Tình hình Thụy Điển thế nào rồi?

tháng vừa qua ko ca tử vong nào vì covid nhé...

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Sally Beck reports from a recent Lockdown Summit. Two slices:

Analysing measures that the government has used to keep us ‘free from fear’, Frank Furedi, professor of sociology from the University of Kent, said they had had the opposite effect. He asked: ‘Are people walking around saying “we feel safer”? We feel far more insecure and anxious than ever. Every time we give up our freedom for safety, the less safe we feel.’

Children and women vulnerable (dễ bị tổn thương) to domestic violence  (bạo hành gia đình) were on the agenda because during the first three weeks of lockdown, 14 women and two children were killed in their homes (tử vong/bị giết ở trong nhà), while 400,000 children have sought help with their mental health (sức khỏe tinh thần).

Child and adolescent clinical psychologist Dr Zenobia Storah was unequivocal (rõ rệt, dứt khoát, không mập mờ). She said: ‘We have totally failed children this year. It is totally obvious if you close schools it is going to cause a crisis (khủng hoảng). Children become invisible.

‘Special needs schools closed, respite closed, social workers stopped home visits. Child membership to criminal gangs (băng đảng tội phạm) has increased. It is like watching a slow car crash (nhìn thước phim quay chậm cảnh xe đâm).’

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One country came in for praise – Sweden. They have been our control group since March 2020, focusing on building herd immunity (miễn dịch cộng đồng) in their population rather than locking down their population and removing their liberties.

Doom-mongers (kêu gào ngày tận thế) predicted that this ‘reckless’ action would end with 90,000 excess deaths. PANDA’s Nick Hudson explained: ‘By the end of the year, they had suffered no more than between zero and 7,000 excess deaths, depending on how you run the numbers. Sweden had an abnormally low death rate in 2019 so 2020’s figures included the build-up.’

David Paton, Professor of industrial economics at Nottingham University Business School, praised Sweden’s anti-lockdown strategy for saving their economy. He said: ‘The UK took a 10 per cent hit to its gross domestic product (GDP), while Sweden only suffered a 2.1 per cent hit.’

The last word should go to actuary and PANDA co-founder Peter Castleden who described the measures that increase your risk of a poor outcome if you contract Covid. He said: ‘Obesity and anxiety were the top predictors. So what did we do? We stopped people exercising and filled them with fear.’

Bài trước: Cảnh giác với "lựa chọn dễ dàng"