Over the past 3 months, a debate has raged over the wisdom of the Swedish approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics of mitigation measures have extolled Sweden, the outlier among European nations for having not implemented stay-at-home measures, reckoning that Sweden’s unique approach will allow it to buck the trend of economic slowdown while avoiding the dramatic suffering from the pandemic that the likes of Italy or Spain have endured.
On the other hand, those advocating the more cautious consensus have rebuked Sweden for what they consider to be a callous disregard for the lives of those who will perish because contagion was not restricted.
Putting aside the Swedish Central Bank’s announcement that Sweden is expected to see an economic downturn equivalent to its neighbours that did implement lockdowns, how can we evaluate the decision of the epidemiologists advising the Swedish Government to allow contagion to spread in the hopes of reaching “herd immunity” before a vaccine becomes available sometime in 2021?
