Lockdown sceptics Robert Dingwall, Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, has written a barnstorming piece for today’s Sunday Telegraph arguing that Sweden’s below-average number of excess deaths for 2020 and 2021 – in the league table compiled by the World Health Organisation – should change the terms of the official Covid inquiry.
“Judge me in a year,” said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s State Epidemiologist, in July 2020, when his country was being attacked for sticking to its pandemic plan rather than adopting the novel intervention of lockdown. The latest World Health Organisation figures add to the evidence that has been accumulating since summer 2021. Sweden managed the pandemic more successfully than most, with much less disruption of everyday life and economic activity.
The WHO has published estimates of excess deaths globally for 2020 and 2021. This approach covers all deaths from Covid, whether formally diagnosed or not, together with collateral damage in deaths from other conditions that went untreated. Looking at Europe, where official data are usually robust, Sweden had half the excess death rate of the UK, Germany or Spain – and a quarter of that of many Eastern European nations.
In turn, the U.K. tends to be mid-table, in line with other large Western European countries, while Eastern European countries have had much worse experiences. There is a widely-circulated view that the UK has had a uniquely bad pandemic. The data simply do not support this.
Nor do they support the view that the outcomes have much to do with the restrictions adopted by different governments, how soon they began, or the stringency of enforcement. The question, then, is how governments came to adopt highly restrictive policies in the first place. This must be the starting point for any national inquiry. Why was the experience of emergency planners, and two decades of pandemic preparation, abandoned everywhere except Sweden?
Worth reading in full.
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“wasting millions of pounds on pointless diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes”
Far from pointless, though not the purported point (to increase “fairness” – whatever that is).
What would a non-pointless “DEI” scheme look like? What is the “point” of “DEI”? Why is it “good”?
It is intended to wreck free market capitalism by sabotaging meritocracy.
Absolutely.
and again
and again
The serial red arrow fiend strikes again
“…feeling betrayed for being shepherded by HR into the vicious culture wars.”
If all this causes companies to lose money and/or go bankrupt then it’s win/win for the anti-capitalists. Do companies not see that DEI (DIE) is Marxist?
“…quick fixes to create a fairer workplace”
The workplace was already fair as it could be.
“Fairness” sounds good but it seems like attempts to impose “fairness” (whatever that is) just lead to something that looks like the opposite of fairness.
And, as with all these things: who decides what is ‘fair’ and how do you challenge their decision?
The NHS advertises constantly for ‘Diversity Officers’. In an organisation that is already possibly the most diverse employer in the world…
Hmm. sounds familiar.
What metrics do HR departments survive by? If all other departments in a company have to show value for resources expended how do HR get away with just pissing money up the wall?
The only way to get away with saying black is white (or vice versa) is in politics – where lying is
expectedrequired.I was working at a company that embraced this stuff (like many others) after the BLM hysteria. I looked into it at the time and the research had already shown that these courses did not have any measurable difference on prejudice. We have turned away from science and embraced doing things just for the sake of doing them. I’d also add that as the company HR nazis cracked down on all form of political correctness and embraced lecturing us about sexism, racism etc. the workplace became increasing miserable as everyone was too scared to crack a joke.
I’m surprised they have no effect, they always seemed designed to rub against the nap and irritate, to me? Certainly, my own small experience leads me to believe we are probably in a worse place than we were 40 years ago.
I agree we are in a worse place than 40 years ago
Making life fairer for everyone. What’s not to like about that?
This is how, like a Trojan Horse, DEI infiltrated all aspects of our lives.
Good luck getting this nightmare back in the box, after you embraced it so enthusiastically. People tried to tell you but you mostly forced them out or passed them over… good, you can reap what you’ve sown, as we all will after five years of what is already, increasingly, appearing to be a lunatic potential government…
yep I’ve published a series of articles on this platform about this.
The only problem is that the MSM appear to have just woken up!
And we’re about to get all this nonsense on steroids from the Labour Party!
Only because they are seeing a drop in profits.