Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'*
The Bloody Virus
- Is herd immunity working in Sweden? The reality of no lockdown. The Sunday Times reports below on conflicting perspectives in the country everyone is watching closely.
- One of the businesses to benefit is that of printer ink. Volumes have soared and prices are reported to have doubled in the UK. It's an ill wind . . .
Life in Spain
- Hmm. In a blow to our tourism hopes, Denmark has warned its citizens not to come here this summer. If they do, they'll be quarantined when then get home. Germany is a better bet, says the Danish government. Well, at least if want to eat a currywurst every day. Don't know about the sun.
- Interesting to see that Spain's 'basic income' for poor individuals/families will be higher than the UK's 'universal benefit'. Even more astonishing, it might involve less bureaucracy!
- The Museo del Prado and other 'cultural institutions' will re-open on June 6th, it's reported.
- Tales of zealous Spanish cops. Is there any other sort here? (Warning: Make sure you know what you're supposed to have in your car. It's not a short list.)
- María's Come-back Chronicle, Day 20. Sad reflections on another place..
Spanish History
- Spain's 'unsung heroes' and a celebration that really should have taken place but didn't.
- HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for this item: "The Barbary pirates and Spain, from the 15th to the 18th centuries". ‘This article deals [in Spanish] with the relationship between the Barbary coast (between what is now Morocco and Libya) and the people of the Iberian Peninsula. It presents the situation on the Hispanic coast, its way of life, the reaction to the insecurity of the coasts and the response by the Monarchic authorities to this threat…’.
The UK
- Ever the critic, Richard North comments today that:We seem to be suffering the perfect storm of an incompetent government scrutinised by an incompetent media. Sometimes the poor chap seems close to suicide. so great is his frustration at the mismanagement which will see the UK overtake Spain in deaths per million today or tomorrow. It's interesting to reflect on whether a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn would have made a better or worse fist of the virus challenge.
The USA
- A people, it's said, gets the government it deserves. That of the US is presided over by an insane child. Just what you don't need when long-standing tensions explode into riots. What a woeful spectacle.
- Here is that infant talking about his supporters. "I'm the worst person on earth and the worst president ever and my dumb, stupid, trash, Mountain-Dew-for-brains still love me. But one day this nightmare will be over. Though very possibly not in my lifetime.
The Way of the world
- A Catholic priest has impregnated 2 nuns in Stockholm. He claimed this was the work of the holy spirit. Not the first nor the last to use this excuse. It's amazing how useful it can be.
Finally . . .
- My younger daughter writes here of the difference between the tantrums of a normal 2 years old and the meltdowns of a child with autism. If you ever want to properly sympathies with a the mother of one of the latter, this is a must-read.
- Religionists can be a great source of humour - I write this as a (very) lapsed Catholic - and I was amused to hear that 12th century Franciscan monks abhorred any degree of planning, as being an affront to God's celestial plan for each of us. So, they started each day by spinning round and then, when stopped, heading off in the direction 'pointed by' their face. As this is what God had in store for them.
- Talking of laughs provided by theists . . . A film which might be worth seeing.
THE ARTICLE
Is herd immunity working in Sweden? The reality of no lockdown: Louise Callaghan, TheSunday Times: Halmstad, Sweden
The blonde sales assistant at the make-up counter fumbled as she gift-wrapped a perfume set. Occasionally, she gave a harried glance at the queue of about 20 women in front of her that stretched almost out of the shop. The customers were standing a few feet apart — what would once have been considered a polite distance, but would now have been unthinkably close in the UK. It was Monday afternoon at a mall in Halmstad, Sweden, and the store was packed with shoppers, none of them wearing masks or gloves. “It’s been like this since the virus began,” said the sales assistant, apologising for the wait. “They’ve drawn down on staff, but the customers have kept coming.”
Nearby, bars and restaurants were preparing to open for the night ahead, albeit with a reduced capacity. Friends were gathering for dinner parties and after-work drinks. Children were doing their homework, ready to go to school the next day.
None of them were breaking any rules. As the world has shut down, Sweden has taken a different approach to Covid-19, attempting to allow the virus to spread through healthy populations while protecting vulnerable people. Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned, and colleges and universities are closed, but restaurants and shops are open with some restrictions.
Many people are working from home, while others carry on as normal — almost everyone taking some steps to socially distance. This approach, officials hope, will let immunity build in the population while limiting the economic and social damage caused by lockdown and isolation, and possibly avoiding a devastating second wave of infections.
It has not worked out quite that way. Almost 4,400 people have died from Covid-19 in Sweden, about half of them vulnerable elderly people living in a particular type of residential care home. Minority communities have been especially hard-hit. The per capita death rate dwarfs that of Norway, Denmark and Finland, which implemented lockdowns early on. During one week this month Sweden had the highest per capita number of deaths in Europe. Its mortality rates, however, are declining, and deaths per capita are still far lower in total than the UK or Italy over the course of the pandemic.
Hopes that the economy might be spared by avoiding lockdown, though, appear to have been overly optimistic. Forecasts predict that despite many Swedish businesses remaining open during the pandemic, the economic effects will still be devastating — albeit not as severe as similar estimates for the UK. Sweden’s central bank predicts that gross domestic product will fall by up to about 10% this year, while the European Commission believes the country’s economy could contract by 6.1%.
Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist, has been the public face of the official Covid-19 response. He has been bombarded with criticism from parts of the Swedish scientific community. Last month 22 scientists wrote an open letter denouncing the Swedish strategy, claiming that “officials without talent” had led the response.
Yet polls show that the majority of Swedes believe that the public health ministry is doing the right thing. One study by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency showed that 77% of respondents cited having quite high or very high trust in the public health agency’s handling of the coronavirus in Sweden.
In another poll last month, only 31% of Swedes said they were “very” or “somewhat” afraid of contracting Covid-19 — the lowest of all 26 countries surveyed. According to Tegnell, that is because Swedes believe the state is doing a good job — informing people of the risks and relying on them to make the right decisions. “In Sweden we know that trying to scare people is not a good way forward when you want something,” he said. “You need to inform people and give them a good background to make their own informed choices.”
Much of this comes down to the incredible trust that Swedish people put in their leaders — paying high taxes because they believe that the state will use the resources to improve services and quality of life. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a sense among the people I have talked to that, despite the deaths and the glaring headlines, the state has their best interests at heart. “People are not stupid,” said Tegnell. “They trust us because we give a good explanation of why we’re doing things.” That is a huge responsibility. Should Tegnell and his colleagues fail, they would not only be risking lives; they would also be shattering a key component of the Swedish national identity.
But how did Sweden end up taking this path? How did a country where most alcohol is sold in state depots with limited opening hours decide to reject a lockdown and encourage individual choice?
When the pandemic first began, many European countries — including the UK — had response strategies that looked very similar to Sweden’s. Yet while others changed path when the scale and risks of the virus became clear, Sweden stuck to its plan. Should other countries have done the same?
“There are parts of the Swedish model that could work in many countries. If you look at a lot of the exit strategies that have developed, now it looks like a lot of countries are pretty much closer to the Swedish models,” said Tegnell. “Because you need to have some kind of softer restrictions. You can’t go on having schools closed. That does terrible things to children. And you can’t go on having borders closed. That does terrible things to the economy. So then you try to find another way of keeping social distancing in place.”
It is a measure of how little really is known about this virus that the world’s leading scientists can disagree wildly on seemingly basic points. Take masks, for instance. While more than 50 countries have made masks compulsory — including on public transport and in shops in Austria and Germany — Sweden has refused to encourage the wearing of masks outside a clinical environment. In press conferences and interviews, Tegnell has repeatedly said that there is not enough evidence that they are effective in stopping the spread of infection. A much-cited study in Hong Kong that showed masks could reduce the spread of airborne droplets was, he said, too limited and did not provide strong enough evidence to warrant implementing a new nationwide policy.
I asked him why not, if there is a chance they could save lives. “We don’t think [that approach] could save lives. It actually could cause a loss of life if it’s not used in the right way,” he said. “We’re talking about risks that these masks will not be available for healthcare because they’ll disappear. Furthermore, in Sweden, we say if you’re ill, stay home, isolate yourself, don’t infect anybody else. If we’re telling people to use a mask, they would put one on and then they would go out and definitely infect more people than if they had stayed home and isolated themselves.” His message has clearly got through to the public. In two months living in Sweden while working on Covid-19 — which has involved travelling to Malmö, Halmstad, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Uppsala — I have not seen more than a handful of people wearing a mask in public. The idea of wearing one here is tinged — as it used to be in the UK — with the sense that it is a bit alarmist, or possibly embarrassing. In other countries, it is seen as a vital social responsibility.
As the debate rages, it is clear what works for Sweden might not work everywhere else. The country is clearly atypical: it has a well-funded health system, a dispersed population and a high baseline of public health. But lofty predictions of Swedish success have already started slipping. Last month I spoke to Tom Britton, a maths professor at Stockholm University and adviser to the public health ministry, who said that, according to his modelling, herd immunity could be reached by mid-May, when he predicted that about 60% of the Swedish population would have been infected. He later revised his estimate, saying that herd immunity could be reached at between 40% and 50% of the population, and it was likely that between 30% and 35% would have been infected by mid-May. “The advantage with herd immunity is that once you have it, the country is safe,” said Britton. “But the downside is that the country will get infected and if it happens too quickly the hospitals won’t manage. My point of view is that it is better to slow it down than to stop it.”
Random antibody sampling in released this month, however, has shown that only 7% of Stockholmers had been infected by the end of April. Britton told a Swedish newspaper that it was “surprising” that the forecasts had been so wrong. Tegnell, meanwhile, said that he did not believe that the results were representative, and that new figures would be available soon.
For now it is still unclear whether, when the pandemic has passed, the Swedish model will have fared any better or worse than any other approaches. “At the end of this we might look at each other and realise, no, whatever we did didn’t make much of a difference,” said Tegnell. “And the Swedish model or the British model or the Dutch model, all of them in the end, they just took a shorter or longer time, and the effects on society and economy were different. But the health consequences might be very similar in the end.”