Public Health Officials Are Destroying Humanity by Dr. Joseph Mercola for Mercola
The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly been the most traumatic period of time in many people’s lives. The devastation wrought is incalculable when you take into account things that aren’t easily measured, such as mental health, physical abuse and food insecurity.
The harsh truth, however, is that virtually none of it was necessary. The real damage occurred as a result of the decisions made by global, national and local health and government officials, acting in concert according to some predetermined plan.
The Swedish ‘Just Enough’ Way
The featured 45-minute documentary, “COVID, Tango and The Lagom Way,” won the Outstanding Achievement award in the Los Angeles International Indie Short Fest film festival in January 2021.
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The film was made by filmmaker, relationship counselor and tango aficionado Claudia Nye, an Argentinian living in the U.K., who “trapped in lockdown between the two extremes of coronavirus deniers and lockdown orthodoxy,” became intrigued by the approach adopted in Sweden.
During 2020, Sweden, at the resolute guidance of chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, did not universally lock down, shutter small businesses, close schools or implement mask mandates. Nye and photo-journalist Sean Spencer decided to investigate the country’s chosen strategy.
“The Lagom Way” refers to the Swedish notion that keeping to the “middle of the road” is best and extremes are to be avoided. Put another way, it’s the principle of “just enough” — not too much and not too little. It’s about being “reasonable.” “We don’t want to hurt anyone unnecessarily,” Tegnell says, “but we want to have as good effect as possible.”
Hence, only some schools were closed during certain periods of time, and only office workers were asked to work from home to minimize crowding in public transportation. Retail shops, gyms and restaurants remained open, some recommending social distancing and masks, but not as a strict rule.
So, while residents in many other parts of the world were told to stay home or face fines or jail time, Swedes were tango dancing in Stockholm, and people were simply asked to take “common sense” precautions based on their individual circumstances.
Seniors and other high-risk individuals were asked to stay home, social distance and mask up, while all others were free to live much as they normally would. As noted by Tegnell, “In Sweden we have chosen a voluntary way and it’s proven to be sustainable and effective.”
Tegnell on the Swedish Approach
Nye says that whenever she would bring up the Swedish approach on social media, she was told it was a “right-wing” strategy or that it is irrelevant because Sweden is so sparsely populated.
When asked to comment on these retorts, Tegnell denies both, saying the strategy chosen was completely apolitical, and while Sweden may be slightly less densely populated than some countries, overall, many areas are very densely populated, such as the capital of Stockholm. Hence, that cannot account for their lower death toll.
According to the Imperial College of London model (which has repeatedly been proven to be fantastically incorrect), Sweden would have been looking at a death toll of 80,000 by the end of June 2020 if it didn’t lock down.
Alas, the true number, by mid-September 2020, after no lockdowns at all, still only stood at 5,880, a vast majority of whom were elderly with comorbidities. In fact, of those, only 872 were a direct result of COVID-19. The rest had one or more conditions that contributed to their death.
When asked about how she feels about the idea of locking down entire societies to protect the vulnerable, like herself, an elderly lady shakes her head, saying it must be like “torture.” She doesn’t see how anyone would think it a good idea.
Global data also raises questions about the effectiveness of lockdowns and other measures. Nye presents a number of graphs and charts demonstrating that pandemic lethality has been oversold, as total mortality for 2020 has not spiked above norms.
Interestingly, Tegnell also points out that teachers have turned out to be among the professions that have the lowest risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. They have quite a bit of data on this, since most schools remained open for face-to-face teaching, and masks were not required.
In fact, teachers appear to be protected by being around children and young adults in the school setting, Tegnell says. It has not put them at risk. He also correctly points out that COVID-19 is a disease that primarily affects the very old and those in ill health. The risk for everyone else, particularly children, is very low, he says.
This finding is in stark contrast to the fear displayed by teachers in many other countries, In the U.S. and U.K. in particular, many teachers are still terrified of reentering the classroom and want closures to continue. As noted in New York Magazine,1 remote learning has been a catastrophe in more ways than one, and teachers’ unions share a big part of the blame for robbing children of their education and parents of their livelihood.
