So much for the "Swedish model"

The rather Darwinian "Swedish model" for handling the COVID-19 pandemic is now pretty much discredited, although its proponents continue to defend its "basic approach."

Dr. Anders Tegnell, the epidemiologist who has led Sweden's effort and touted what some (not all) in the Swedish government to adopt a permissive attitude toward the transmission of the virus to achieve "herd immunity," admits that if he had it to do over again he'd take a different approach "somewhere in between" what Sweden has done and what the rest of the world has done. He also told Swedish radio that there was "quite obviously room for improvement" in what Sweden did, though he later walked his comments back and defended Sweden's basic approach, saying that its "basic strategy worked well."

That strategy took into account the long-term threat posed by COVID and was based on the assumption that shutting the economy down and severely restricting the movement of citizens was not sustainable in the long run. Critics observe that there is a great deal of distance between maintaining draconian restrictions indefinitely and not increasing and lessening them as the spread of the virus waxes and wanes. In the United States, the Trump administration has continued to encourage widespread reopening of the economy even though few states have met the benchmarks set by the White House taskforce.

In the last week, Sweden has led the world in COVID deaths per million people with 5.9.  Its death toll is five to ten times higher than that of its fellow Scandinavian countries, though on average has been lower than some other European nations that eventually took stricter precautions.

Swedish Economics Minister Magdelena Anderssen says that despite expectations that the more permissive attitude would allow Sweden to emerge in a better economic position than its neighbors, the toll the virus has taken on the nation's economy has created its worst economic crisis since World War II, on a par with the reverses faced by other European nations. Sweden's economy is expected to shrink by roughly seven percent this year.

The Swedish government yielded to opposition pressure and agreed to a reexamination of the nation's policy earlier this week.