(Just to short circuit the counter-narrative before it starts, when I discuss Sweden with people who have emotionally invested in the Covid narrative, the most common response is that Swedes are somehow more mature and responsible than the rest of the world, and were very obedient to the suggestions of the narrative and therefore did not need legislation because people did all that stuff voluntarily. I work with Swedes every week and even had one of our translators go to downtown Stockholm and video the pubs, bars and restaurants during the first and most severe part of the lockdowns for the rest of us when people were doing black market toilet paper in Canada. And the patios and bars were full. There was barely standing room in popular ones. There was no compliance that our Swedes could see anywhere they went. In fact, is was indistinguishable from non ‘pandemic’ times. So no. Its not about a mature voluntary compliance. Just for the record. We did post videos at the time others took showing bouncing pubs and joyful patios at this site, and if the need arrises I will ask our Swedish translator to send his footage from that time as well. The Meta data should prove when it was shot. But suffice it to say that this means the following data is that much more important.)
New data from Europe suggest Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic was far from catastrophic.
Few people in 2020 came under more heat than Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top epidemiologist.
But the man who forged Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 early in the pandemic says new international data reveal a hard truth about government lockdowns.
“I think people will probably think very carefully about these total shutdowns, how good they really were,” Tegnell told Reuters in a recent interview. “They may have had an effect in the short term, but when you look at it throughout the pandemic, you become more and more doubtful.”
Tegnell was referring to data published by Reuters that show Sweden, which shunned the strict lockdowns embraced by most nations around the world, experienced a smaller increase in its mortality rate than most European countries in 2020.
Preliminary data from EU statistics agency Eurostat compiled by Reuters showed Sweden had 7.7% more deaths in 2020 than its average for the preceding four years. Countries that opted for several periods of strict lockdowns, such as Spain and Belgium, had so-called excess mortality of 18.1% and 16.2% respectively.
This seems like a good time to repost the Swedish head demographer for the state itself on total mortality since 1900: