As reported last week in the Trends Journal, Sweden is successfully managing the COVID-19 pandemic without shutting down its economy and imposing severe government restrictions on travel and daily life.
As data continues to come in, the results continue to impress. The death rate from coronavirus in Sweden of 22 per 100,000 is the same as Ireland, which was seen by the anointed “experts” as being superior to the efforts of the UK and France.
In the capital city of Stockholm, citizens have been seen enjoying themselves in restaurants, cafes, and nightspots, strolling the streets and packing the parks. While Sweden’s governmental medical team encouraged social distancing and commonsense precautions, all actions were voluntary.
While high schools and colleges were closed, elementary schools were kept open, as it has been known for some time that those under 18 have been virtually unaffected by COVID-19. It should be noted, however, that most nations have banned grade school because “experts” contend children can pass on the infection to others, but, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, “it isn’t clear to what extent.”
Gatherings of more than 50 were banned in Sweden, but smaller athletic and social events remained unrestricted.
And while other European countries were closing borders and shutting down most business activity, Sweden’s borders have remained open. Citizens, while voluntarily maintaining some social distance where possible and cutting down on use of public transportation by about 50 percent, are not wearing masks for the most part, and there have been no incidents of police harassment for not following protocols.
The Old Normal
Sweden’s success model for dealing with COVID-19 is getting world attention. Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said, “I believe that if we are to reach a new normal situation, Sweden can in many ways represent a model for the future.”
Sweden’s strategy was devised with the knowledge that at the early stages of the soft lockdown, there is an expected spike in the number of people dying from COVID-19. But that quickly settled down, and, in addition to avoiding the significant economic and psychological pain and suffering of those in lockdown, there is the known advantage that by allowing a virus to spread within reason, social immunity is achieved must faster than with a strict lockdown.
Known as “herd immunity,” the Swedish Public Health Agency estimated that by 1 May, over 25 percent of Stockholm residents will have been infected, which will go a long way toward inhibiting future outbreaks.
Sweden’s top medical epidemiologist, Dr. Anders Tegnell, noted that when a country is in a strong lockdown, the vast majority cannot develop immunity, so it is best to let Swedes establish immunity the natural way.
Last Tuesday, the doctor stated, “A recent survey from one of our hospitals in Stockholm found that 27% of staff there are immune… We think that most of those are immune from transmission in society, not the workplace. We could reach herd immunity in Stockholm within a matter of weeks.”
Dr. Tegnell has made it clear he didn’t set out to establish herd immunity. Instead, it is a positive benefit of allowing Swedish citizens to voluntarily practice safety rather than imposing a strict lockdown, which was based on early data showing COVID-19 was a high risk for only a very small percentage of the overall population.
Indeed, as in other countries, and continually noted in the Trends Journal, the virus has disproportionately killed the elderly population. The Swedish Public Health Authority reports the virus has hit 75 percent of the senior nursing homes and, so far, 86 percent of those who have died from COVID-19 were over 70 years old.
On 17 April, Dr. Johan Giesecke, a Swedish doctor renowned for his work in epidemiology, made it clear why his country’s more open strategy is working:
“The main reason is that we, or the Swedish government, decided early in January that the measures we should take against the pandemic should be evidence-based. And when you start looking around for the measures that are being taken now by different countries you find that very few of them have the shred of evidence base. But one we know, that’s known for a hundred and fifty years or more, and that is washing your hands is good for you and good for others when you’re in an epidemic. But the rest – like border closures, school closures, social distancing – there’s almost no science behind most of these.”
As for “herd immunity,” Dr. Giesecke gave a similar response as did the country’s chief medical spokesperson, Dr. Tegnell:
“It’s not a strategy, but it’s a by-product of the strategy. The strategy is to protect the old and the frail; try to minimize their risk of becoming infected, and taking care of them if they get infected. If you do that – the way we’re doing it – you would probably get herd immunity and then – but that’s a byproduct order, it’s not the main reason to do it.”
TRENDPOST: Dr. Giesecke also confirmed what Gerald Celente has been stating for months: Don’t quarantine the healthy in lockdowns and, in doing so, destroy economies and sap the joy and beauty out of life. Quarantine only those most at risk to die from the virus.
And as Gerald Celente has made clear, just as politicians start wars with no exit strategies, those that have imposed hard lockdowns on their countries have no exit strategy for ending the COVID War.
Indeed, Dr. Giesecke noted, “When I first heard, which is now six weeks ago, about the different draconic measures that were taken I asked myself: How are they going to climb down from that one? When will they open the schools again? What should be the criterion to open schools? Did any one of them – strong and very decisive politicians – even think about how to get out of this when they introduced it?”
