Sweden's controversial anti-lockdown strategy resulted in a high death toll and no economic gain

[Mike 03]

Business Insider
Full Headline: Sweden's controversial anti-lockdown strategy resulted in a high death toll and no real economic gain, data shows
Rosie Perper
Jul 9, 2020, 2:31 AM

Sweden's unusual coronavirus strategy has not resulted in significant economic gains, data indicates, and has instead left the country with a far deadlier outbreak than its Nordic neighbors.

Sweden never issued a formal lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, the country's coronavirus model has relied on personal responsibility and encourages citizens to stay home when they're sick and maintain social distancing when in public. Most businesses, restaurants, bars, and schools have remained open, though gatherings of more than 50 people were banned in late March.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven defended the policy as "common sense" that allowed the country to maintain the status quo.

But the unconventional strategy has faced some pushback from experts, who have said the policy, in hindsight, "maybe hasn't been the smartest in every respect."

Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, told The New York Times in an article this week that even though industries remained largely open and unchanged, Sweden did not see significant economic gains.

"They literally gained nothing," Kirkegaard said. "It's a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains."

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-strategy-high-death-toll-no-economic-gain-data-2020-7?amp

[Celerity]

1. Sweden's economy actually grew in the first quarter after it opted against a full virus lockdown

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/coronavirus-swedens-gdp-actually-grew-in-the-first-quarter.html

The Swedish economy expanded at a far superior rate than many of its European counterparts over the first three months of the year, data published Friday showed, following the government's decision not to impose a full lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The Nordic country's statistics office reported gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic health, grew at an annual rate of 0.4% in the first quarter.

Sweden's GDP increased by 0.1% in the first quarter, when seasonally adjusted and compared to the final three months of 2019. The median forecasters in a Reuters poll of economists had expected to see a 0.6% contraction on a quarterly basis.

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Here in Sweden, with basically no lock-down, no masks, most places still open, and the all the under-high school level schools never closed we have had one death under 20, and that was a 4 year old a couple months back with multiple comorbidities. Zero deaths in the school age cohort of 5 years old to 20yo, 8 deaths aged 20 to 29, and 16 deaths aged 30 to 39. That is a total of 25 deaths under 40 years of age (which is half the entire population). 25 deaths out of over 5 million people under 40 years of age. That is a rate of 1 death per 200,000. Under 50 years of age there have only been 69 total deaths (25 + 44). Almost 99% of the deaths here have been over 50 years of age, 96% over 60 years of age, 89% over 70 years of age. 68% were over 80yo, 26% of all COVID-19 deaths were over 90 tears of age.

Our huge cock-up was in our nursing homes and scattered site elderly care. That is where the majority of deaths occurred. Our elderly care system is run differently that the other Nordics and is much more wide open (in terms of visitation) and has far too many non-professionally trained (to a sufficient degree) workers. The youngest half of our 10.1 million population (so over 5 million) have had 25 total COVID-19 deaths. None who are K-12 school age, with 1 total (a 4 year old with multiple pre-existing health issues) under 20 years of age, 9 total deaths under 30 years of age.

Denmark and especially Norway have poached so many of our best doctors, nurses, and licensed health-care workers as they pay far higher wages (especially Norway) than Sweden does in large part due to our vastly higher expenditures on the massive amounts of refugees we have taken in over the past 20 years or so (the US population-adjusted equivalent of over 50 million people.) Unlike the US, we just cannot turn on the 'printing press' and conjure 100's (or even 10's) of billions (in the US's case trillions) of dollars out of thin air. We also have a very weak (in terms of taking over and mandating public actions in regards to health care) central government that is bound by the instrument of law to give vast leeway to the state heath authorities. Denmark, Finland, and Norway do not have such constraints to anywhere near the degree we do.