{"id":33280,"date":"2024-03-16T12:47:48","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T16:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=33280"},"modified":"2024-03-16T12:48:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T16:48:18","slug":"laissez-faire-sweden-had-the-lowest-mortality-in-europe-from-2020-2022-new-analysis-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2024\/03\/16\/laissez-faire-sweden-had-the-lowest-mortality-in-europe-from-2020-2022-new-analysis-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Laissez-Faire\u2019 Sweden Had the Lowest Mortality in Europe From 2020\u20132022, New Analysis Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gore Vidal once said \u201cI told you so\u201d are the four most beautiful words in the English language.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why it\u2019s difficult to resist sharing new data that show how Sweden\u2019s much-maligned pandemic response was right after all.<\/p>\n

For those who\u2019ve forgotten, Sweden was excoriated by corporate media and US politicians for its lighter-touch Covid-19 strategy. Many were downright hostile to the Swedes for refusing to shutter schools, lock down businesses, and ramp up police to enforce mandates.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sample of headlines:<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cWhy the Swedish Model for Fighting COVID-19 Is a Disaster\u201d (Time<\/a><\/em>, October 2020).<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cThe Inside Story of How Sweden Botched Its Coronavirus Response\u201d (Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>, December 2020).<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cSweden Stayed Open and More People Died of Covid-19, but the Real Reason May Be Something Darker\u201d (Forbes<\/a><\/em>, 2020).<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cSweden Has Become the World\u2019s Cautionary Tale\u201d (New York Times<\/a><\/em>, July 2020).<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cI Just Came Home to Sweden. I\u2019m Horrified by the Coronavirus Response Here\u201d (Slate<\/a><\/em>, April 2020).<\/p>\n

This is just a taste of the reactions against Sweden in 2020. By opting to allow its 10 million citizens to continue living relatively normal lives, Sweden was, in the words of The Guardian<\/em>, leading not just Swedes but the entire world \u201cto catastrophe<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even then-president Trump got in on the action<\/a> of smacking Sweden around.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown,\u201d the tweeter-in-chief warned.<\/p>\n

Despite the foreboding rhetoric, the worst-case predictions for Sweden never materialized. In fact, they were not even close<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In March 2021, it was apparent that Sweden had a lower mortality rate than most<\/a> European nations. The following year, Sweden boasted<\/a> one of the lowest mortality rates in Europe.<\/p>\n

By March 2023, Sweden had the lowest excess death rate in all of Europe, according to<\/a> some data sets. And though some weren\u2019t ready to admit that Sweden had the lowest excess mortality in all of Europe, even the New York Times<\/em>, which had mocked Sweden\u2019s pandemic strategy, conceded that the nation\u2019s laissez-faire approach was hardly the disaster<\/a> many had predicted.<\/p>\n

More recently, Danish economist Bj\u00f8rn Lomborg shared a statistical analysis based on government data from all European countries from January 2020 to August 2022. The study demonstrated that Sweden had the lowest cumulative age-standardized mortality rate in all of Europe in that period.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross Europe, Sweden saw [the] lowest total death during and after Covid,\u201d Lomborg said on X<\/a> (formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n