The Swedish Pandemic Approach: Now we know the results (opens in new tab)

It's also worth noting that sources such as this article from The Economist[1] show that Sweden endured waves of excess deaths of up to 6% that neither Norway nor Finland reported, and instead show only residual variations.

From the article:

> Countries in northern Europe have generally experienced much lower mortality rates throughout the pandemic. Some Nordic nations have experienced almost no excess deaths at all. The exception is Sweden, which imposed some of the continent’s least restrictive social-distancing measures during the first wave.

[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...

Is an incomplete picture that forget most relevant factors. For example that France and Spain receive more than 80 millions of international tourists each year and this factor have to be corrected to compare countries. Three of the four Peaks of high mortality in Spain coincided with holiday season: April 2020 (Holy Week, first big holiday after the first case registered 31-jan), June (Start of the holidays) and August (peak of Summer holidays).

After seen how each government reacted in the pandemic, I just assume that everybody lied in the statistics.

The interesting part is mostly comparing the nordic countries against each other. Sweden seemed to be doing much much worse early on due to the chosen strategy, but that no longer seems to be the case.

However, is NL (e.g.) healthcare that much worse compared to SE?

And Bill Gates, the guy responsible for Windows, a wonderful and highly secure operating system

It was media and bureaucrats who handled the Swedish pandemic approach too, by putting the so called "expert agency" on a pedestal, worshiping it, abstaining from any form of critical questioning while branding the few critics that made their voices heard as saboteurs, and taking all of the mostly incorrect statements and claims that the agency spread during the initial waves, at face value.

Swedish columnist Viktor Barth-Kron recently described the outcome of Sweden's pandemic approach the following way, which I find quite fitting: "Tegnell (state epidemiologist at that time) and Löfven (prime minister at that time) were wrong about almost everything during the pandemic, but they turned out to be right when it comes to the big picture."

Not quite that simple…

> Only focusing on mortality from COVID ignores the very real detrimental health, mental-health, business and societal effects of lock-downs, so the long term benefits to the common man are very much more in their favor.

Are they? This reads as petty reasoning of someone who refuses to admit they were wrong even though that data screams in their face, and instead try to grab hold of nonexistent data to justify their personal beliefs.

It's like the "COVID vaccines kill more than the disease" crowd, who keep on moving their "the end is near" calendar date to avoid admitting they were simply pathologically wrong.

> On the other hand they totally blew the power grab opportunities (...)

This reads like a rebranding of the whole "Fauci wants to take over as dictator" conspiracy theory.

Anyway, can you point out exactly a single country ever where enforcing lockdowns had a positive impact on public perception and elections?

If anything, conspiracy theorists who tried to push anti-science rhetoric failed to capitalize from it, specially as their electorate ended up dying disproportionately.

It also didn't helped their cause that politicians who were radically against basic public health measures ended up being caught double- and triple-vaccinating themselves while preaching the opposite.

> Lock downs became a political tool early on, (...)

Anti-establishment politicians tried to attack basic public health measures to turn them into political battles, primarily because they knew that supporting them was a political liability. Thankfully, they failed, and now all they have left is nitpicking about Sweden while the people most vulnerable to their propaganda are now disproportionately hit by the disease.

It saddens me that society learned nothing and these sociopaths still have traction in some circles.

It should also be said that there wasn't one approach since it changed from week to week. It began very hands off with no restrictions about travelling to hot zones or even recommendations about face masks but morphed into banning all public gatherings of more than eight people.