How Sweden's Covid No-Lockdown Actually Worked...
Channel: Insight History Clips
Date: 05/10/2020

How Sweden Fought Covid With No Lockdown and No Facemasks – Did the Swedish No-Lockdown Work? As numerous countries around the world raced to impose a fascist-style lockdown, one country refused. That is not to say that Sweden did not impose restrictions to fight Covid-19, but the Swedish approach was largely voluntary and far more in line with what you would expect in a free and democratic country. 

Sweden did implement some laws, such as banning gatherings of more than 50 people, restricting visits to care homes, and restaurants and bars only allowed to provide table service. Actions such as good hygiene, working from home, and avoiding public transport were also encouraged. Yet no mandatory lockdown was imposed, gyms, restaurants and bars were kept open, and young children have being going to school all through the pandemic. Furthermore, Sweden has not forced citizens to were facemasks, with facemasks not even recommended in many instances.   

The man at the centre of this strategy is Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist. The Swedish constitution allows independent bodies to have considerable power outside of government, with Sweden’s response to Covid directed by public health officials. One of the core reasons why Sweden decided to take a more voluntary approach to fighting Covid-19 was in an attempt to make it more sustainable. Instead of constant, head-spinning law changes, as seen in many other countries, Sweden’s rules have been relatively consistent so far, and are predicted to remain consistent in the following months unless anything major changes. Another important reason why Sweden took this path was because officials decided - early in the pandemic - to take an “evidence-based” approach to tackling Covid, and they felt that other countries were imposing restrictions at a time when there was little scientific proof that these measures actually worked. Yet was their strategy a success? 

To donate through PayPal, please visit https://insighthistory.com/support and click the “Donate Now” button in your preferred currency, which will take you to PayPal.com. Thanks. 

To donate Crypto, please send to the following addresses:
Bitcoin (BTC) Wallet Address: 3LSVcyj2nva7WQHdhaWwVpXgCyiebfcwHz
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Wallet Address: qp6c8cqhtyzaturgdhlcvq6cm9kv5hgt9s7tyk7csz
Ethereum Wallet (ETH) Address: 0x261C8b5411eA7d0E4c7e68C3aE972f3FaD9feFF9

Support Insight History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/insighthistory 
Subscribe to Insight History on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2XuJ8Ik 
Subscribe to Insight History on BitChute: https://bit.ly/2ScB8rg 

Firstly, it is important to note that comparing countries is extremely problematic. For instance, countries have different population structures, and varying degrees of elderly people, and people with obesity, asthma, high blood pressure and other factors that can potentially result in more severe reactions to Covid-19, so simply comparing the number of deaths per capita between countries is an extremely crude measure. Furthermore, as it is difficult to determine if someone died OF Covid-19 or WITH Covid-19, there is a major problem with Covid death rates. In addition, as some tests appear to be picking up fragments of a dead Covid viral infection which is no longer a problem, the figures in relation to the number of positive cases should be viewed with some caution. 

Sources:
BBC News (5 Aug. 2020) Coronavirus: Sweden's economy hit less hard by pandemic https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-5...
CIA Factbook, Norway https://www.cia.gov/library/publicati... 
CIA Factbook, Sweden https://www.cia.gov/library/publicati... 
CNN (Christiane Amanpour) (23 July, 2020) 'No proof,' Official defends Sweden's controversial Covid-19 move https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQki...
Milne, R. (11 Sep. 2020) Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment, Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/5cc92d45-f... 
UnHerd (Lockdown TV) (17 April, 2020) Why lockdowns are the wrong policy - Swedish expert Prof. Johan Giesecke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2J...  
Reuters (8 Sep. 2020) Positive Covid tests in no-lockdown Sweden hit lowest rate since pandemic began https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-hea...
Savage, M. (23 July, 2020) Did Sweden's coronavirus strategy succeed or fail? BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-euro...
Schraer, R. (5 Sep. 2020) Coronavirus: Tests 'could be picking up dead virus,' BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-540... 

Creative Commons Imagery: 
Frankie Fouganthin https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...