Telling new data has shown an incredible fact about one nation that completely rejected lockdowns throughout the pandemic.
Serious holes have been poked in the world’s response to the pandemic, with Sweden emerging atop a telling list of nations least affected by Covid-19.
In a list of countries studied by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Scandinavian nation ranked lowest for overall cumulative excess deaths from 2020-22 at 6.8 per cent, compared to Australia (18 per cent), the UK (24.5 per cent) and the US (54.1 per cent).
The results are even more poignant considering Sweden was one of the few developed nations that opted against widespread lockdowns.
As governments scrambled to make the idea of locking down regular life palatable throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Sweden refused, opting for a “voluntary” approach to dealing with the spread.
The nation of 10.4 million kept schools from closing throughout the biggest waves of the virus’ spread and did not mandate masks.
It should be noted Sweden’s population density sits at around 25 per square kilometre, roughly half that of the worldwide average, with neighbouring Denmark having around 125 per square km.
According to the Swedish government, the country’s response has been partly based on voluntary action.
Officials were repeatedly warned against lockdowns
Health officials have been criticised for ignoring the widespread effects lockdowns can have on mental health, citing troubling data from some of the world’s most locked-down cities, including Melbourne.
Documents released in 2021 showed Victoria’s Mental Health Minister was warned about the run-on effects of widespread lockdowns in a two-page ministerial briefing note, which also alerted him to a rise in youth self-harm incidents, hospital presentations and suicidal ideation.
The measures were followed by police officials urging the public to tip them off about “illegal” family gatherings and household visits. Some states, including Western Australia, proudly employed camera drones to scale public areas for those breaching their hourly quota of outdoor time.
There is a full inquiry underway into Australia’s response to Covid, with an independent review being funded by three major philanthropic organisations and headed by Western Sydney University chancellor Peter Shergold.
“Schools should have stayed open,” the almost 100-page report found.
“It was wrong to close entire school systems, particularly once new information indicated that schools were not high-transmission environments”.
There's probably enough muslims there that lockdowns would have resulted in riots.