To begin with, there’s news about Cristiano Ronaldo testing positive for coronavirus, as in the virus doesn’t really care if you’re a big star or not. If you’re an avid reader of mainstream/legacy media, you won’t be shocked to find out that Paris hospitals are near saturation, Russia reports record high cases, and finally, Europe eyes new restrictions as virus cases hit record high numbers.
As per an AP story, European governments are looking to impose new restrictions in order to mitigate what they describe as a resurgence of the coronavirus. The problem is twofold in this regard: first, autumn just arrived in Europe, temperatures dropped, and basically the flu season begun, and second, the number of covid-19 tests on the Old Continent skyrocketed, i.e. the number of “infections” reported since the start of the pandemic is at the highest level.
According to official data from WHO, 700,000 new cases were reported in the EU last week alone, 34% more compared to the previous week, with France, Britain, Spain and Russia accounting for more than half of the reported infections.
Italy and France are trying to combat the pandemic by re-imposing restrictions on private parties, as well as on bars and restaurants; the Netherlands went so far as to shut down all bars and restaurants, plus it banned the sale of alcohol after 8 pm to discourage partying at home.
Schools are closed again in the Czech Republic until November 2, and Latvia is imposing distance (as in online) learning for 7 days. As usual, Britain took the most draconian measures, in a three tiered system which is based on how severe a so-called outbreak is in certain zones.
European governments are trying to avoid a total lockdown in order to protect the already fragile economies, focusing on targeted/regional restrictions. We are wondering why European governments fail to recognize that the Swedish model works. Sweden went on just fine without a lockdown and even without compulsory mask wearing and other authoritative measures.
Sweden has recorded its fewest daily cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic’s peak in March.
The Scandinavian country, which was initially criticised for not implementing a lockdown, is now seeing significantly fewer cases than other European hotspots.
It is even outperforming its Scandinavian neighbours, Norway and Denmark, suggesting their approach may have helped them in the long term.
Sweden kept open schools for children under 16, banned gatherings of more than 50 people and told over-70s and vulnerable groups to self-isolate.
Shops, bars and restaurants stayed open throughout the pandemic and the wearing of masks has not been advised by the government.
In Sweden, the death rate has been falling steadily since April despite a peak of cases in the summer – with the country’s top epidemiologist saying that deaths can be kept low without drastic lockdown measures.
Sweden was criticized heavily for its decision to go against the WHO dogma, and now that the no-lockdown strategy proved to be objectively better than the lockdown strategy, why aren’t the rest of the Western governments following Sweden’s lead?