questions about Covid and society. They state,
The twelfth and final topic in the survey contained two questions: “How many people in your country have had the coronavirus? How many people in your country have died?” At the same time as increasingly reliable figures were trickling in with regard to the actual deadliness of Covid-19, there was now a study of the number that people believed had died.
In the US, the average guess in mid-July was that 9% of the population had died. If that had been true, it would have corresponded to almost 30 million Americans deaths. The death toll was thus overestimated by 22,500% — or 225 times over. In the UK as well as in France and Sweden, the death toll was exaggerated a hundredfold. The Swedish guess of 6% would have corresponded to 600,000 deaths in the country. By then, the official death toll was more than 5,000 and inching closer to 6,000.
Reporting the average guess was perhaps a little misrepresentative, as some people replied with very high numbers. In the UK, the most common answer was that around 1% of the population had died — in other words, a lot less than the 7% average. But it was still a figure that overestimated the number of deaths more than tenfold. At this point, 44,000 Brits had been registered dead — or around 0.07% of the population.
The breakdown of the numbers further showed that more than a third of the Brits responded with a figure of over 5% of the population. This would have been like the whole population of Wales dropping dead. It would have meant many times more Brits dying of Covid-19 than during the entire Second World War — civilian and military casualties included.
The war rhetoric brandished by the leaders of the world had had an impact. Their citizens really did believe they were living through a war. Then, two years into the pandemic, the war ended. There were no longer any foreign journalists at the Swedish Public Health Agency’s press conferences. No Americans, Brits, Germans, or Danes asked why schools were staying open, or why the country hadn’t gone into lockdown.
In large part, this was because the rest of the world had quietly begun to live with the new virus. Most of the world’s politicians had given up hope on both lockdowns and school closures. And yet, considering all those articles and TV segments that had been produced about Sweden’s foolishly libertarian attitude to the pandemic, considering the way some data sources had been referenced daily by the world’s media, this sudden lack of interest was strange.
For anyone still interested, the results were impossible to deny. By the end of 2021, 56 countries had registered more deaths per capita from Covid-19 than Sweden. With regard to the restrictions that the rest of the world had put so much faith in — school closures, lockdowns, face masks, mass testing — Sweden had more or less gone in the opposite direction. Yet its results were not noticeably different from those of other countries. It was beginning to become increasingly clear that the political measures that had been deployed against the virus were of limited value. But no one spoke about this.
From a human perspective, it was easy to understand why so many were reluctant to face the numbers from Sweden. For the inevitable conclusion must be that millions of people had been denied their freedom, and millions of children had had their education disrupted, all for nothing.
Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden's light-touch COVID response, will not be joining the World Health Organization despite stepping down as Sweden's chief epidemiologist earlier this year to do so.
Sweden initially chose a different disease prevention and control path during the pandemic than many other European countries. In June 2020, the Swedish Government established a National Commission to examine the management of COVID‐19 in Sweden. This paper summarises, and discusses, its findings.
Under the Results section, he wrote,
By 25 February 2022, when the final report was published, 15,800 individuals, 1.5 per 1000 Swedish inhabitants, had died after COVID‐19. The death rates were high in spring 2020, but overall excess mortality in 2020–2021 was +0.79%, which was lower than in many other European countries. The Commission suggested that the voluntary measures that were adopted were appropriate and maintained Swedes' personal freedom during the pandemic. However, more extensive and earlier measures should have been taken, especially during the first wave.
He concludes,
The Swedish COVID‐19 Commission felt that earlier and more extensive pandemic action should have been taken, particularly during the first wave.
As we’ve said, it seems that Sweden’s approach was far from perfect. To that end, let us look at a section of this study dedicated to what seems to have been the darkest aspect,
Flaws in elderly care
The Commission concluded that the high number of deaths among older people in Sweden, especially during the first wave, was probably due to high overall viral transmission in society. However, other contributory factors included structural deficiencies in residential care and lack of pandemic support for staff. While the Government and its agencies launched several measures in spring 2020 to protect older people, these were often too little and too late. Early reports stated that older people were particularly susceptible to the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus and severe COVID‐19 disease. COVID‐19 guidelines for municipal residential care and for people with dementia were both issued in April 2020, but the NBHW did not recommend extensive testing for people living in residential care facilities until May 2020.
Sweden's elderly care had a number of flaws, including fragmented organisation due to a large number of actors with unclear responsibilities,
He went into some detail about procedural flaws related to care for the elderly before writing,
Elderly care had been neglected and under‐resourced in Sweden until the pandemic, but this also applied to many other countries. In addition, working in elderly care was not seen as an attractive occupation.
An other flaw they mentioned was related to the mental health of children in Sweden due to a deficiency in social and athletic activity.
children also paid the price during the pandemic. According to the Commission, Swedish children indicated that cancelled leisure activities and not being able to play with their peers were major drawbacks of the pandemic. Several reports have shown that social isolation had a significant impact on the mental health of young people.
His conclusion is as follows,
This review of the National Commission reports on Sweden's COVID‐19 approach confirms that Sweden initially chose a different approach to COVID‐19 than many other European countries. The Commission suggests that voluntary measures, rather than mandatory measures and lockdowns, were suitable and safeguarded more personal freedom during the pandemic. However, the Commission has also indicated that more extensive and early measures against COVID‐19 should have been undertaken, primarily during the first wave of the pandemic.
Preben Aavitsland says the neighbouring country was unfairly demonised
Preben Aavitsland. Credit: SvD
One of Norway’s leading epidemiologists has claimed that criticism of Sweden’s Covid strategy was excessive. Preben Aavitsland, who served as Director for Surveillance at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, argued that other countries “hid their own insecurities by scolding Sweden” because the country “undermined their mantra that we had no choice”.
In comments made to Swedish paper SvD, Aavitsland explained that while Norway’s “harder line” may have prolonged the lives of old people, he added that the model of “long, hard lockdowns” that was inspired by Italy and China made Sweden “the contrast they did not want”. Sweden “forced them to explain to their citizens why they acted as they did,” the epidemiologist explained. “For these people, it would have been better if everyone had done the same”.
Unlike the rest of Europe, Sweden largely avoided implementing mandatory lockdowns, instead relying on voluntary curbs on social gatherings, and keeping most schools, restaurants, bars and businesses open. This made Sweden an outlier, turning the country’s then-chief state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell into a hate figure, as he received death threats and urges to resign throughout the pandemic. This month, he told his successor to “have ice in your stomach”.
Despite avoiding strict lockdowns, SvDclaims that Sweden’s excess mortality was the lowest out of all EU nations, including Nordic countries. While this claim is disputed, numerous studies have shown Sweden’s excess death rate to be among the lowest in Europe. Figures by the World Health Organisation, for example, show that in 2020 and 2021, the country had an average excess death rate of 56 per 100,000 — compared to 109 in the UK, 111 in Spain, 116 in Germany and 133 in Italy.
But Aavitsland stressed that a pandemic response could not be judged on excess deaths alone. “We also have to look at how people’s physical and mental health has been affected, school results and drop-outs, unemployment and social economy and other things,” he said. He went on to compliment the Swedish Public Health Agency’s communication over Norway’s, saying that it created less fear. “They gave more advice than threatened punishment,” the epidemiologist noted.
Fear may have been one reason as to why there were so few protests from the Norwegian population, which surprised Aavitsland. He said that it was “almost a little scary” what the population “accepts without protesting”. “We forbade families to visit their grandmother in the nursing home, we denied men attendance at their children’s births, we limited the number who were allowed to attend church at funerals,” he said. “Maybe people are willing to accept very strong restrictions if the fear is great enough”.
The main difference between Sweden’s strategy and that of most other countries was that it mostly relied on voluntary adaptation rather than government force.
Also,
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden stood out from other countries, stubbornly refusing lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. This was highly controversial and many outsiders saw it as a dangerous gamble with human lives. From a Swedish perspective, however, it looked like it was other countries that were engaging in a dangerous experiment.
This paper describes Sweden’s policies and the reasons for its choices, and it presents some preliminary conclusions about the results. Sweden’s economy got through the pandemic better than comparable countries, and elementary school students have not suffered learning losses. These benefits do not seem to have come at the expense of human health. Remarkably, total excess deaths were smaller in Sweden than in any other European country during the three pandemic years (2020–2022), and the rate was less than half of America’s.
In the absence of strict government control, Swedes adapted their behavior voluntarily.
Introduction
Sweden was different during the pandemic, stubbornly staying open as other countries shut down borders, schools, restaurants, and workplaces. This choice created a massive interest in Sweden, and never before have the foreign media reported so much about the country. Many outsiders saw it as a reckless experiment with people’s lives. In April 2020 President Donald Trump declared that “Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown.”1
Here’s a visual,
The author continues,
In the New York Times, Sweden’s laissez faire approach was described as “the world’s cautionary tale” and in the same pages Sweden was described as a “pariah state.”2
There remains a popular perception in the rest of the world that Sweden’s strategy resulted in a human disaster, and many people think that Swedish decisionmakers came to regret the strategy and, in the end, adopted lockdown policies similar to those in other countries. This paper dispels those unwarranted assumptions, describes Sweden’s actual pandemic policy, explains why the country followed that course, and presents what we know about the results so far.
Furthermore,
Most countries, including Sweden’s neighbors Norway, Denmark, and Finland, rapidly closed their national borders. Finland even erected internal borders. Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell rejected border closures as being “ridiculous” and unscientific because the virus is already within a country that considers such a step, and restrictions would just hurt the economy.5 Still, when the European Union closed its borders to non‐Europeans in March 2020, being a member of the EU, Sweden had to follow.
Despite these exceptions, Swedes experienced a very different pandemic. There was no state of emergency, no curfews, no orders to stay at home or shelter in place. Young Swedes were encouraged to continue with their sports training and events. Schools remained open, and so did offices, factories, restaurants, libraries, shopping centers, gyms, and hairdressers. As a rule, borders were not closed to fellow Europeans and public transportation kept running.
There were no mask mandates and not even a recommendation for the public to use masks—until January 2021, when they were recommended on public transportation during rush hours (7–9 a.m. and 4–6 p.m. on weekdays). While some other governments forced school children to wear face masks, Tegnell even warned against making children wear them, saying that “school is no optimal place for face masks.”6
One can see how Sweden’s path diverged from that of its peers by consulting the latest Human Freedom Index, which has data through 2020. During this first year of the pandemic, Sweden’s freedom rating only fell by 0.19 on a 10‐point scale, compared to 0.49 in Britain and 0.52 in the United States. The only rich country that saw a smaller decline in freedom than Sweden was Singapore, at 0.16.7
Why Was Sweden Different?
The rest of the world wanted to know why Sweden chose to remain open. Swedes thought that the more pertinent question was: Why did other countries close down?
…and…
What set Sweden apart was not some strange, unprecedented experiment, but the fact that Swedes did not suddenly and drastically change course. For decades the World Health Organization had planned for a pandemic, and lockdowns of entire societies were never part of the discussion. Instead, plans focused on protecting the most vulnerable but trying to keep society as a whole up and running. What set Sweden apart was that it stuck to that plan, and from a Swedish perspective, it looked like it was the rest of the world that was engaging in a risky, unprecedented experiment.8
A team of researchers tried to explain the timing of lockdown decisions in different countries by looking at the spread of the disease, the demographic structure, and the capacity of health care. They could not find any relationship except with one factor: what neighbors did. After China locked down and Italy followed suit, other countries that adopted lockdowns basically just copied each other.9
This is not science, but it makes political sense. If you follow the herd, and suffer on par with everybody else, then you can say that there was nothing much that could be done to have prevented that suffering. But if you act differently from everybody else and face abysmal results—worse than those of other countries—then you put yourself in a terrible position as a politician. This is why Sweden was such an irritation for other governments, and at times it seemed like some rooted for a Swedish disaster. The British health minister, conservative Matt Hancock, became so fed up with what he called the “f—–g Sweden argument” that he told one of his aides “Supply three or four bullet [points] of why Sweden is wrong.”10Why—not if.
But the question remains: Why did Sweden not turn when everyone else turned? Several explanations have been suggested. Perhaps social distancing comes naturally to introverted Swedes, so that we don’t have to be compelled to engage in it. A joke that made the rounds was that “Finally no more 2‑meter rule, now Swedes can go back to the usual 5‑meter distance.” But fellow Scandinavian introverts in Denmark and Norway chose lockdowns (albeit not as prolonged as those in the rest of Europe and the United States).
Another explanation is that a society with a high level of social trust might rely on voluntary behavioral changes instead of resorting to mandatory ones. True, but again,
Also,
In some other countries, public health authorities thought more along the Swedish lines but were overruled by politicians who faced a demand to show strength. For example, the Danish and Norwegian agencies were opposed to closing borders and schools, but political considerations trumped their concerns. Even in Britain, where the popular perception is that the government eventually agreed to a lockdown because scientific advisers called for it, it has been revealed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s powerful political adviser Dominic Cummings pressed the government’s independent scientific advisers to recommend faster and broader lockdown measures.12
Remember how we were all supposed to follow “the” science? I’ve been putting quotes around “the” in “the” science because there is no such thing. Scientists often disagree. Sometimes they are paid or pressured to yield certain findings. Sometimes scientists or teams of scientists disagree for any number of reasons. The author continues,
There are important considerations that could be threatened by a lockdown: the loss of learning, community, production, and livelihood. People don’t just suffer from viruses, they also suffer from loneliness, mental illness, domestic abuse, unemployment, and other effects of stringent lockdowns. People can’t live under a lockdown forever, and therefore they will begin to suffer and eventually break the rules, and when that happens the virus will break through. Countries that shut down will not avoid deaths, but just delay them, at a high social and economic cost. Since it was not known when a vaccine would be available, or how effective it would be, it was important to come up with ways of living that could be sustained for a long time.
Here’s more,
How Did It Turn Out?
Analysts from other countries—and even some Swedish scholars—predicted disaster. One influential Swedish model, inspired by the famous British Imperial College study, predicted that Sweden would have 20,000 COVID-19 patients needing intensive care by early May 2020 and a need for intensive care units around 40 times over capacity. By July 1, Sweden would have 82,000 COVID-19 deaths.20 The Imperial College model predicted between 66,000 and 90,000 deaths without mitigation efforts, and a peak demand of intensive care unit patients 70 times higher than capacity.21
Sweden’s public health agency planned for a worst‐case scenario that was much less pessimistic, suggesting a peak of around 1,700 intensive care patients in the middle of May. Still, that was more than three times the pre‐pandemic capacity in health care.
Also,
But even this early in the pandemic it was obvious that the dire projections by Swedish and other modelers were far off the mark. By early July, Sweden had not suffered the 82,000 deaths that the models had assumed, but 5,455—less than 7 percent of what was predicted. And evidence suggests that those people did not die because the health care system was overwhelmed. Even during the peak, when models had expected 40 to 70 people to fight over every hospital bed, there was an excess capacity of intensive care units of around 20 percent. In Stockholm, a new field hospital was built to house hundreds of patients, but journalists were left outside waiting for the first patients to arrive in vain. It was dismantled before it even had to open.
Furthermore,
By June 14, 2023, Sweden had suffered a total of 2,322 COVID-19 deaths per million people. That was still almost 40 percent higher than Norway, Denmark, and Finland, but nowhere near 5 to 10 times their death rates as in the beginning of the pandemic. And it is a lower rate than that of Southern Europe—and much lower than the United States and the United Kingdom, which both had more than 3,300 deaths per million people (see Figure 1).28
Despite the rapid invention and global rollout of a vaccine, contrary to the expectations of the Swedish public health agency, it was proven correct that Sweden’s comparatively dismal performance at the start of the pandemic was mostly a result of other countries having managed to delay cases and deaths, rather than having prevented them. Sweden suffered most of its deaths in 2020, while the Nordic neighbors and many other countries got them in 2022.
Excess Deaths
However, the number of COVID-19 deaths is not as simple a statistic as it seems. Some countries did not count deaths outside hospitals. When patients died at home or in nursing homes they were not automatically included in the data sets. In Sweden, by contrast, authorities automatically checked the lists of people who were infected against the population register, so everyone who died and had tested positive for the virus was counted as a COVID-19 death, even if they died from a heart attack or a fall. So in effect, Sweden reported many who died with COVID-19, not of COVID-19.
Even in a country as similar to Sweden as Norway, deaths were counted as a COVID-19 death only if the attending physician concluded that COVID-19 was the cause of death and called the country’s public health agency to report it. “It is possible that Norway could have a higher number of registered deaths if we counted as Sweden,” said a doctor at Norway’s public health agency in April 2020.29
This is why so many scholars and decisionmakers insisted that it was necessary to wait for a broader perspective and look at excess deaths, that is, the number of deaths over a period compared to a previous period or an expected value. Now we have those numbers. When you look at excess deaths during the three pandemic years, 2020–2022, compared to the previous three years, you get a very different picture. According to this measure, Sweden’s excess death rate during the pandemic was 4.4 percent higher than previously. Compared to the data that other countries report to Eurostat, this is less than half of the average European level of 11.1 percent, and remarkably, it is the lowest excess mortality rate during the pandemic of all European countries, including Norway, Denmark, and Finland (see Figure 2).30
These numbers, though surprising, are not controversial. These are the numbers that each country reports for themselves. The crude excess death rate, however, is a blunt measure. It does not take into consideration the population structure, such as age and health. It treats deaths from COVID-19 just as it does deaths from traffic accidents and suicides. Yet it is a way of getting around the problem that countries count COVID-19 deaths differently, and it is an important corrective to the assumption that Sweden willingly sacrificed lives on a massive scale.
The numbers can be adjusted for what was to be expected from population predictions, even though such data does not exist for all countries, and the choice of method leads to varying results. When Statistics Sweden compares excess deaths with projected deaths based on population trends and age, at 4.2 percent Sweden still has fewer excess deaths than its neighbors, but the difference with Denmark (4.3) and Norway (4.5) becomes insignificant. Finland’s rate is almost twice as high, at 8.2 percent.31
The result is slightly different when the website Our World in Data uses the Human Mortality Dataset and compares excess deaths with the previous five years rather than the previous three years. Then Denmark has a lower rate than Sweden, with Norway close to Sweden and Finland higher than Sweden.32The Economist has its own method for measuring excess death and comes to a similar conclusion.33
Despite differences in methods and results, all these studies suggest that in terms of COVID-19 fatalities, Sweden is a typical Nordic country. That is startling, since in comparison with its neighbors, Sweden has higher population density, more overcrowded households, and a higher share of foreign‐born people (a group that turned out to be particularly vulnerable).
Also,
And of course, the Nordic region did very well in an international comparison. According to Our World in Data, Sweden’s excess death rate was 5.6 percent compared to 10 percent in Britain and 14 percent in the United States. With The Economist’s method, Sweden’s excess death rate was around 180 per 100,000 people, compared to 345 in Britain and 400 in the United States.
After all was said and done, astonishingly, Sweden had one of the lowest excess death rates of all European countries, and less than half that of the United States.
Note also that,
a 2022 review of 1,052 studies of suicide found that a majority of studies reported an increasing trend in the number of suicides during the pandemic.45 In Sweden, there was no increase in suicides, but rather a small decrease from 2019 to 2021.46
As couples under stay‐at‐home orders were forced to remain under the same roof, instances of domestic abuse increased. A study of the United States and six other countries concluded that lockdowns increased domestic abuse by around 8 percent.47The same method has not been used to analyze Sweden’s situation, but the reported number of cases of abuse against women and girls by a present or former partner declined by around 25 percent between 2020 and 2022.48
We should be careful with these data since they are preliminary; international comparisons are difficult and the long‐term effects of lockdowns are still unknown. However, they all indicate that Sweden did much better than other countries during the pandemic.
Conclusion
The independent Swedish Corona Commission, formed by the government after pressure from parliament, was critical of many aspects of how authorities acted during the pandemic, but the overall conclusion was positive:
The choice of path in terms of disease prevention and control, focusing on advice and recommendations which people were expected to follow voluntarily, was fundamentally correct. It meant that citizens retained more of their personal freedom than in many other countries … [and] many countries that have pursued [another] approach have experienced significantly worse outcomes than Sweden, indicating at present, at least, that it is highly uncertain what effect lockdowns have in fact had.49
When choices were made about pandemic strategies, the end result could not be known, and yet many politicians and journalists in countries including the United States, Britain, and Norway attacked Sweden fiercely for choosing an unusual and more liberal path. Why was that? Preben Aavitsland, Norway’s state epidemiologist, has recently come up with an explanation:
I think it may be because everyone was unsure of what was the right response to the pandemic. And yet, almost everyone at the same time chose to do long, hard lockdowns early on, inspired by Italy which in turn was inspired by the communist dictatorship China.
Sweden became the contrast they did not want. Sweden undermined their mantra that we had no choice and forced them to explain to their citizens why they did what they did. For these colleagues, it would have been better if everyone had done the same. They hid their own insecurities by lambasting Sweden.50
Now we know more. It seems likely that Sweden did much better than other countries in terms of the economy, education, mental health, and domestic abuse, and still came away from the pandemic with fewer excess deaths than in almost any other European country, and less than half that of the United States—the country where both the president and major newspapers repeatedly used Sweden as a cautionary tale. The conclusion is uncomfortable for other governments. It was not Sweden that engaged in a reckless, unprecedented pandemic experiment, but the rest of the world. This experiment did not turn out well compared to the one country that did not throw out the manual. Millions of people were deprived of their freedoms without a discernible benefit to public health.
This is a lesson for the next disaster—whatever it is, and whenever it strikes. Harsh pandemic restrictions were often defended with reference to the precautionary principle—do not take a particular course of action before an abundance of evidence is available. But there was no evidence indicating that drastic restrictions made sense. In times of uncertainty it doesn’t seem like a precaution to put all your policy eggs in one basket and add to the burden of a health emergency by undermining communities, the economy, and education. Instead, it seems like negligence. Sweden’s alternative model was to rely more on recommendations, have faith in voluntary adaptations to the pandemic, and try to keep as much of society up and running as possible. Based on what we now know, this laissez faire approach seems to have paid off.
It was not Sweden that engaged in a reckless, unprecedented experiment, but the rest of the world.
Furthermore,
Considering the amount of attention paid to Sweden during the pandemic, it is strange that there has been so little follow-up. How did the Swedish experiment turn out?
Also,
But Swedish authorities counted everyone who died and had tested positive for the virus as a Covid-19 death, even if the cause of death was a heart attack. In effect, Sweden reported many who died with Covid-19, not of Covid-19 — which means that the disparity between its mortality rate and those in southern Europe and the U.S. is even more pronounced than it appears.
When you look at “excess deaths” — defined as the number of deaths compared with a previous period or an expected value — during the three pandemic years, 2020–22, compared with the previous three years, Sweden’s excess-death rate during the pandemic was 4.4 percent higher. Compared with the data other countries have provided, this is less than half of the average European level of 11.1 percent, and, remarkably, it is the lowest excess-mortality rateof all European countries.
There are different ways of adjusting for age and previous trends, and with some methods, Denmark beats Sweden to first place, but all methods show that Sweden had one of the lowest excess-death rates of any country during the pandemic. America’s excess-death rate was more than twice as high.
This is a remarkable finding. Swedes turn out to have adapted their behaviors to the pandemic, just as others did, but in a voluntary way, which gave us opportunities to adjust for individual conditions and needs. Individual responsibility worked.
So it was not Sweden that engaged in a reckless, unprecedented experiment, but the rest of the world, and that experiment turned out to be a disaster: Millions of people were deprived of their freedoms, and children were denied schooling, without a discernible benefit to public health.
September 4, 2023
In Trump Was Wrong: Sweden Did It Right from EconLib, we see reiteration of what we’ve seen above but it is interesting to note that the focus here is to point out that Trump’s approach and Seden’s approach were somewhat opposite and that Trump was wrong while Sweden was right.
Why the title of my post? Because President Donald Trump, like most of the establishment, favored coercive measures early on. On April 30, 2020, Trump tweeted, “Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown [sic].”
How would the COVID-19 experience have turned out had there been no government-imposed states of emergency, no mask mandates, no orders to shelter in place, and no shutdowns of schools, restaurants, offices, and gyms?
CLOSING
We may add updates here, but for the most part, we have come to the end here. Remember so that we are not doomed to repeat past mistakes.
There were no mask mandates and not even a recommendation for the public to use masks—until January 2021, when they were recommended on public transportation during rush hours (7–9 a.m. and 4–6 p.m. on weekdays). While some other governments forced school children to wear face masks, Tegnell even warned against making children wear them, saying that “school is no optimal place for face masks.”
Regarding exceptions to this, as reported by Johan Norberg for the CATO InstituteSweden during the Pandemic (Aug 29, 2023) that,
The most restrictive was that public gathering and events were limited to no more than 50 participants in March 2020. This included theater, cinema, concerts, lectures, religious meetings, demonstrations, sporting events, and amusement parks, but not workplaces, shopping centers, and private gatherings. In November 2020 this limit was reduced to eight people, then gradually lifted starting in May 2021 until it was fully removed in September 2021.
In April 2020 the government banned private visits to elderly care homes. Bars and restaurants were ordered to offer table service only and the space between tables had to be increased. In November 2020, alcohol sales after 10 p.m. were banned, and by the end of the year, the deadline was advanced to 8 p.m. This rule was terminated in June 2021.
The Public Health Agency of Sweden recommended that secondary schools and universities switch to distance education between March and June 2020, and again in December 2020 until early January 2021, but preschools and elementary schools stayed open throughout that time.
As a society, we are more into nudging: continuously reminding people to use measures, improving measures where we see day by day the that they need to be adjusted. We do not need to close down everything completely because it would be counterproductive.
There are other examples regarding this throughout the main body.
the number of COVID-19 deaths is not as simple a statistic as it seems. Some countries did not count deaths outside hospitals. When patients died at home or in nursing homes they were not automatically included in the data sets. In Sweden, by contrast, authorities automatically checked the lists of people who were infected against the population register, so everyone who died and had tested positive for the virus was counted as a COVID-19 death, even if they died from a heart attack or a fall. So in effect, Sweden reported many who died with COVID-19, not of COVID-19.
Even in a country as similar to Sweden as Norway, deaths were counted as a COVID-19 death only if the attending physician concluded that COVID-19 was the cause of death and called the country’s public health agency to report it. “It is possible that Norway could have a higher number of registered deaths if we counted as Sweden,” said a doctor at Norway’s public health agency in April 2020.
This is why so many scholars and decisionmakers insisted that it was necessary to wait for a broader perspective and look at excess deaths, that is, the number of deaths over a period compared to a previous period or an expected value. Now we have those numbers. When you look at excess deaths during the three pandemic years, 2020–2022, compared to the previous three years, you get a very different picture. According to this measure, Sweden’s excess death rate during the pandemic was 4.4 percent higher than previously. Compared to the data that other countries report to Eurostat, this is less than half of the average European level of 11.1 percent, and remarkably, it is the lowest excess mortality rate during the pandemic of all European countries, including Norway, Denmark, and Finland (see Figure 2).30
These numbers, though surprising, are not controversial. These are the numbers that each country reports for themselves. The crude excess death rate, however, is a blunt measure. It does not take into consideration the population structure, such as age and health. It treats deaths from COVID-19 just as it does deaths from traffic accidents and suicides. Yet it is a way of getting around the problem that countries count COVID-19 deaths differently, and it is an important corrective to the assumption that Sweden willingly sacrificed lives on a massive scale.
