Today Sweden reported 5,990 new cases. With a population of only 10M, that’s ~60 cases-per-100,000 population per day.
This is now above the US rate and almost 2x the peak daily rates in Texas and Florida back in mid-July during the summer-wave.
The Death of Herd Immunity
The “herd immunity” shills have spent months pointing to Sweden as PROOF that no mitigation and herd immunity to path out of the epidemic.
The current winter-wave should hopefully silence the charlatans and finally, put the herd immunity fantasy to rest.
Unfortunately, with Scott Atlas now leading the US Covid response, the “let it burn” herd immunity approach is now official US government policy. We can see the results all around us as state after state burns with not a single word from the White House Covid Response Team.
As I’ve pointed on repeatedly over the past few months if naturally occurring herd immunity was so easily achieved, then there should be hundreds, maybe thousands, of cases of epidemics wiped out through herd immunity.
I’ve always asked the herd immunity proponents to do a quick 3-minute Google search and come back with the Top-10 diseases eliminated through natural herd immunity. Of course, not a SINGLE person has ever responded because that list is ZERO.
Herd immunity ALWAYS requires three elements:
An effective vaccine that confers sterilizing immunity (none of the current vaccine candidates produces sterilizing immunity, only disease immunity)
A mass public vaccination program (70% - 80% of the population for Covid)
Permanent lifetime immune protection (both the disease and the vaccines provide not more than 6-months of immune protection and as little as only
10-12 weeks of protection).
The fact is, there will be NO herd immunity for Covid, either through uncontrolled infection or after the vaccines are deployed. None of the critical conditions even for vaccine-induced herd immunity will be met.
Economics of Lockdown
The second argument for the supposed superiority of the “Swedish Approach” is that with no lockdown, a lot of people might die, but at least businesses won’t be forced to suffer.
But people will self-lockdown when everyone around them are getting sick and dying, whether the government is telling you to or not!
Mitigation Efforts = Less Disease
Less Disease = Better Economic Climate
And the data bears this out. Comparing Sweden to other Scandanavian countries you see:
3x to 12x the level of Covid infections per capita
5x to 10x the level of Covid deaths per capita
Worse economic performance than neighboring Scandanavian countries.
And The Deaths Continue…
And none of the earlier infections have done ANYTHING to slow the infection and death rates during the current winter-wave sweeping the EU right now. Sweden continues to significantly underperform similar Scandinavian countries. Racking up infections and deaths at 10x the rate of neighboring countries.
But though the pandemic, the herd immunity shills have kept up a running commentary how virtues of Swedens “herd immunity miracle”…right up to the point they drive the car off the cliff at full speed!
A couple of useful links:
Sweden has admitted its coronavirus immunity predictions were wrong as cases soar across the country
Why do COVID-19 deaths in Sweden always appear to decrease in the last 10 days?
About the author:
I am a scientist with 20+ years in the biotech industry. I currently work as a consultant with companies involved in developing molecular diagnostics platforms, including some of the key testing platforms used to detect the SarsCoV2 virus.
So I bring an insider’s perspective that is scientifically oriented but directed to a general audience trying to make sense of the conflicting stories surrounding the Covid pandemic.
To learn more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalewharrison/
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