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Date: July 12, 2020 02:39PM
COVID-19 news - Sweden Has Become the World's Cautionary Tale
Sweden Has Become the World's Cautionary Tale
By Peter S. Goodman, The New York Times
Source:
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/sweden-become-worlds-cautionary-tale-121752098.htmlTEXT EXTRACT:
This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson — previously hospitalized with COVID-19 — reopened pubs and restaurants last weekend in a bid to restore normal economic life.
More than 3 months later, the coronavirus is blamed for 5,420 deaths in Sweden, according to the World Health Organization. That might not sound especially horrendous compared with the more than 129,000 Americans who have died. But Sweden is a country of only 10 million people. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40% more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, 7 times more than Finland and 6 times more than Denmark.
Sweden’s central bank expects its economy to contract by 4.5% this year, a revision from a previously expected gain of 1.3%. The unemployment rate jumped to 9% in May from 7.1% in March. “The overall damage to the economy means the recovery will be protracted, with unemployment remaining elevated,” Oxford Economics concluded in a recent research note.
This is more or less how damage caused by the pandemic has played out in Denmark, where the central bank expects that the economy will shrink 4.1% this year and where joblessness has edged up to 5.6% in May from 4.1% in March.
In short, Sweden suffered a vastly higher death rate while failing to collect on the expected economic gains.
Collectively, Scandinavian consumers are expected to continue spending far more robustly than in the United States, said Thomas Harr, global head of research at Danske Bank, emphasizing those nations’ generous social safety nets, including national health care systems. Americans, by contrast, tend to rely on their jobs for health care, making them more cautious about their health and their spending during the pandemic, knowing that hospitalization can be a gateway to financial calamity.
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