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Yes, We Will All End Up Like Sweden

By May 13, 2020Commentary

Yes, I am working on a long post about the Minnesota model release today, and there are a number of issues to discuss about that release, and a post about the Governor’s decision to lighten up on the extreme lockdown, a lockdown that should never had the power to make in the first place.  A lot going on in Minnesota and around the country today.  Following on the post I just published, I would like to take up the subject I suspect everyone is tired of hearing about–how much smarter Sweden has been.  But every day demonstrates further that the country took a far better approach in terms of ending the epidemic and protecting everyone’s lives from economic and health harms.

A new article from the respected journal Foreign Affairs, titled Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s, comes to the same conclusion that attaining population immunity is the surest way to end the epidemic and that extreme attempts to suppress infection only delay that attainment and probably increase ultimate death totals.   (FA Article)   The article recaps now common knowledge about the Swedish strategy.  And it makes the often misunderstood point that given the bifurcated nature of the epidemic, allowing the young and others not at significant risk to become infected increases the level of immunity in the population in a faster and safer manner and ultimately protects the at-risk groups.   

And don’t buy the crap about Sweden being unique somehow.  They aren’t.  They have a diverse population, especially since they allowed substantial migration in the last few years.  Their deaths are occurring largely in long-term care settings, just as ours are.  There is nothing in their society that suggests the same approach wouldn’t work here.

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