Funny how no one on the Left talks about the “Sweden Model” anymore…
Just a month ago, Sweden was labeled the “world’s cautionary tale” for its laissez-faire approach to fighting the coronavirus. It famously decided not to close its schools, restaurants or bars, and it told its citizens that there’s no need to mask-up. When the death toll surged in late April, and the country looked overmatched by the fast-moving virus, its officials sounded defensive.
The country’s Public Health Agency developed and implemented Sweden’s approach, and its chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, became the face of the crisis.
While other countries were locking down shops, schools, and public life, Sweden was the outlier, trying to manage the disease with the least possible impact on the economy. The prominent Swedish virologist Lena Einhorn, for one, called the Sweden approach “madness.” Seeing the mortality rate climb in Sweden, Norway decided to close its border with its chief trading partner.
By a per-capita basis, the coronavirus outbreak in Sweden has been one of the world’s deadliest—worse than the United States, France, or any Nordic neighbor. But in the past six weeks, Sweden has seen a remarkable turnaround. New daily cases are down to multi-month lows. Hospital admissions are close to zero, and just 44 Swedes died of COVID-19 in the past seven days, official numbers show. At the same time, coronavirus cases are spiking around continental Europe.
Tegnell feels vindicated by the latest batch of promising data.
