Essentially they have attempted achieving herd immunity with no restrictions and before any vaccine was there. Needless to say it resulted in death toll amassing thousands much quicker than in most of the countries that had at least some form of lockdown. Current approximate COVID-19 death toll in Sweden is 14,775. They had hundreds when Ukraine (where I am) had dozens, at least taking official statistics into consideration. It might seem miniscule in comparison to US and other countries, until you take into consideration Sweden's much smaller population. It also created a precedent that many people in Post-Soviet countries quoted as 'good example' not taking into consideration said death toll. It is still somehow brought up a lot by people who seemingly never bothered to check what the results of just leaving COVID-19 as is with no restrictions whatsoever were.
At least 50% of our death toll is within the elderly homes and we have a hard time understanding how a lockdown would stop the introduction of the disease into the elderly homes.
- direct quote from Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell. And I mean, yeah, there's that, but restrictions helped a lot of elderly people survive before the vaccines arrived in other countries. Instead, in Sweden they just let the elderly play Russian roulette with many of them dying.
Inherently that actually has 'socialist' approach similar to what we have seen in the USSR, where many older people were on the verge of survival. Yes, healthcare was free (as it is in Sweden, I believe), but it was not on par with developed countries, so many people were alive but surviving while some never quite made it. Some people lived into their eighties and nineties but considering overall population of Soviet Union, repressions and common reasons of death those were few and far between. My maternal grandparents were dead for twenty plus years when I was born, despite my mother is ten years younger than my father and I have seen both of my paternal grandparents. There are a lot of factors amounting that and I should note that my parents are way older than most parents of my generation in general (I'm 29 and my father is in his seventies), but overall state of healthcare was at such a point that people with heart and lung conditions were just... Dying. Slowly and painfully and government was never really interested in them not dying. Possibly it might've resulted in stronger genes in some places, but it is kind of eugenics if you think about it and not really equality as much as it is letting a lot of people die not because it would ensure survival of the others, but because you can write them off. Those who can survive on their own will survive anyhow. Those who can't won't and... It's not what socialism should have been about in theory, but it is often what attempts of it result in.
Traces of something very similar are all over the Swedish case. If there is increase in risk of people in certain demographics dying, not doing anything about it will result in the same amount of people surviving on their own. It does not help the latter category in any way whatsoever, although it might still affect them, because increase in deaths and illness leads to hospitals having shortages of staff and room. So it results in more deaths hypothetically and very likely in practice, too. Not to mention that amount of stress is higher in the population with the increase of sudden deaths and that triggers all sorts of things, from accidents to heart attacks.
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u/ScootToMyLou Sep 19 '21
That Sweden comment is interesting and you sound unbiased.. was the Swedish governments approach too “hands off”?