This is as close to an admission of “Sorry, we were wrong” as we’re likely to see in the New York Times.Let’s hope others learn this lesson as well—and offer the Swedes and Anders Tegnell a well-deserved apology.
Another story that should surprise no one.
Like mask wearing, it has been proven that lock downs really didn't help to prevent the spread of COVID. There are a variety of reasons why this is true and this was known from the beginning. We were told early on that lock downs were just going to last a couple of weeks to flatten the curve to prevent things like hospitals from being overrun. In fact, that is the best that can be done without a completely impractical total 100% lock down. Otherwise, the virus will still spread until everyone is immune.
At the end of the day, while a short lockdown period MAY have helped slow the spread, it was never going to stop it. At the end of the day, whether you had strict lock downs or none at all, the number of deaths due to the virus are going to be about the same. It's just that the timing may be a little different. If anything, the need for lockdowns depends on the medical capacity of your country. You can get the disease over with fast but with more people hospitalized at once or you can implement strict lockdowns over an extended period which may spread out hospital cases but is economically disastrous causing an untold number of other problems.
Maybe you could argue that lock downs helped save people if implemented until a vaccine was available. However, this seems not to have made a difference in Sweeden which did as well or better than countries with much stricter policies.
