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The Case For Lockdown Collapsed When Sweden’s Epidemic Began to Retreat

by Noah Carl
15 April 2021 8:00 PM

Back in March of 2020, there was a reasonable case for lockdown. A new, highly contagious virus was spreading through the population, and while the death rate for young people was low, the death rate for elderly people was quite high. Early data pointed to an IFR of about 1%. We were told that – in the absence of drastic measures – the virus would continue to spread until about two-thirds of the population had been infected. A simple back-of-the envelope calculation suggested that, if we did not take drastic measures, the death toll would be enormous.

The UK’s population is 66.7 million. Two-thirds of that is about 44.5 million. Applying a 1% IFR yields 445,000 deaths. And that was if the NHS didn’t become overwhelmed. If it did become overwhelmed, we were told, the IFR might rise to 2 or even 3%. Hence we were looking at a worst-case scenario of around 1.3 million deaths. (Note: this is about ten times the official death toll, which is itself a slight overestimate.)

Although lockdowns would come with massive costs, I reasoned, it was worth having one to prevent hundreds of thousands – or even a million – people dying. Hence I supported the first lockdown. Though it may have been a reasonable thing to do given the information available at the time, I now believe that locking down was the wrong decision.

There are many elements in the case against lockdowns, as I have outlined in an article on this website. But – outside a few specific countries like Australia and New Zealand – the case for lockdowns basically collapsed in May of 2020, when Sweden’s epidemic began to retreat.

Sweden, of course, was the only major Western country that didn’t lock down in 2020. And the argument for lockdowns made a clear prediction concerning what would happen there: since the country hadn’t taken drastic measures, it would see substantially more deaths (relative to its population) than the countries that had locked down. Using a model “based on work by” Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College, researchers at Uppsala University predicted there would be 96,000 deaths by July 1st.

Fortunately, that isn’t what happened. The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths by July 1st was only 5,370. And up to week 51, the country saw age-adjusted excess mortality of just 1.7% – below the UK and below the European average.

Now of course, Sweden isn’t identical to the UK. It’s more trusting, less densely populated, and has fewer multi-generational households. However, it isn’t dramatically different from the UK in these respects. So even if one might have expected fewer deaths in Sweden than in the UK, given the same policies, the fact that Sweden didn’t lock down should have massively increased its death toll. But it didn’t.

One reply to the argument I’ve just made is that Sweden did much worse than its neighbours. This reply has been extensively addressed by other commentators, and in any case the point remains that Sweden did not do catastrophically. Both its first and second epidemics retreated long before the herd immunity threshold was reached, and far less than 1% of the population has died.

The evidence from Sweden does not imply that the correct approach to COVID-19 was “do nothing”. As I’ve argued previously, a focused protection strategy like the one recommended in the Great Barrington Declaration would have been much less costly, and might have saved more lives, than the Government’s actual policy of intermittent lockdowns.

Tags: DeathsLockdownsSweden

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53 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

One of the reasons people haven’t woken up as much as they ought to have done is that people still believe there was a pandemic, because that “fact” keeps being repeated as if it were as plain to see as the sun in the sky.

There will never be a worthwhile inquiry into “covid” while those responsible (almost every powerful group, private or public, and most powerful individuals) are still alive and active. They were all more or less complicit in what happened. There was no opposition of any substance. So what possible incentive does anyone who controls what an inquiry would do have to hold such a thing? To discover the truth, or at least to properly consider what happened, you need something much more adversarial, where there is a team with broad remit to subpoena witnesses who would testify under oath, and seize evidence, and set their own terms of reference. That will not happen in our lifetimes.

In any case, other than the detail of whose hand was up whose jacksie, the “truth” is known by a great many now – it’s just that nobody wants to say it out loud. Why would you want to admit you’ve been had?

81
0
RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

No. We need Nuremberg-style trials.

66
0
Boomer Bloke
Boomer Bloke
1 year ago
Reply to  RTSC

And subsequent deterrents.

47
0
Myra
Myra
1 year ago

I suggest a few action points:

  1. Cut and paste Carl Henneghan’s Trust the Evidence to collate the answers to the Covid Inquiry questions.
  2. Sign this petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/signatures/140301070/verify?token=a7xfZI2KXAMKSVPU6_WM

The above would save money and get to the truth better and faster.

And increase the pressure on the MHRA to release all data on vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

35
0
DickieA
DickieA
1 year ago
Reply to  Myra

I’ve sent it to all the “sceptical” contacts I have on Whatsapp who I know were unvaccinated (2), or I think they know that the inquiry is a farce (5). 7 is a depressingly small number of people…..

24
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  DickieA

2 unvaccinated is pretty low. Maybe you don’t know many people or there are some but they’ve not made it clear to you. I thought I was doing badly with just 5 including Mrs ToF.

12
0
john ball
john ball
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Among ones old friends the number is very low, but several of them will not be having anymore jabs (some after complications even told by their doctor not to) but have made several new friends in groups formed for the unjabbed

16
0
DickieA
DickieA
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

You’re right – and I know quite a lot of people. I really hope that there are more people in the unvaccinated camp – but it’s not a question (have you had the jab?) that I feel comfortable asking.

7
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  DickieA

I’ve never asked anyone. I’ve been pretty clear on my views of “covid” and on my own “vaccination” status and other people have volunteered the information. I know most of my work colleagues and other people I talk to have been “vaccinated” because they all made a big song and dance about it at the time. There are a few people at work I am not sure about as they’ve never mentioned it, but that might just be because they are private people who don’t share that kind of information.

These days while I am happy to answer people if they ask me, I don’t make a point of talking about what the “vaccines” appear to be doing to people’s health because it feels awkward telling people they might have poisoned themselves. Always happy to discuss though how “vaccine” passports and any kind of coercion was and is wrong.

9
0
DickieA
DickieA
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Your experience matches mine. It’s awkward.

6
0
JXB
JXB
1 year ago

A real CoVid enquiry would be the trial of those who committed crimes against Humanity.

48
0
felix the cat
felix the cat
1 year ago

“Nearly four years on since the onset of the pandemic”. Why the assumption that there was a pandemic?
I take care to only ever refer to the alleged pandemic.

31
0
FerdIII
FerdIII
1 year ago
Reply to  felix the cat

Yes plandemic (it was certainly planned, many years in the making, patents on Sars II date back to the 90s).

Scamdemic. Certainly was a scam, a pilot project of Medical Nazism, a prep for what is still to come.

14
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

“We need real inquiries if we’re going to restore people’s faith in public authorities.”

I am sure I speak for the majority on here when I state that faith in public authorities is now non-existent and there is zero chance of it ever returning.

Public authorities exist but I aim to ensure I do absolutely nothing to assist with their works or continuance.

19
0

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