Sweden has received much international criticism for its decision to not lock its society down early on in the Covid19 outbreak. Schools and businesses remained open, while restrictions were placed on visitations to nursing homes for example, to protect the elderly and vulnerable.
Evidence has been coming in over the past several weeks that Sweden was right. Not only was their economy not destroyed, but they may have reached herd immunity much faster than anyone thought. All while keeping deaths at a level roughly on par with neighboring countries. Now more evidence is coming in that Sweden chose the right path.
Herd immunity, the process by which enough of a population has contracted and developed immunity to an illness that it protects the most vulnerable within it, was thought to be about 70% for Covid. In other words, 70% of a population was thought to have to contract the virus before herd immunity could be reached. It’s now believed to be much lower – only 10-20%.
Back in May Stanford’s Nobel-laureate Dr. Michael Levitt predicted if Sweden’s deaths peaked at about 5,000-6,000, we will know they’ve reached herd immunity. Well Sweden’s have peaked. And right their deaths are at around 5,500.
Johnny stared at the chart for an hour trying to see how he could turn it into an apologetic for the necessity of lockdown. But no matter how hard he tried, a small voice kept on nagging at him: “Lockdown was a complete waste of time, wasn’t it?” pic.twitter.com/TUgHNJFHWj
— TheBlogMire (@theblogmire) July 8, 2020
What’s more is that many more people are believed to be naturally immune to Covid19 than previously thought. It’s now though that up to 81% of us can fight the virus off without having been previously exposed to it. Why? It turns out the “novel” coronavirus is not as novel as previously thought. It actually bears similarity to other “common cold” coronaviruses we have already been exposed to. In other words, some scientists believe that a large portion of the population has always been immune to Covid19.
As more information becomes available it’s becoming clearer that some strategies worked better than others. While we were told by Dr. Anthony Fauci and others, to hid underneath our beds, Sweden’s health officials took a mature, measured approach. They were criticized for it, but it appears as of now, they have been vindicated.
Read more here.
Photo by galina_che_a from Pixabay