Sweden’s unusual approach to fighting the coronavirus pandemic is starting to yield results, according to the country’s top epidemiologist

Anders Tegnell, the architect behind Sweden’s relatively relaxed response to Covid-19, told local media the latest figures on infection rates and fatalities indicate the situation is starting to stabilize. “We’re on a sort of plateau,” Tegnell told Swedish news agency TT.

Sweden has left its schools, gyms, cafes, bars and restaurants open throughout the spread of the pandemic. Instead, the government has urged citizens to act responsibly and follow social distancing guidelines.

The spread of Covid-19 across the globe is triggering different responses across national and even state borders, as authorities struggle to contain an outbreak about which much remains unknown.

It’s unclear which strategy will ultimately prove most effective, and even experts in Sweden warn it’s too early to draw conclusions. But given the huge economic damage caused by strict lockdowns, the Swedish approach has drawn considerable interest around the world.

Part of that approach relies on having access to one of the world’s best-functioning health-care systems. At no stage did Sweden see a real shortage of medical equipment or hospital capacity, and tents set up as emergency care facilities around the country have mostly remained empty.

Death Rates

As of Sunday, Sweden had reported 1,540 deaths tied to Covid-19, an increase of 29 from Saturday. That’s considerably more than in the rest of Scandinavia, but much less than in Italy, Spain and the U.K., both in absolute and relative terms.

Tegnell isn’t the only high-level official in Sweden to claim the country may be over the worst.

“The trend we have seen in recent days, with a more flat curve -- where we have many new cases, but not a daily increase -- is stabilizing,” Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of the microbiology department at Sweden’s Public Health Authority, said on Friday. “We are seeing the same pattern for patients in intensive care.”

Just two weeks ago, the picture was considerably bleaker, and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven suggested the government may need to review its approach amid the prospect of thousands of Swedish deaths. But Lofven’s personal popularity has soared, suggesting Swedes approve of his decisions.

“I have very high confidence in the Swedish authorities that manage this,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in a phone interview. “It’s a hard balance to strike, but I have full confidence in the measures that Sweden has taken.”

Volvo, which was forced to halt production across Europe and furlough about 20,000 Swedish employees, will resume production at its Swedish plants on Monday.

“Our measures are all based on individuals taking responsibility, and that is also an important part of the Swedish model,” Samuelsson said.

The Economy

Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy may ultimately result in a smaller -- albeit historically deep -- economic contraction than the rest of Europe is now facing, according to HSBC Global Research economist James Pomeroy.

“While Sweden’s unwillingness to lock down the country could ultimately prove to be ill-judged, for now, if the infection curve flattens out soon, the economy could be better placed to rebound,” he said.

Pomeroy pointed to some Swedish characteristics that may be helping the country deal with the current crisis. More than half of Swedish households are single-person, making social distancing easier to carry out. More people work from home than anywhere else in Europe, and everyone has access to fast Internet, which helps large chunks of the workforce stay productive away from the office.

And while many other countries have introduced strict laws, including hefty fines if people are caught breaching newly minted social-distancing laws, Swedes appear to be following such guidelines without the need for legislation. Trips from Stockholm to Gotland -- a popular vacation destination -- dropped by 96% over the Easter weekend, according to data from the country’s largest mobile operator, Telia Company. And online service Citymapper’s statistics indicate an almost 75% drop in mobility in the capital.

Sweden also recently pushed back against the notion that there’s little to no social distancing going on.

“We don’t have a radically different view,” Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in an interview with Radio Sweden. “The government has made a series of decisions that affect the whole society. It’s a myth that life goes on as normal in Sweden.”

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Coronavirus Antibody Testing Study Suggests Coronavirus Fatality Rate Could Be Less Than Seasonal Flu

Remember how China originally covered up the coronavirus outbreak? That likely means that it spent weeks spreading around the world before any efforts to contain or mitigate it happened. There have been reports that spikes in pneumonia-like cases in November and December of 2019 may actually have been coronavirus cases. This means that many people contracted the disease, recovered, and have developed antibodies.

On Friday, the results of the first large-scale antibody study in Santa Clara County in California headed by a Stanford University professor, Dr. Eran Bendavid, was released, and based on the results, the actual number of positive coronavirus cases is likely 50-85 times higher than confirmed cases.

This means the fatality rate of the coronavirus may be significantly lower than the World Health Organization's 3.4 percent estimate, or Dr. Fauci's 2.0 percent estimate.

How much? Let's take a look.

3,330 Santa Clara County residents were tested in the study, and those tests found that 2.49% to 4.16% of the subjects had coronavirus antibodies. "These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases." According to the study abstract, "Population prevalence estimates can now be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections."

Participants were “recruited using Facebook ads targeting a representative sample of the county by demographic and geographic characteristics,” and the results were adjusted for zip code, sex, and race/ethnicity.

The current death count for Santa Clara County is 69, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. While the death count in early April was likely a bit lower, I'll use that number to extrapolate the mortality rate of the coronavirus per this study.

Assuming the low estimate of infection count of 48,000, that gives us a fatality rate of .14 percent.

Assuming the mid-range estimate of infection count of 65,000, that gives us a fatality rate of .11 percent.

Assuming the high estimate of infection count of 81,000, that gives us a fatality rate of .09 percent.
The fatality rate of the seasonal flu is .1 percent.

An epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital told ABC News that the results of the study are not necessarily representative of the U.S. population, but conceded that the study did show that there are far more infections than confirmed cases. "There has been wide recognition that we were undercounting infections because of lack of testing or patients were asymptomatic," he said.

So, if this study is correct, there is a possibility that the actual fatality rate of the coronavirus is comparable, or even lower, than the seasonal flu.

It goes without saying that any deaths from the coronavirus are a tragedy, but our country (and the world) basically shut down over the World Health Organization's original estimates of a 3.4% case fatality ratio. This is why we need to be talking about opening up our country again.

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Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand
 
It’s reasonable to assume that the vast majority of Americans process news and data, and calculate that self-quarantining, wearing masks and social distancing make sense for themselves, their families and the country. Free people act out of self-preservation, but they shouldn’t be coerced to act through the authoritarian whims of the state. Yet this is exactly what’s happening.

There has been lots of pounding of keyboards over the power grabs of authoritarians in Central and Eastern Europe. Rightly so. Yet right here, politicians act as if a health crisis gives them license to lord over the most private activities of American people in ways that are wholly inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

I’m not even talking about national political and media elites who, after fueling years of hysteria over the coming Republican dictatorship, now demand Donald Trump dominate state actions. I’m talking about local governments.

Under what imperious conception of governance does Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer believe it is within her power to unilaterally ban garden stores from selling fruit or vegetable plants and seeds? What business is it of Vermont or Howard County, Indiana, to dictate that Walmart, Costco or Target stop selling “nonessential” items, such as electronics or clothing? Vermont has 628 cases of coronavirus as of this writing. Is that the magic number authorizing the governor to ban people from buying seeds for their gardens?

Maybe a family needs new pajamas for their young kids because they’re stuck in a new town. Or maybe mom needs a remote hard drive to help her work remotely. Or maybe dad just likes apples. Whatever the case, it’s absolutely none of your mayor’s business.

It makes sense for places like Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland to ban large, avoidable gatherings. But it is an astonishing abuse of power to issue stay-at-home orders, enforced by criminal law, empowering police to harass and fine individuals for nothing more than taking a walk.

The criminalization of movement ends with 10 Philly cops dragging a passenger off a bus for not wearing a face mask. It ends with local Brighton, Colorado, cops handcuffing a father in front of his family for playing softball with his daughter in an empty park. It ends with three Massachusetts men being arrested, and facing the possibility of 90 days in jail, for crossing state lines and golfing — a sport built for social distancing — in Rhode Island.

There is no reason to close “public” parks, where Americans can maintain social distance while getting some air or space for their mental and physical well-being — or maybe see a grandchild from afar. In California, surfers, who stay far away from each other, are banned from going in the water. Elsewhere, hikers are banned from roaming the millions of acres in national parks. Millions of lower-income and urban-dwelling Americans don’t have the luxury of backyards, and there is absolutely no reason to inhibit their movement, either.

Two days before Easter, Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fischer attempted to unilaterally ban drive-in church services for the most holy day in Christianity. It’s one thing if people are purposely and openly undermining public health. The constitutional right to assemble peacefully and protest or practice your religion, however, is not inoperable in the presence of a viral pandemic.

Would-be petty tyrants, such as Dallas judge Clay Jenkins, who implores residences to rat out neighbors who sell cigarettes for “putting profits over public health,” forgets that we are not ruled by him, and that he is merely our temporary servant.

But it’s important and necessary, say the experts. Great. Convince us. Most polls show that 80-something percent of Americans will stay home for the rest of this month even if lockdowns are lifted.

The question of how many lives would be lost if we didn’t shut down the economy is a vital one, but it is not the only one. There is an array of factors that goes into these decisions. One of them should be preserving our laws and our freedom in times of crisis.

We aren’t at “war.” There are no coronavirus spies and no coronavirus sabotage. Affixing “war” to societal problems — the war on drugs being the most obvious example — is typically a justification for expanding state power. Also, authoritarianism isn’t defined as “strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom except when there is a pandemic.” Your declarative sentences and forceful feelings do not transform the meaning of either authoritarianism or freedom. Though if we dump our principles every time there’s a crisis, they might as well.

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IN BRIEF

Trump's constitutional- and religious-liberty-minded DOJ steps up to defend Christians fined $500 for drive-in church service (PJ Media)

Kentucky GOP lawmakers override veto of voter ID measure, instituting "guardrails in our voting procedures that will help cure vulnerabilities that exist" (AP)

New unsealed documents show Planned Parenthood did profit from aborted baby body parts (The Federalist)

From Michigan to Kentucky to Ohio to Utah to North Carolina to Virginia, protests draw thousands over state stay-at-home orders (USA Today)

Weekly jobless claims hit 5.245 million, raising monthly loss to 22 million (CNBC)

New York and other East Coast states extend shutdown of "nonessential" businesses to May 15 (CNBC)

CA. Gov. Newsom announces $125 million fund to give stimulus checks to illegal immigrants (Fox News)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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