It’s now clear that the Covid doomsayers got Sweden completely wrong. The country hasn’t merely not done badly in terms of mortality; it’s done exceptionally well. Between January 3rd 2020 and June 18th 2021, the country had negative excess mortality – it actually saw fewer deaths than usual.
Of course, for those who believe that lockdown is all that stood between the NHS and an unstoppable tidal wave of Covid patients, this result does not compute. ‘But its neighbours did even better!’ they shout.
Yes, the other Nordic countries had excess mortality that was even more negative. But this response doesn’t even come close to salvaging the case against Sweden.
First, it was mainly through border controls, not lockdowns, that the other Nordics avoided a major epidemic. And this strategy probably wasn’t open to Sweden anyway, due to its larger size and greater connectedness.
Second, it’s one thing to argue lockdowns are needed to prevent a very large rise in mortality; it’s quite another to argue they’re needed to ensure that mortality falls by a large amount.
The ‘neighbours argument’ basically amounts to the claim that Sweden should have undertaken the greatest infringement of civil liberties in modern history to ensure that mortality was 8% lower than usual, rather than 2% lower than usual. Needless to say, this isn’t going to cut it.
Sweden proved its critics wrong on mortality. But what about the economy? Did the epidemic that Sweden stubbornly refused to suppress end up wreaking havoc on the business sector? Were Swedish consumers too afraid to leave their houses for fear of the unchecked viral transmission outside?
Not a bit of it. The Economist ranked 23 rich countries for overall economic performance during the pandemic, and Sweden finished third, behind Slovenia and Denmark. Their ranking took into account changes in GDP, household income, share prices, investment and public debt.
Sweden did particularly well on public debt, limiting its rise as a share of GDP to only 6.2 percentage points – compared to 19 in the U.S. and 22 in Britain. “This is a reflection, perhaps,” the Economist writes, “of the fact that the country largely avoided strict lockdowns.” (Not sure if there was any need for the “perhaps”.)
Sweden therefore confounds two core tenets of lockdown dogma: that lockdowns are necessary to prevent large numbers of deaths; and that there’s no trade-off between health and the economy. Note: it would be more accurate to say ‘between lockdown and the economy’, since it’s not even clear that lockdowns are a net positive for public health.
Hats off to Sweden’s courageous state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell. He stood firm, while other Western officials panicked under pressure to ‘do something’.
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“Sweden did particularly well on public debt, limiting its rise as a share of GDP to only 6.2 percentage points – compared to 19 in the U.S. and 22 in Britain.”
Why do you think Swedes having fewer savings or more loans, than people in the US or UK is a good thing?
For every unit of public debt, there is a private financial asset. In fact the private financial asset is what causes the public debt. If that financial asset was spent instead, the public debt would automatically disappear as the spending flow passed tax points.
And given that in all those nations – Sweden, the UK and the US – paying interest on public debt is a policy choice, why does it matter how big savings are. Are savings not a positive thing to hold now?
Public debt is essentially government debt, not individuals’ savings or assets. Government debt is definitely not a desired thing, look at Greece etc. It’s public only in so much as the taxpayers will have to pay it off but it’s the government that causes it with their magic money trees. Having a GDP to debt ratio of over or around 100% like many countries now do is not a healthy position to be in.
How do I go about locating my share of the private financial assets that match my share of the public debt?
Warning MMT idiocy above.
The fundamental problem is that the government issues debt mainly to consume, not to invest. We’ll have to pay for it someway, whether it’s through higher taxes, inflation eroding the value of the nominal portion of government debt, or a default.
All the data shows beyond doubt that the lockdown sceptics were right. The mainstream narrative hasn’t caught up yet but in time it will. Right now there are too many who have staked their reputations on one of the greatest follies in modern history. It will take some time before they will admit to their mistake, quite possibly years, but it is nonetheless inevitable. The truth always comes out in the end. You cannot suppress it forever.
The truth always comes out in the end. Totalitarianism only lasts as long as the lies can be maintained. Once the truth is out, totalitarianism becomes unsustainable.
We must continue to shine light into dark places.
That’s a lovely thought, but does truth always come out in the end? In my experience, no one ever admits they were wrong and the other person was right. Just doesn’t happen. People would rather twist themselves into a pretzel to avoid having to admit that they were ill informed, logically bereft, driven by fear and emboldened by how clever they thought they were. But, hey, I’m ready and willing to be proved wrong. Those ready to apologise for calling us all wrong and worse, please form a neat orderly queue to submit your mea culpas. You’ll excuse me if I doubt any one will turn up.
To quote Charlie Brown, “gee that would be neat”
There is, as yet, no ‘truth’ about the 911 bombings in New York of the World Trade Centre, despite there being more holes in the official narrative than in my aertex underpants, and if that is too recent for you then what about US banks supporting the Nazi war production, the foreknowledge of the Japanese fleet approaching Pearl Harbor, and Truman’s insistence on bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki despite the Japanese desperately trying to surrender.
It is not in the interest of those culpable for some of the worst crimes in human history to admit the truth unless they were the losers, hence the Nuremberg War Trials.
And when the truth is in danger of coming out there is always the out of court settlement á la Pfizer (other criminal enterprises are also available) with suppression of the details so as not to frighten the horses, so to speak. After all, would anyone in their right mind buy drugs from a convicted criminal who lives beyond the law has a track record of flouting regulations and bribing politicians and regulatory bodies [it is call lobbying but if you or I was to try it we would be convicted of bribery and corruption – and don’t forget the power of the ‘revolving door’ between Big Pharma and the FDA.]
‘The Big Lie’ – Joseph Goebbels 1897 – 1945
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“It’s now clear that the Covid doomsayers got Sweden completely wrong. “
It was clear from the start. And they didn’t get it wrong, they lied about it because it made them look bad. It was politics – very dirty, dark politics.
WT*
Please repeat after me
‘THERE WAS NO PANDEMIC’
Pretty obvious I’d say – using the good old fashioned common sense that seems to be as easy to find as rocking horse shit these days.
“since it’s not even clear that lockdowns are a net positive for public health.”. Confused by the lack of certainty in this statement; how can locking people in their homes, depriving them of exercise, depriving them of social interaction, increasing dependencies on alcohol, increasing weight gain, increasing stress, destroying relationships, depriving children of education, forcing millions into poverty, creating an NHS backlog so big it’ll take a decade to recover from etc, ever be seen as anything other than a 100% net negative for public health? You’d have to be unhinged to even consider this.
Sweden has always been the beacon for others to follow suit which they didn’t.
It’s a shame Sweden changed their Prime Minister recently who brought in unnecessary stricter controls.
Unfortunately that probably means that Swedish millionaires were less enriched than UK.
Ireland saw a 78 point drop in Investment, whatever that means. However in comparison to other countries, its pretty stark.
What is going on there then?
Global agreement on Corporation Tax.
I am saying this since the start, that the rise in public debt has to be subtracted from the headline GDP and growth numbers to assess the true economic damage in a country.
And I didn’t need an economics professorship to come at that not-at-all -perhaps conclusion.
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they were allowed more leeway and freedom and less economic and societal damage, because they were already so communitarian and on board of the no cash/digital ID agenda.
They probably got a Greta bonus as well.
They’ve probably been too successful though, hence the more recent, totally pointless, restrictions etc..
It’s certainly an interesting question. On paper, at the start of the pandemic Sweden likely wouldn’t have been among the top picks if you had to guess which EU country would buck the trend of authoritarian lockdowns.
The state is fairly large in Sweden and flexes its muscles more often than in other countries, as anyone who has navigated buying alcohol through Systembolaget would have experienced. Digital ID through “Bank ID” (no attempt to even try and disassociate it from the banking system) has been ubiquitous here for a while now.
I have tried to pinpoint how it happened that Sweden was the one sane country and I think there is a bit of luck mixed in with a sensible government structure and a couple of additional factors.
Luck in that Tegnell was the right man in charge as State Epidemiologist at the right time. There are certainly other prominent scientists here who would have gleefully taken the country down a completely different route and would have had the authority to do so.
Structure in that early on, the coupling of health and politics was largely avoided (less so in recent times unfortunately) and this allowed Tegnell to stick to known epidemiological principles without the interference of ministers political point scoring or ass covering.
Additional factors would perhaps be a sense of Swedish exceptionalism that allowed the public to be proud that they were flying the anti-lockdown flag alone and thus broadly supported the light touch measures. Perhaps also, of all the EU countries, Sweden has historically had a frosty diplomatic relationship with China and possibly within government key people didn’t buy the initial Wuhan narrative. Who knows for sure though.
I see the temptation to view the situation through the conspiracy lens regarding the existing digital framework but I think that is hopefully incorrect.
Italian Teacher In CRITICAL CONDITION After Setting Himself on Fire In Protest Of The Country’s Vaccine Mandate
https://thecovidworld.com/italian-teacher-in-critical-condition-after-setting-himself-on-fire-in-protest-of-the-countrys-vaccine-mandate/
Could this be the start of the European Spring
Shame China figures were not included by The Economist.
No one knows what they are.
Why are people still talking about Sweden as not locking down? Other than the Spring of 2020, it hasn’t been much better than it’s neighbors in terms of restrictions.
Huge price of pandemic is laid bare as taxpayer faces £10BILLION hit on PPE deals – including £115m for ports storage because we had too much – while £50m of ‘unsuitable’ medical kit and £350k of fruit and veg for schools was just thrown away
All together now:NEVER LET THE TRUTH SPOIL A GOOD STORY!!!
This is a very bizarre list. Slovenia and Chile – really?
& the Economist criteria are odd. Not unemployment or inflation? The GDP scores are presumably 2020 & 2021. The IMF predictions for 2022 are for the UK to be the fastest growing economy in the G7 – due to our opening up.
The very latest figs show Germany 2% below pre pandemic level and UK 1.5% above.
Worth bearing in mind that despite showering money during the pandemic the UK still quite a low level of debt-GDP in the G7. Much lower than: Japan, Italy, France & the US.
But higher than Germany and I think Canada.
GDP is one of the bigger nonsense stats there is.
As with Florida, it was not incumbent for Sweden to prove their approach was better but simply that it was not significantly worse. They have proved this in spades.
Remember that those who smeared Anders Tegnell as ‘far right’ are the same fools who fulsomely support Trudeau.
Sweden failed because there were a few countries that had a lower death count. That’s how success is determined these days isn’t it?
If you’re looking for hope from Scandinavia then I suggest you look elsewhere. I lived there and they are fine people with fine countries. Solzhenitsyn said that there is good and bad in all people but he never met a bad Estonian. This is how I feel about the Nordic folk. On an intellectual level they look to us for guidance, the best of them. Anglophiles who thought that we kept alive a nobler tradition. The best hope does lie in the English language. Never allow the fine old English art of taking the piss to disappear.
If science can’t be questioned it’s not science anymore. It’s propaganda. They want to rip on people for taking Ivermectin. I researched and saw the evidence on the internet. Research papers are on the internet for those who wants to see. Top respected world doctors are being under defamation by MSM and vaccine manufacturers. I won’t back down recommeding IVM. You can get yours by visiting https://ivmpharmacy.com
Ooops pressed the wrong button sorry
Can we please sack every member of SAGE and PHE and recruit Anders Tegnell.
I find it absolutely astonishing that we’re not looking into how mortality can somehow drop by 8%. That’s a phenomenal figure, that can’t just be handwaved away as a blip.
I’d really appreciate seeing an analysis of who didn’t die, and why. Is this something that we can bottle, or learn from?
Thanks to Sweden for being a reference point for sanity in the insane asylum that was most of the western world. A reference point for future histories.