UK: Around the world, other countries are opening up with no adverse effects. Why do we think we will be the exception?

Karol Sikora

To some people, a second wave of this pandemic more powerful and deadly than the first is an inevitability. So, hospitals have been instructed to prepare to increase critical care capacity. The Nightingales are ready to re-open. A much more rigid lockdown may be necessary in September. Waiting lists will exceed 10 million for the first time in history.

To even question the strategy is considered blasphemy. And yes, I know predictions are tricky. And the vaccine strategy is not looking good. But despite that, there are reasons to be optimistic.

Just look around the world. In Wuhan, China has tested 10 million residents and found no new cases. A minor outbreak in Beijing is being effectively controlled. In South Korea and Japan, it’s all over, and life is getting back to normal. In the West, countries like Austria and Denmark, which eased their lockdowns two months ago, have seen further declines in infections, with no spikes. The same can be said for Italy, Spain and France, just weeks ahead on their coronavirus journey. Schools are back; restaurants and bars are open. City squares all over Europe are buzzing again

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Sweden passes 5,000 coronavirus deaths amid criticism of its lockdown-free strategy – but its death rate per million is STILL behind the UK

Sweden has passed the grim mark of 5,000 coronavirus deaths today as cracks began to emerge in the political consensus the government has until now enjoyed over its softer approach.

The Public Health Agency said it had recorded 5,041 Covid-19 deaths, giving it the world's fifth highest death rate at 499.1 per million inhabitants.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, a Social Democrat, insisted in a weekend televised interview that hospitalistions were down sharply and Sweden's strategy of not locking down 'was not a failure'.

The country's leader went on to say that the large share of deaths in elderly care homes 'has nothing to do with the strategy. 'It has to do with failings in society that we are correcting,' including basic hygiene deficiencies in many care homes, he added.

Sweden's political circles broadly supported the decision to not lock down, as did the general population.

But there has been growing criticism in recent weeks over the government's struggles to get mass testing off the ground, which only began in earnest this week.

Parties on the right have also accused the government of hiding behind public health experts and failing to take responsibility in the crisis.

'A leader has to step forward, but Lofven took a step back,' Ebba Thor, the head of the Christian Democrats, said during a recent party leader debate.

The Liberals' parliamentary leader, Johan Pehrson, said Sweden's softer approach 'may have contributed to the high death toll', while the head of the conservative Moderate Party, Ulf Kristersson, has called for a commission to be appointed immediately to probe the government's handling of the crisis.

Swedish officials have stressed that the situation has vastly improved in recent weeks, despite the dire death toll.

The Public Health Agency said the country of 10.3 million had 54,562 confirmed cases on Wednesday, a high infection rate, but said the large majority of new cases were mild ones recorded after testing began to ramp up several weeks ago.

The number of hospitalisations and intensive care patients had gone down dramatically since hitting a peak in April, officials said.

According to the Swedish Intensive Care Registry, there were on Wednesday a total of 218 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units, compared to a peak of 558 on April 25-26.

Doctors in the country also confirmed that their COVID-19 units had passed the peak. 'The number of patients has gone down dramatically,' Lars Falk, head of the ECMO unit at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, told AFP. 'There are much fewer patients needing ICU care than a couple of weeks ago,' he said.

Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency, who has become the face of Sweden's strategy, has repeatedly insisted that lockdowns do not work. Once countries lift their restrictions and normal routines resume, the virus will begin to circulate again, he said. 'You can't eliminate the virus entirely in the long-run,' he told reporters on Tuesday.

Another scientific study published on Wednesday by the Public Health Agency showed that the infection fatality rate in Stockholm for those aged 69 and under was 0.1 percent, and 4.3 percent for those aged 70 and over. That study examined 1,667 people infected with the virus during March 21-30.

The figures come as Britain today announced another 184 deaths from Covid-19, taking the country's total number of lab-confirmed victims past the 42,000-mark.

Department of Health statistics show the daily number of fatalities has dropped 25 per cent in a week, with 245 posted across all settings last Wednesday. Some 233 deaths were recorded yesterday.

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Poor Black Communities Devastated After BLM Riots Lead to New Food Deserts

BLM creates poverty and food deserts wherever they go
Weeks of civil unrest, rioting, and looting by Black Lives Matter and antifa agitators in some of the poorest areas of the country have resulted in devastating consequences for the residents, who are mostly black or minority. A video was taken by a woman in an undisclosed location. As she walks through her neighborhood grocery store in tears she describes the wreckage as she looks for milk for her children. “Look at this. Every grocery store looks like this,” she said. “Everything is either on the floor…look at this. I came into the store to buy something because I’m not a thief,” she said. People who already couldn’t feed their kids, now they really can’t feed their kids,” she cried. “I am so devastated right now.”

“We couldn’t even find tissue less than two months ago and now it’s on the floor,” she said as she surveyed the damage. “I feel like an animal and black people made me feel like an animal. Y’all did that!” She continued to berate the rioters, “This is what we’re fighting for…we’re so black and proud that we ain’t never going to be honest and be real about what’s really going on. Y’all are so wrong for this.”

Making black people drive out of state to buy food is….progress?
Neighborhoods near where I grew up outside of Chicago are devastated. One of my friends who lives on the south side of Chicago told me she and her husband have to drive to Indiana to get groceries now. There isn’t a grocery store anywhere near them that hasn’t been destroyed. She’s one of the lucky ones because she has a car. Many in her neighborhood don’t have transportation and they have no options to get to food stores now.

We have been berated and shamed for not supporting Black Lives Matter as an organization and “social movement,” but which is the more racist position: supporting the looting and burning of black neighborhoods where black people will suffer the consequences of more poverty, or supporting law and order and the protection of those neighborhoods and resources?

I’m getting the distinct impression that if you support the protection of these neighborhoods from criminals you are a terrible, no good, rotten, racist who can be fired from your job just for criticizing BLM. But if you support the crime syndicate that destroyed this woman’s grocery store and stores in poor black neighborhood’s all over American cities, you are a virtuous member of society who cannot and will not suffer any consequences for your beliefs that lead to the devastation that black people will now suffer.

BLM is the white leftist’s free pass out of responsibility for food deserts
All one has to do these days to be considered a good and non-racist white person is put a sign in your yard supporting BLM and their ruinous tactics that are hurting black families, keeping food off the shelves, and even milk from babies. It doesn’t matter that the people you support are actually terrorizing black neighborhoods and black mothers like the one in the video. You are allowed to support them openly, agitate with them, support them financially, and prop them up with legitimacy as they burn, loot, and destroy black livelihoods. This gives you the protection to point your fingers at those of us who think it’s a moral injustice to target black people through the destruction of their neighborhoods and call us, inexplicably, racists.

If you are a person who believes that grocery stores in minority neighborhoods should be protected by police, that the poor people living there should be protected from violence and civil unrest, you’re a bad person. Is everyone paying attention? This is the accepted philosophy of our time. If people don’t wake up in the neighborhoods that were just destroyed by agitators pretending to care about minority rights, there is no hope for America.

Republicans aren’t the answer for everything and in general, are feckless and ineffective legislators. They’re terrible at messaging, they don’t know how to deal with controversy and they bend over way too easily to Democrat pressure. But they have never supported the destruction of any neighborhoods by lawless criminals. The majority of Republican-run areas did not get looted and burned. They protected their communities from violence and terror. The Democrat strongholds did not. Remember that when you vote next time.

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IN BRIEF

Fed-up black business owners wrestle with "defund the police" (Washington Examiner)

Starbucks caves to Social Justice Warriors, will allow employees to wear Black Lives Matter clothing after boycott campaign (National Review)

More than 1,300 Chinese medical suppliers falsified registration information to sell in the U.S. (Washington Examiner)

Amazon is fielding probes from California and Washington over trade practices (Gizmodo)

Oregon governor temporarily halts state's reopening (The Daily Caller)

Illegal immigration rose nearly 40% amid coronavirus reopenings (The Washington Times)

"Faded away into a dark nightmare": North Korea says diplomacy with Trump has failed (USA Today)

Seattle's "autonomous zone" and the Paris Commune of 1871 are ominously similar (Foundation for Economic Education)

Study finds mask-wearing "most effective means to prevent interhuman transmission" (Washington Examiner)

London police call for protest ban after 23 officers injured during demonstrations (Washington Examiner)

Policy: Democrats accidentally make the case against teachers' unions (Issues & Insights)

Adding insult to injury, the Supreme Court refuses to hear Trump administration challenge to California sanctuary law (National Review)

"Looking the other way": Justice Clarence Thomas accuses his colleagues of dodging gun cases (The Washington Free Beacon)

President Trump is considering a new $1 trillion infrastructure "stimulus" plan (Business Insider)

Joe Biden and the DNC raise over $80 million in May, their biggest monthly haul of 2020 race (CNBC)

Trump campaign and the RNC raise $14 million on Trump's birthday, breaking fundraising record (The Daily Caller)

Dow rallies after record retail sales jump of 17.7% in May (CNBC)

Facing huge budget gaps, governments have furloughed or laid off more than 1.5 million workers (The New York Times)

Research finds lockdowns are far worse for health and lives than coronavirus (The Federalist)

"No question it is going to make it harder to defend our religious freedom, as far as an organization being able to hire people of like mind": Conservative Christians concerned over "seismic implications" of Supreme Court ruling (The New York Times)

NYPD commissioner disbands plainclothes anti-crime units (FOX 5)

Orthodox Jews cut locks on closed New York City park to let children play (Washington Examiner)

Patients with underlying conditions were 12 times as likely to die of coronavirus as otherwise healthy people, CDC finds (The Washington Post)

Mutation in new coronavirus increases chance of infection (Reuters)

Mayor Bill de Blasio's "contact tracing team" isn't allowed to ask patients if they attended a protest (The Daily Caller)

Justice Department schedules first federal executions since 2003 for convicted child murderers (Washington Examiner)

NOAA leaders violated agency ethics code in "Sharpiegate," independent panel finds (Washington Examiner)

Supreme Court validates LGBT protections on grounds LGBT activists reject (The Federalist)

U.S. embassy in Seoul removes "Black Lives Matter" banner day after being unveiled (The Daily Caller)

North Korea blows up South Korea liaison office (Fox News)

Policy: SCOTUS's transgender ruling firebombs the Constitution (The Federalist)

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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.

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