I sometimes wonder if our friends even know what Sweden did, and didn't, do to combat Covid. This is a flavor of what the Swedish government did: "the government did ban large public gatherings, close high schools and universities, and recommend physical distancing in bars and restaurants. It urged people to work at home if feasible and avoid unnecessary travel or social events attracting many people at the same time."
Another item that is confounding: people talk of U.S. lockdowns, when there really wasn't a lockdown in the U.S. - only China, and a few other places, truly locked down their societies.
Our country didn't truly have a "lockdown" (I wonder if people know what the word means, or because it is so often in the press, it is just being repeated). Google pictures of full beaches, restaurants, bars, mass events like Mardi Gras, Sturgis, the "protests" etc. There are plenty of them. Instead of a true lockdown, which would have nipped this in the bud back in February/March, we had a hodgepodge of restrictions, that varied, state to state. We allowed interstate travel, so people could go to state X, and bring back the virus to state Z. We allowed international travel, with the exception of China, and later some European countries, and even later Brazil. We didn't advocate masks - not because they don't work, but because we didn't have enough to go around. We can't contract trace here (because we don't have enough contact tracers, and our citizens do not agree to taking part in it).
The reason we've so many cases, and so many deaths, is because we didn't lockdown, and didn't take other public health measures that would have brought the pandemic under control.
"China: Initial strict lockdown, universal mask wearing, contact tracing, mass testing.
China: 3.4 covid deaths per million
Sweden: 574.74 covid deaths per million.
This is China today"
https://twitter.com/kelvinbsp/status/1305614168431702021China's
open, few masks, Covid under control... they locked down, we didn't.
Sweden? As I said before, it is a place of myth for libertarians, where dead people are not referred to as people, but as statistics, 7-day moving averages, as numbers on charts etc. It is almost as if a cult has sprung up surrounding Sweden.
Post Edited (Buddy Blank) : 9/15/2020 5:51:10 AM (GMT-6)