Long a Holdout From Covid-19 Restrictions, Sweden Ends Its Pandemic Experiment: Government imposes mandatory measures after failing to contain new surge in infections
It's depressing that it's taken them this long and this many deaths to realize what pretty much everyone else in the world could see at the start of the pandemic by doing some really basic maths for 5 minutes on the back on an envelope.
Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment is over.
After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures.
Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world.
Sweden.JPG-
The clampdown, which started last month, put an end to a hands-off approach that had made the Scandinavian nation a prime example in the often heated global debate between opponents and champions of pandemic lockdowns.
...Weeks later, with total Covid-19-related deaths reaching almost 700 per million inhabitants, infections growing exponentially and hospital wards filling up, the government made a U-turn...
Dr. Nowak said medical personnel had never shared the optimism of the country’s public-health agency about so-called herd immunity—population-wide resistance to a pathogen acquired through gradual exposure—and had repeatedly warned that the virus couldn’t be controlled with voluntary measures alone.
In recent months, [Sweden's now-throughly-discredited chief epidemiologist] Dr. Tegnell predicted that Swedes would gradually build immunity to the virus through controlled exposure, that vaccines would take longer than expected to develop, and that death rates across the West would converge.
Instead, the West’s first coronavirus vaccine was authorized in Britain last week, Sweden’s death rate remains an outlier among its neighbors, and Dr. Tegnell acknowledged in late November that the new surge in infections showed there was “no sign” of herd immunity in the country...
Meanwhile, Sweden’s laissez-faire pandemic strategy has failed to deliver the economic benefits its proponents had predicted. In the first half of the year, Sweden’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5% and unemployment is projected to rise to nearly 10%... Businesses such as restaurants, hotels and retail outfits are facing a wave of closures; unlike in the rest of Europe, where governments coupled restrictions with generous stimulus, Swedish authorities have offered comparatively less support to businesses since they didn’t impose closures.
Unemployment.JPG
After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures.
Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world.
Sweden.JPG-
The clampdown, which started last month, put an end to a hands-off approach that had made the Scandinavian nation a prime example in the often heated global debate between opponents and champions of pandemic lockdowns.
...Weeks later, with total Covid-19-related deaths reaching almost 700 per million inhabitants, infections growing exponentially and hospital wards filling up, the government made a U-turn...
Dr. Nowak said medical personnel had never shared the optimism of the country’s public-health agency about so-called herd immunity—population-wide resistance to a pathogen acquired through gradual exposure—and had repeatedly warned that the virus couldn’t be controlled with voluntary measures alone.
In recent months, [Sweden's now-throughly-discredited chief epidemiologist] Dr. Tegnell predicted that Swedes would gradually build immunity to the virus through controlled exposure, that vaccines would take longer than expected to develop, and that death rates across the West would converge.
Instead, the West’s first coronavirus vaccine was authorized in Britain last week, Sweden’s death rate remains an outlier among its neighbors, and Dr. Tegnell acknowledged in late November that the new surge in infections showed there was “no sign” of herd immunity in the country...
Meanwhile, Sweden’s laissez-faire pandemic strategy has failed to deliver the economic benefits its proponents had predicted. In the first half of the year, Sweden’s gross domestic product fell by 8.5% and unemployment is projected to rise to nearly 10%... Businesses such as restaurants, hotels and retail outfits are facing a wave of closures; unlike in the rest of Europe, where governments coupled restrictions with generous stimulus, Swedish authorities have offered comparatively less support to businesses since they didn’t impose closures.
Unemployment.JPG
It's depressing that it's taken them this long and this many deaths to realize what pretty much everyone else in the world could see at the start of the pandemic by doing some really basic maths for 5 minutes on the back on an envelope.
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