Nicholas Waddy Aug 01, 2020
2020 has been a year of firsts: the world faced its first (modern)
pandemic, killing hundreds of thousands and shuttering vast swathes of
the global economy. Along the way, the political world was turned upside
down: for the first time in living memory, leftists found themselves
castigating, rather than idolizing, socialist Sweden.
The reason? The Swedes, hard-headed contrarians that they are, had the temerity to buck the global fad for strict lockdowns and obsessive masking. They reasoned that such measures would be unsustainable, economically and socially, so instead of shutting businesses and schools, and harassing or fining anyone caught in public without a mask, they advised people to practice sensible social distancing and to avoid unnecessary outings and exposure.
At first, the mainstream media throughout the Western world gleefully reported the high death rate that Sweden's mild model of pandemic control produced, especially among the elderly and nursing home residents. Sweden's “experiment” with liberty (never a concept beloved of left-wingers) had failed, or so it seemed.
Now, though, Sweden's light touch with respect to coronavirus countermeasures is looking sounder and sounder. Sweden's numbers of new infections are low and trending lower. Daily deaths are approaching the vanishing point. There is speculation that, because the disease was allowed to spread more freely among those least vulnerable, Swedes may already benefit from a degree of herd immunity.
Sweden's successes don't end there, however. The toll of the
pandemic, while it is often measured in raw numbers of "COVID deaths,"
stretches far beyond mortality. Among the worst aspects of the crisis
has been the economic carnage it has visited on the worst affected
countries. In the U.S., second-quarter GDP is down by almost 33 percent! Unemployment peaked at almost 15 percent.
These are numbers generally associated with a depression, although
economists expect that the downturn, sharp as it is, will be brief.........To Read More...
The reason? The Swedes, hard-headed contrarians that they are, had the temerity to buck the global fad for strict lockdowns and obsessive masking. They reasoned that such measures would be unsustainable, economically and socially, so instead of shutting businesses and schools, and harassing or fining anyone caught in public without a mask, they advised people to practice sensible social distancing and to avoid unnecessary outings and exposure.
At first, the mainstream media throughout the Western world gleefully reported the high death rate that Sweden's mild model of pandemic control produced, especially among the elderly and nursing home residents. Sweden's “experiment” with liberty (never a concept beloved of left-wingers) had failed, or so it seemed.
Now, though, Sweden's light touch with respect to coronavirus countermeasures is looking sounder and sounder. Sweden's numbers of new infections are low and trending lower. Daily deaths are approaching the vanishing point. There is speculation that, because the disease was allowed to spread more freely among those least vulnerable, Swedes may already benefit from a degree of herd immunity.
No comments:
Post a Comment