Lay off the Swedes, Mr. President!
Exclusive: Nicholas L. Waddy say Nordic nation will be better prepared for COVID's 2nd wave
By Nicholas L. WaddyPublished May 1, 2020 at 7:22pm
Not since Viking marauders terrorized the coasts and waterways of Europe in the Middle Ages has Sweden attracted so much international condemnation.
The reason is simple: The Swedes have had the temerity to buck the Western world's consensus on the need for strict lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. What cheek!
President Trump joined the fray on Twitter, declaring: “Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown.
As of today, 2462 people have died there, a much higher number than the neighboring countries of Norway (207), Finland (206) or Denmark (443).
The United States made the correct decision!”
For a variety of reasons, the president's tweet was misguided, and we conservatives should not hesitate to say so.
For one thing, Sweden has a larger population than any of the other Nordic countries, so comparing raw numbers of the coronavirus dead doesn't give an accurate picture of these nations' relative success in stemming pandemic-related mortality.
When we consider that every country has its own methodology for reporting (or concealing) coronavirus deaths, these raw numbers become even less reliable as benchmarks.
President Trump could have pointed to population-adjusted mortality rates, however, which do indicate that Sweden is suffering more coronavirus-related deaths, proportionally speaking, than other Scandinavian countries.
RealClearPolitics reports that, as of April 30, Sweden had a rate of deaths per 1 million in population of 253.9.
That's worse than the U.S. at 193.4, and much worse than Germany at 79.1, but far better than a variety of countries with much stricter lockdowns in place, such as the U.K. (402.6), Italy (462.8), Spain (525.3) and Belgium (664.9).
What can one conclude from this data?
Very little, since there's no clear correlation between the rigidity of a country's lockdown measures and its susceptibility to COVID-19 deaths.
The truth is that there are many factors affecting pandemic mortality, so even a comparison of death rates only gets us so far.
What President Trump is also missing is the fact that Sweden's less stringent approach to imposing social distancing was never designed to prevent all coronavirus deaths, or even to achieve a lower death rate than other countries might have.
It was designed to minimize mortality and protect the most vulnerable, while at the same time requiring realistic, sustainable sacrifices from the general population – sacrifices that would not bankrupt private businesses, wreck the economy, paralyze the health care system, or ruin lives and split apart friends and family.
Sweden's model, in short, was meant to be a proportional, rational response to a virus that Swedish epidemiologists and public health authorities predicted (rightly!) would not be as deadly as some models suggested.
Did Sweden get it right, or did Sweden get it wrong?
The truth is that, despite President Trump's tweet, we don't know, and we probably won't know for months or even years.
That's because we can't say with any certainty how this pandemic will affect overall death rates both in Sweden and elsewhere in the West.
We don't know, for instance, if Sweden's relatively high mortality rate now will be balanced by lower rates later.
That might be the case, because a side-effect of the Swedish strategy might be the achievement relatively soon of a degree of herd immunity to COVID-19.
If that supposition turns out to be true, then theoretically, this fall the disease could make a comeback in the United States and elsewhere, killing thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or … well, you get the picture.
Meanwhile, the cantankerous Swedes would be immune. Few would die there.
In short, those who pass judgment on the Swedes now do so at their own peril.
The Swedish pandemic gambit has already paid some dividends, while still arguably exposing the Swedish population to higher than necessary mortality in the short run.
In the long run, who knows?
Maybe the Swedes will have the last laugh.
Of course, as we all know, that's a contradiction in terms: Swedes don't laugh.
They do, however, go out to eat and enjoy an occasional beer at a sidewalk cafe.
That, in itself, makes them remarkably brave, in this day and age.
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