Sweden
March 12, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Sweden was an outlier during the covid epidemic, in that its government did not order a nationwide shutdown. This policy did not please much of Sweden’s establishment, as represented by The Local, which has been pro-lockdown. So this Local article is notable, in that it recognizes a basic fact about covid mortality that should have been obvious all along: At one point in May 2020, Sweden had the highest Covid-19
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September 11, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Sweden held national elections today, and like the United States in 2020, counting the votes has been halted for the night, with about 250,00o votes still outstanding—a significant number in Sweden though probably not enough to alter the outcome, which right now appears to favor four center-right parties over the center-left parties by a razor-close 176-173 margin in Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag. The trouble with Sweden is that it is
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September 4, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Sweden has established a new Psychological Defence Agency to combat potential Russian disinformation, the London Times reports. The agency hasn’t actually spotted any Russian disinformation yet, the article says, but it knows where to look: Staff at the agency, which has its headquarters in the western city of Karlstad, are working in a nation increasingly plagued by polarisation and mistrust. Next week, parliamentary elections will take place in a climate
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March 6, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The world has cheered Ukraine’s determined resistance to Russian aggression, and even liberals have no problem with Ukraine’s government passing out automatic rifles to citizens. But some argue that Ukraine hasn’t gone far enough, that its government should not have waited for an invasion to arm its populace and encourage resistance to an invader. The example of the Finns’ armed and effective defense against Russia’s 1939 invasion has been cited
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December 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
As we have noted often on Power Line, Sweden took a different approach to the Wuhan coronavirus than that of its neighbors and, pretty much, the rest of Europe. It eschewed harsh lockdown measures. The hope was that Sweden could avoid an economic meltdown. There was also the hope that Swedes might fairly quickly develop herd immunity to the virus. However, it’s important to note that Sweden did not go
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September 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Some are touting Sweden as a success story, relatively speaking, when it comes to dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus. For example, this story in the British press claims that “Sweden got the last laugh on coronavirus.” Unfortunately, Sweden’s high number of per capita fatalities attributed to the virus is no laughing matter. Per capita fatalities number 578 per one million people. That’s comparable to the U.S., the UK, and Italy,
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July 13, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The number of daily reported cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in the U.S. increased by three fold in the past month. As we approached mid-June, around 20,000 new cases per day were being reported. Now, the daily number is averaging around 60,000. (All numbers cited in this post are from Worldometer.) Some of the increase is due to more testing. But last week, testing reportedly plateaued. Yet the number of
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May 5, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
A month ago, Sweden decided not to mandate a lockdown in response to the Wuhan coronavirus. Instead, it decided to keep restaurants, cafes, and schools open. It issued guidelines that stated: Everyone in Sweden is urged to stay at home if they are at all sick (even a mild cough or sore throat), practice social distancing, avoid non-essential travel within the country, work from home if possible, follow good hygiene
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April 21, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In this post, I want to discuss pandemic related developments in four countries I have mentioned from time to time on Power Line. They are: Austria, Sweden, Singapore, and South Korea. My post draws no conclusions. I leave it to readers to draw, or not draw, them. All numbers I cite are from Worldometer. Austria has partially reopened its economy. It did so a little more than a week ago.
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April 7, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
A reader with a PhD in engineering and 35 years experience in advanced data analysis wrote to us regarding Sweden’s experience so far in dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus without locking down the country. He reports: I did a quick look at the data coming out of Sweden with the data obtained from Worldometer, and have plotted the data on a per capita basis (positive cases vs 1M population) for
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April 4, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I have started to track Sweden’s numbers of Wuhan coronavirus reported cases and reported deaths. Why Sweden? Because it is taking a different approach to dealing with the virus. Instead of locking down, Sweden is keeping its restaurants, cafes, and schools open. Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven says he’s relying on the good judgment of Swedes to carry their country through the pandemic. Good judgment or not, Sweden’s approach means
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January 15, 2020 — Steven Hayward
I try to keep up with some social science, partly for the amusement value, and partly because social science is sometimes useful for proving the obvious (which is also amusing). But I’ve been falling behind in posting highlights, so it is time to catch up. First up, do you think it is really necessary to prove that good looking people enjoy a lot of advantages in life? Apparently this proposition
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August 14, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the assault case against rapper A$AP Rocky, who, while in Stockholm, beat up an immigrant to Sweden for the sin of following him around and disobeying instructions by the rapper’s body guard not to do so. Swedish authorities arrested Rocky and two members of his crew and held them in custody pending trial, pursuant to Swedish law. At the urging of Kanye West and his Kardashian
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August 3, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump stuck a blow against criminal justice when he backed, and thereby caused to be enacted, a “criminal justice reform” bill mandating the early release of many thousands of federal felons (including violent felons), plus shorter sentences for future federal felons. Given sky-high recidivism rates, the measure is certain to generate significantly more crime than would otherwise have been committed. Trump’s decision to back legislation that makes Americans less
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April 25, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The Supreme Court of Sweden has ruled that a rape conviction is not a sufficient reason to deport a non-Swedish citizen: Sweden’s highest court has overturned a decision to deport a convicted rapist after ruling there was no “extraordinary reason” to expel him from the country. Two lower courts had ruled that the man, a 33-year-old Somali citizen, should be deported after serving a jail sentence for rape, but the
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April 7, 2019 — John Hinderaker
American liberals aspire to be Sweden, so conditions in that country are perennially of interest here and elsewhere in the West. Sweden is actually less liberal than most people think–its tax system, for example, is better and more conservative than ours–but it is true that it has gone all in on refugees. Importing an extraordinary number of Middle Easterners has caused many problems, but reporting on them is controversial. The
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September 30, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Swedes are known for a number of things, but a sense of humor is not one of them. You are no doubt familiar with this meme, which has been put to any number of humorous uses: The meme reflects well-known phenomena of human nature and is endlessly adaptable. But not in Sweden: For anyone unfamiliar with the story so far, Stockholm-based internet service provider Bahnhof shared the meme, officially titled
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