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https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/0...bout-lockdown/
The evidence is clear: authoritarian restrictions did not save more lives.
In 2020, countries across the world followed in the footsteps of China and locked down hard against Covid-19. Liberties were drastically curtailed. As was economic activity, forcing governments to borrow tens if not hundreds of billions of pounds each to keep businesses and furloughed workers afloat.
In Europe, one notable exception to this was Sweden. The Swedish government, despite facing heavy criticism, decided against imposing tight restrictions on social activity. The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that Sweden made the right choice.
Did lockdown restrictions do more harm than good? Did they even work at all? We tried to answer these questions in a recent paper for the journal, Economic Affairs. We looked at how different OECD countries in Europe, including the UK, fared during the pandemic – both in terms of the economy and excess deaths. We took a particular interest in Sweden.
Although we could not explore every possible impact of the various lockdown measures, our conclusions were straightforward: countries that imposed more lockdown measures did not experience lower excess death rates. In fact, Sweden had one of the lowest excess death rates towards the end of the pandemic, with fewer people dying compared with a normal pre-pandemic year.
It is true that Sweden fared less well during the spring of 2020. However, these problems were temporary and limited to certain regions. This was mainly due to Swedes returning from winter vacations in the Alps, where the virus was spreading rapidly. In most parts of Sweden, the spread was modest and fully in line with that observed in other Nordic countries.
In fact, in our research, we could not find any correlation between lockdowns and excess deaths. Our results do not imply that every single lockdown measure was ineffective. Since all countries in Europe imposed a large number of social-distancing restrictions, including Sweden, we can only conclude that imposing full lockdown measures and ordering people to stay at home had little additional impact, if any. (In fact, our paper found a positive correlation between harsher lockdowns and excess deaths, though this was not statistically significant.)
The impact of lockdowns on mortality rates may have been inconsequential, but the economic effects were overwhelmingly negative. The more a country locked down, the larger the decline in GDP. The UK recorded a fall in GDP of almost 10 per cent – the largest decline in output in modern history. In Sweden, in contrast, the fall in economic output was actually less than that during the financial crisis of 2008. The Swedish economy had fully recovered by early 2021 and is now about six per cent larger than it was in 2019.
To compensate for this substantial fall in economic activity, most governments were forced to adopt large fiscal measures to support households and businesses. The UK’s public debt exploded. As of last year, debt had risen by £8,400 per head in Britain compared with just £3,000 in Sweden. In fact, in Sweden only a small budget deficit was recorded in 2020. The budget was already back in balance in 2021.
The consequences of lockdown are still being felt. The UK’s high debt levels and debt interest repayments have led the government to put public investment on hold, which will, in turn, hold back future economic growth. In other words, the short-term spending spree during the pandemic will crowd out important investment in the future.
Tellingly, there is no public debate in Sweden about where public spending should be cut or which taxes should rise. Instead of looking toward a future of austerity, Swedes are debating whether the government should spend more or cut taxes with the money it now has.
Certainly, Sweden did not do everything right during the pandemic. The government itself admitted that in 2022, when it concluded its inquiry into the handling of the pandemic. However, Sweden did manage to succeed in a few key areas where other nations failed spectacularly. Notably, it did not panic during the crisis. It considered how its policies would impact society as a whole. It did not just focus on limiting cases of Covid. And it did not ignore the potential long-term effects of lockdown. Above all, it recognised that the pandemic policy of China’s authoritarian government should not have served as a guide for a liberal democracy.
Of course, our study isn’t perfect. We could never possibly cover every single health aspect or economic indicator. And yet our analysis does reveal some cold, hard facts about the real cost of lockdowns. The burden is now on the pro-lockdown camp to prove that their disastrous policies were worth it.
Fredrik N G Andersson is an associate professor at the Department of Economics at Lund University.
Lars Jonung is a professor emeritus at Lund University.
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'Trust the science'
Never forget.
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An elephant in the room not mentioned in the article is also that Sweden's vaccination rate was notably lower than other European countries with far more deaths.
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The only thing Sweden did right in the last 30 years perhaps.
All its other policies have destroyed its society almost to the point of no return and of irreparable damage.
"Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not"
- Επίκουρος
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Per capita, needless to say. Sweden was below the EU average in both vaccinations and per capita deaths.
Arguably proper lockdown was more effective than the vax. My country had high vaccinations, heavy lockdown, and very low deaths, lower than Sweden, however nearly all of the deaths here occurred after mass vaccinations and easing of lockdown in mid 2021. From early 2020 to mid 2021 we had almost no 'covid deaths' in the whole country (but unlike China that was real).
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Sweden was an excellent place to stay during the covid hysteria of 2020-22! I was there.
Almost no one was afraid, everyone was living normally,
and few people died compared to other European countries (though more died at first).
The standard way to handle any pandemic, even a deadly one such as smallpox, is to minimise disruption of daily life to allow the population to build immunity as quickly as possible, and set up field hospitals to treat the sick. If anything, quarantine the elderly and sick, not the healthy.
Moreover,
mass vaccination of low-risk people only prevents the development of the more robust immunity gained from infection and recovery.
Australia's death rate was 929 per 1M, half that of Sweden (1,860 per 1M), reflecting the relative health of the populations.
Europe's average death rate was 2,141 per 1M,
suggesting that there are more important factors than lockdowns affecting the death rate.
The US average was 3,313 per 1M.
(75% of covid deaths have 4 or more co-morbidities, average death age is 73, half of the dead are over 80)
Survival rate is 99.8%; 80% for over-80
Australia's excess (preventable) death rate was 1,152 per 1M.
Sweden's excess death rate was 912 per 1M as of 2021.
The US excess death rate 3,331 per 1M as of 2021. (1.1M excess deaths as of 2022, now certainly higher) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9094106/
Amazingly the US excess death rate exceeds the covid death rate, which is already greatly inflated.
This does not include the deaths caused by the disruption due to lockdowns, short-term and long-term (drug addiction, suicide, violence), or the deaths caused by delaying other treatments due to covid, or the deaths caused by the vaccine, short-term and long-term, which are all difficult to measure but likely exceed the covid death toll.
"Sweden’s Covid death rate among lowest in Europe, despite avoiding strict lockdowns" May 2022
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...oiding-strict/
Last edited by CosmoLady; 03-02-2024 at 07:05 PM.
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The WHO's reaction was perfectly rational. Ruin the lives of millions of healthy and younger people for a bioweapon that has about a 0% chance of killing them. I mean, what kind of crazy person would focus on just the most vulnerable segment of the population, and let the rest live their lives? Andrew Cuomo sure didn't.
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