XFool wrote:How Sweden’s herd immunity strategy has backfiredNew StatesmanAs the country’s Covid-19 death toll has spiralled, support for the government’s unique approach has frayed.
I've read the article, and it's arguable that it actually proves the exact opposite of what the author wanted to say.
Yes, the Swedish death rate is slightly higher than other countries, but not by any means dramatically so. It's significantly lower than that in the UK, and is also, as in most other European countries, gradually declining. It's also notable that 90% of the deaths were among the over-70's.
But as with all such articles the concentration on the death rate largely ignores the other - equally important - side of the coin, namely the economic effects of lockdown.
The author says:
The refusal to lock down has not even spared Sweden’s export-oriented economy. With much of the world shut down, demand for exports has fallen and supply chains have been disrupted.The implication is that it wasn't worth Sweden trying to maintain a more or less normal society, as the economy has taken a huge hit anyway. But the only reason it's taken a hit is that other countries
have imposed lockdowns, strangling their own economies, which has inevitably hit Swedish exports. If the other countries had followed Sweden's example both their economies and Sweden's economy would have been far less severely affected.
Of course the overall number of deaths would have been higher, but if the Swedish example is anything to go by the vast majority of such deaths would have been amongst the over-70's, and I would imagine that many, if not most of those were people who had pre-existing health problems anyway. In absolute terms the additional numbers would probably have not been very high.
I’m not at all minimising the pain and suffering that those increased deaths would have caused – I’m rapidly approaching that age group myself – but such deaths
must be balanced against the economic harm caused to the large majority of the population.
So compared to the immense devastation that lockdown has caused - and will continue to cause - to European economies it can be rationally argued that it has not been worth it, and that other countries should actually have followed Sweden's example. In fact, I believe that this strategy was the one originally intended for the UK.
I don't even think that it's the argument for herd immunity that drives the argument, though if it happens it will be very welcome. It seems to me that the fundamental point is that CV is far less dangerous to the large majority of people than it was originally thought to be. In fact, for the vast majority of people under around 45 it presents no real threat at all.
I strongly suspect that far more people have had the virus and suffered none or only very mild symptoms than estimated. This is evidenced by the fact that despite the actual relaxation of lockdown being far more prevalent than allowed by the rules the number of people catching it is declining rapidly, indicating that the virus is gradually disappearing and/or that most people have a fairly high resistance to it.
So in the long term I think there’s a good chance that the Swedish strategy will prove to have been right. It's an unpalatable fact that lives do have an economic price, and the cost of preserving the lives of a relatively small number of mostly elderly / ill people will, in retrospect, be seen as far too high compared to the massive damage to those younger people who will have to live through the economic carnage caused by severe lockdown strategies.
