Black Lives Matter protesters agitate at the front gate of the Minnesota
State Fair during a protest Saturday. Some fear the protest movement
may be promoting violence against police that contributed to a Houston
deputy’s slaying by a black man ... more > By Douglas Ernst -
The Washington Times
-
Friday, July 10, 2020
Police investigating racist messages left on a
Texas A&M student’s car in June say all available evidence points to
it being a hoax.
School officials offered a $1,200 reward
on June 25 for any evidence that identified the person who wrote “All
lives matter, “You don’t belong here,” and “n—r” messages before leaving
them on senior Isaih Martin’s windshield.
A College Station cop who watched surveillance footage from a nearby pool camera say that what they witnessed implicated Mr. Martin himself as the culprit.
“Martin immediately walks to the passenger side of his vehicle, but does not open any doors,” a local CBS affiliate reported Thursday while citing the department’s report. “Martin is seen toward the front of his vehicle. A brief white speck is seen from about mid-torso of Martin moving toward his vehicle.
Another white speck is seen near his chest area. Martin
is then seen stepping back and onto the sidewalk in front of his
vehicle, most likely taking photos and videos. He then approaches his
vehicle again on the passenger side and remains there for a few moments.
He is then seen walking around the front of his vehicle. Martin
then enters the driver’s door and drives away a few moments later. The
total time spent at his vehicle is 1 minute, 15 seconds.”
Footage also showed two individuals near Mr. Martin’s car for a few seconds, the station reported.
“[Martin] was the only person with enough time to place the notes on his car,” police added.
For his part, the 21-year-old student told
Twitter followers on Thursday that he has “stopped working with the
cops” and has consulted an attorney.
“I’m in a predicament where the topic of the
case was let’s find out who did this to them pointing the finger at
me,” the student wrote. “In the end, I stopped talking to them because
it seemed they were more interested in me getting the blame for this
hate crime instead of finding the actual person who did it.”
University police said the case is now considered closed.
“Police also asked the county attorney’s office
to see if the incident would be considered a false report but were
told the case ‘does not meet the elements since Martin did not report a crime,’” the station added.
US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping meet business
leaders at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Nov. 9,
2017. Photo: Reuters / Damir Sagolj / File.
In September of 2019, I was invited to a gathering of Jewish Joe Biden
supporters. Rather than ask about Israel, the Iran deal, or frankly
anything else Jewish, I asked Biden about China. In a nutshell, my
question was: China is currently leading the US in quantum
communications, quantum computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, and chip
manufacturing. China was just the first country to land a spacecraft on
the dark side of the moon. We are no longer a feared military adversary
in the South China Sea. The Belt and Road Initiative has the potential
to totally redraw the trade patterns that have been so advantageous to
the US. And China has yet to be taken to task about its human rights
violations. As president, what would be your China policy?
Biden began by saying that President Donald Trump correctly diagnosed
that China presents novel issues for the US, but that Trump’s China
policies had failed. Then he simply noted his many years of foreign
policy experience and his private dinners with China’s leader Xi
Jinping. He also spoke extensively about the greatness of US research
universities. His answer was underwhelming to say the least.
Unfortunately, as David Goldman argues in his new book You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-form the World, Biden, like previous administration leaders of both parties and Congresses, including Trump, has no cogent China strategy.
Goldman attributes this shocking omission to American overconfidence,
a bipartisan failure to understand China’s goals, and a lack of
political will to establish a long-term plan to counter them. Further,
as Goldman explains, if the US does not act soon, China will dominate
the world; even in Israel, the Chinese are primary investors in key
sectors like rail and ports. The US will not only be unable to stand up
to China, but it too will be under its thumb.
Goldman is well positioned to explain what China is about and what the US and even the world should do. A columnist at the Asia Times
and a former senior executive of a Hong Kong investment bank, he has
traveled extensively throughout China for two decades and negotiated
directly with top Chinese industry leaders. He has also written
extensively on Jewish topics for a variety of scholarly and general
Jewish publications. His Jewish background has been central to his
approach. Goldman argues that to understand China, one has both to look
at how it operates today and to examine the long-standing cultural
patterns of a proud and distinct 5,000-year-old civilization.
Goldman explains that most Americans are simply wrong about China.
The typical analogies whether on the left or the right are way off base.
China does not have the aspirations of the Soviet Union; China does not
want to militarily conquer the West, nor does it want to integrate in
the existing world order. It could care less how others see the world.
Nor is the Chinese economy dangerously over-leveraged. China is more
stable than ever. Finally, he argues the Thucydides model — that as an
emerging power China seeks to challenge the US — is not even relevant.
Instead, Goldman argues that the Chinese are an ancient imperial
civilization who expect to rule under a mandate from heaven and have the
confidence to do so. Moreover, as in the past, they prefer soft power
that gives them maximum control to a military showdown that might bring
chaos. For the Chinese, the ends justify the means.
Currently, China is implementing a concerted plan to control key
industries and information to ensure world domination. As Goldman shows,
it is working: most of the world has adopted the Huawei technology for
5G and Chinese signal encryption will soon eclipse that of the US. Soon
the world will be totally reliant on Chinese technology and will
knowingly or unknowingly share its data with the Chinese government. No
Chinese Edward Snowden is likely to survive to warn us. With such power,
China will dictate the terms of trade and interaction. Already the
basic outlines of the existing China-US trade deal signal China’s
dominance: the US buys Chinese technology and other manufactured goods
and China buys meat and other agricultural goods from the US. These are
the terms imperial powers dictate to their colonies.
Goldman outlines a plan for the US to maintain its world position. He
insists that the US absolutely cannot leave it to the private sector.
It must develop a government policy to massively support R&D at the
industry and university levels. Measures will require huge investments
and an overhaul of the American education system to drastically improve
educational levels, and most of all, to quadruple the number of American
graduates in the sciences and technology. Without these two steps, we
will be under China’s yoke within the decade.
You Will Be Assimilated is an incredibly timely and important
book. Goldman gives his readers a clear account of Chinese policies and
aspirations with many real-life examples as well as lucid analysis. He
warns us starkly: the only way to defeat the Dragon is to beat it at its
own game. If not now, when?
Scott A. Shay is the author of In Good Faith: Questioning Religion and Atheism (Post Hill Press, 2018) and is chairman and co-founder of Signature Bank of New York. The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do
not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you
would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner,
please be in touch through our Contact page.
A woke rabbi who launched a Twitter war over the
meaning of a word demonstrated how leftist politics pollutes language
and cancels Jewish rights.
Temple Emanu-El in New York City. Credit: Alex Israel via Wikimedia Commons.
(July 9, 2020 / JNS) There
are a lot of things wrong with woke culture. While the impulse to
demonstrate solidarity with the oppressed and opposition to bad things
like racism is, in principle, praiseworthy, the virtue signaling is
insufferable. As is the tone of self-righteous disapproval emanating
from the woke towards all those that don’t measure up to their
standards.
As a friend’s daughter eloquently summed up the problem, no
matter how hard you try, “there’s always a woker fish” who will wind up
shaming you for insufficient ardor for supposedly righteous causes. That
means the competition to out virtue signal and shame lesser beings can
lead even seemingly nice people to do and say things that are not only
obnoxious, but actually have dangerous implications.
And that is the problem with Rabbi Andrue J. Kahn, assistant
rabbi at New York’s famed Temple Emanu-El, the landmark Reform cathedral
on Fifth Avenue. “Rabbi Andy,” as he styles himself on social media,
seems like a well-meaning young man and posts lots of cute pictures on
Instagram. And although he’s just one out of a staff of five rabbis
(plus two with emeritus status) at that historic institution, he’s
generally regarded as a comer in the world of liberal Judaism. So when
he decided to rant on Twitter about something, it provoked a controversy
that made news.
As his Twitter account demonstrates, Rabbi Andy is up to date as
far as supporting things that woke rabbis should support, like abortion
rights, Native American rights, why Black Lives Matter and smearing
President Donald Trump’s supporters as anti-Semites. He also knows what
to oppose, including America’s Founding Fathers, the Zionist
Organization of America and, significantly, a letter signed by famous writers and artists against “cancel culture” and the repression of free speech that it encourages.
n other words, Rabbi Andy, like so many other well-meaning young
liberal Jews, is just fine with cancel culture. Indeed, he’s ready to
cancel the entire Jewish people, and by implication, Zionism and Israel,
to demonstrate his impatience with the non-woke.
As part of his sermonizing
about the wrongs of white supremacy and its companion evil, “white
Jewishness,” the rabbi is particularly upset with the notion that the
Jews are “indigenous” to Israel.
To the non-woke, that is an obvious and self-evident fact. But to
Rabbi Andy, it’s an offensive act of “appropriation” on the part of
reactionary Jews. As he wrote:
“Let me say this as plainly as possible: Jews are not an indigenous
people. It is appropriative to make use of this word when referring to
our relationship to the land of Israel, and it undermines the difficult
work being done to fix the ongoing oppression of indigenous peoples.”
The rabbi goes on to quote from studies from the U.N. Human Rights
Council and Amnesty International that claim that the word indigenous
can only be used when referring to people struggling against colonial
oppressors. Both of those organizations are guilty of vicious bias
against Israel that often amounts to nothing less than anti-Semitic
incitement. But the key point here is that Rabbi Kahn uses them to
bolster a cardinal principle of intersectional ideology that sees the
struggle of African-Americans for civil rights in the United States as
linked to that of indigenous peoples in the Third World who fight
against imperialist oppression.
In this woke version of reality, humanity is divided into two groups:
white oppressors and indigenous people of color straining under the
yoke of white atrocities. And in delineating this stark division between
the bad and the good, Jews must accept that they are among the former
and irredeemably white. The only thing for them to do is to admit guilt
and to struggle against the systemic racist system into which they
assimilated into in the United States.
As The Forward noted in an article
about the controversy stirred up by Rabbi Kahn, Israel’s Consul General
to New York Dani Dayan, recently noted that both Jews and Palestinian
Arabs are indigenous to Israel, and that peace will only happen when the
latter finally recognize this fact rather than insisting that Jews have
no sovereign rights in any part of the country. By lending support to
the idea that Jews aren’t indigenous, Kahn is actually undermining
chances of peace in the Middle East rather than promoting it.
The fact that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel,
to which their ties date back thousands of years and were reaffirmed
with continuous settlement, as well as prayers throughout the ages, is
irrelevant to the woke. So is the fact that the majority of Israeli Jews
are not white or European, but descended from people who were forced to
flee their homes in the Arab and Muslim worlds after Israel’s creation
in numbers that were greater than those Palestinian Arabs who fled
Israel during the War of Independence. Yet as far as the rabbi is
concerned, Jews who speak of being indigenous are stealing victim status
that belongs only to Arabs and other people of color.
Perhaps Rabbi Kahn thinks the semantics here is important because the
assertion of indigenous status distracts us from the sufferings of
African-Americans or Palestinians. But his scolding of Jews for having
the effrontery to claim ownership of this word has implications that go
beyond his repellent pedantry and ideological inflexibility.
That’s because telling Jews they are not indigenous to Israel is akin
to branding them imperialist colonizers in their ancient homeland. And
once you step down that path you aren’t just virtue signaling your
concern for the oppressed; you’re also implicitly declaring that Zionism
and the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet are
illegitimate.
The redefinition of words with plain meanings in order to weaponize
them for ideological purposes is key to the Orwellian process by which
the woke suppress not only free speech, but the rights of those they
consider white oppressors. In effect, what Rabbi Andy is doing when he
lectures us about “white Jewishness” and who can be considered
indigenous is canceling the entire Jewish people.
The only possible response to such despicable wordplay is to refuse
to play by woke rules. There can be no compromise with intersectional
canceling. It’s time to make it clear to the self-righteous Rabbi Andys
of American Jewish life that we won’t accept their lectures or their
politicized language lying down. The alternative is to consent to a
denial of Jewish rights whose ultimate purpose is the sort of tragedy
that ought to horrify a nice young rabbi a lot more than how to define a
word.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
Source: (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Malcolm X, as a member of the Nation of Islam, preached anti-Semitism
and called the white man a "devil." After the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, Malcolm X dismissed the murder as a case of "the chickens
coming home to roost."
In Spike
Lee's biographical drama, "Malcolm X," a white teenage girl approaches
the angry activist and says, "Excuse me, Mr. X. Hi. I've read some of
your speeches, and I honestly believe that a lot of what you have to say
is true. And I'm a good person, in spite of what my ancestors did, and I
just -- I wanted to ask you, what can a white person like myself, who
isn't prejudiced, what can I do to help you ... further your cause?" He
stares sternly, and replies, "Nothing." She leaves in tears.
But
Malcolm X changed. He visited Mecca, where he saw people of all colors
worshipping together. It changed the way he thought. He repudiated his
anger toward whites after discovering that people were more similar than
they were different. He renounced the racist ideology of the Nation of
Islam, and in doing so knowingly signed his own death warrant. He was
assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam.
Alabama Gov.
George Wallace, in 1963, proclaimed, "Segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, segregation forever," at his inauguration, and later stood in a
doorway at the University of Alabama to bar blacks from entering. Nine
years later, Wallace took a would-be assassin's bullet, leaving him
paralyzed. Older, wiser and chastened by the attempt on his life,
Wallace changed. Wallace one day, without invitation, went to a black
church where 300 black clergymen were holding a conference. He asked to
speak. Wallace asked for forgiveness. He said to the church leaders, "I
never had hate in my heart for any person. But I regret my support of
segregation and the pain it caused the black people of our state and
nation. ... I've learned what pain is, and I'm sorry if I've caused
anybody else pain. Segregation was wrong -- and I am sorry."
The voters in Alabama returned the former governor to office, but
this time, he received black support and made several black
appointments. The damage Wallace did through his actions and rhetoric
was profound, and despite the assassination attempt, he lived long
enough to undo some of it.
Even a Confederate general can change.
Confederate
Gen. William Mahone, one of General Robert E. Lee's most able
commanders, owned slaves before the Civil War. But after the war, he led
an interracial political movement. He organized and became the leader
of the Readjuster Party, the most successful interracial political
alliance in the post-emancipation South. In 1881, Mahone was elected to
the U.S. Senate, split 37-37 at the time between Republicans and
Democrats. But Mahone aligned with the Republicans, the party founded
two decades earlier by Northerners trying to stop the expansion of
slavery.
From 1879 through 1883, Mahone's Readjuster Party
dominated Virginia, with a governor in the statehouse, two Readjusters
in the U.S. Senate and Readjusters representing six of the state's 10
congressional districts. Under Mahone's leadership, his coalition also
controlled the state legislature, the courts and many of the state's
coveted federal offices.
The Readjusters established what became Virginia State University,
the first state-supported college to train black teachers. Democrats
described the hated Readjusters and Republicans as advocates of "black
domination."
What about Lt. Gen. James Longstreet? One of Lee's
favorite generals, Longstreet not only became a Republican after the war
and served in Republican administrations but also fought against the
racist White League in New Orleans.
After the Civil War, Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he urged
Southerners to support the Republican Party and endorsed their
candidate, Ulysses S. Grant, for president in 1868. He commanded blacks
in the New Orleans Metropolitan Police Force against the
anti-Reconstruction White League (a paramilitary arm of the Democratic
Party) at the Battle of Liberty Place in 1874. He was shot and held
captive for several days. He accepted political appointments from
Republicans and even dared criticize Gen. Lee. For this "betrayal,"
white Southerners pronounced Longstreet a "scalawag" and "leper of the
community."
Where does this viewing of history through the prism
of modern-day feelings end? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once gave advice
to a gay young man that today would be heresy. King suggested he battle
his feelings, strongly implying that the young man needed therapy and
sexual reorientation. Today, that kind of advice gets one branded a
Neanderthal. President John F. Kennedy, frustrated with a high-profile
Democrat who hadn't supported his election, threatened to banish him by
giving him an obscure ambassadorship to one of the, as Kennedy put it,
"boogie republics" in Africa. Tell that to Black Lives Matter.
History is complicated. And history requires perspective and
understanding, something sadly lacking in those who seek to erase
history by imposing today's standards of right and wrong.
“What do you have to lose? It’s been out there for a long time, and I hope they use it,” Trump said on April 4, touting the malaria drug.
“So it’s a very strong, powerful medicine, but it doesn’t kill people,” he added two days later.
Trump wasn’t the only one to wonder whether hydroxychloroquine could treat the coronavirus, but he was its most high-profile booster. Through his platforms, he made the public aware of the drug and made it seem like it was something that was a real option for treating coronavirus.
When Trump started his crusade, hydroxychloroquine hadn’t been fully tested, and medical experts were uncomfortable with his remarks making it seem like the drug was safe for treating COVID-19.
Since then, the evidence against hydroxychloroquine has piled up. And Trump’s rhetorical question of “What do you have to lose?” has reverberated as irresponsible and cruel.
For two weeks in April at a veterans’ nursing home in Pennsylvania, about 30 patients received a drug regimen that included hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin ― a combination that Trump has promoted. Some of those individuals were never tested for COVID-19 and/or had conditions that raised the risk of serious side effects from the drug.
According to The Washington Post, the Southeastern Veterans’ Center has reported 42 deaths from COVID-19. A local coroner said that at least 14 of the deceased were never actually tested for the illness. And of those, 11 had nevertheless received hydroxychloroquine.
“My sense,” said William C. Hunter, retired in December as the center’s medical director, “is that things were starting to spiral out of control, and they were looking for a magic bullet. It was horrifying.”
President Donald Trump continues to tout hydroxychloroquine despite studies concluding it has no effect in treating COVID-19 -- and could be dangerous. (Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
In late May, Trump also said he had taken hydroxychloroquine for two weeks as a preventative against the coronavirus, even though studies have found that hydroxychloroquine has either no benefit or poses an even greater risk of death.
Carsyn Leigh Davis, 17, died last month after contracting COVID-19. She had battled cancer and a rare autoimmune disorder, and a medical examiner report found that she had gone to a church party with about 100 other children, where she did not wear a mask, before getting sick.
Nearly a week passed before her parents took her to the hospital. Before doing so, they gave her hydroxychloroquine. Her mother appeared to complain on Facebook that at the hospital, the doctors refused to give Davis more of the drug. She also posted comments in opposition to policies requiring people to wear masks.
And in a highly publicized incident in March, a couple in Arizona noticed that their fish tank cleaner contained chloroquine after hearing about the potential “cure” on TV. They took it, believing it would prevent them from contracting the illness. It immediately made them sick. The wife recovered, but her husband died.
There’s no evidence that all of these people received hydroxychloroquine directly because Trump mentioned it. But he gave it widespread mainstream attention and some credibility as a remedy.
In late March, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine usage with COVID-19 patients, although it admitted, “We do not know if it works for COVID-19.” The decision came under criticism, with some experts wondering if the agency buckled to political pressure from the White House.
“When EUA [emergency use authorization] status is sought or granted seemingly under pressure, it may also open a floodgate of efforts to promote unfounded use of other unproven treatments, risking a perception that special interests can influence FDA decisions,” wrote former FDA chief scientists Luciana Borio and Jesse Goodman.
In April, Rick Bright, who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority ― the federal agency in charge of coming up with a vaccine ― said he was demoted from his job after pressing for more investigation of hydroxychloroquine, saying the administration had put “politics and cronyism ahead of science.”
The FDA pulled its EUA for hydroxychloroquine in mid-June, saying the drug was “unlikely to be effective.”
Nevertheless, Trump has not entirely given up on touting the drug. On Monday, he tweeted about a new hydroxychloroquine study, calling on the FDA to “act now.”
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro spoke with reporters Tuesday about the Henry Ford study, saying that the earlier FDA decision to revoke the authorization for hydroxychloroquine was based on “bad science.”
But as Stat News noted, the study is flawed and the results are not in line with other studies on the topic:
Decisions are based almost entirely on what is known as a randomized controlled trial, in which patients are randomly assigned to receive a treatment or not. Other types of studies have, again and again, failed to deliver accurate information about medicines’ benefits and risks, and are used sparingly in making medical decisions. Three randomized studies have now shown no benefit for hydroxychloroquine in hospitalized patients.
The study that sparked the latest controversy was anything but randomized. Not only was it not randomized, outside experts noted, but patients who received hydroxychloroquine were also more likely to get steroids, which appear to help very sick patients with Covid-19. That is likely to have influenced the central finding of the Henry Ford study: that death rates were 50% lower among patients in hospitals treated with hydroxychloroquine.
As hard as it was to let go of her son, Easton, Julie Hindsley was equally committed to celebrating her daughter, Ella.
Ella is Hindsley's 6-year-old transgender daughter. "I wanted to have this photo shoot and remember this moment since it was so huge for Ella," she said. "Once we did the social transition and everyone close to us got on board with the new name and pronouns, it was like we had a brand new kid. It was like Easton was just gone, and there she was in all her glory; like she was supposed to be Ella her whole life and we had gotten it so wrong before. "
Ella, her mom said, enjoyed the photo shoot and loves the photos. But, Hindsley said, she didn't grasp what a big deal it really was. "She was already living as her true self in front of all of our closest friends and family for a few months," her mom said.
Hindsley said that she wanted to show all aspects of the transformation, including the hard part. "I wanted the grieving process the parents go through to be showcased as well as I think that is a big part of our process that not very many people realize or know about," she said. She and her husband posed with photos of Easton, tears in Hindsley's eyes.
PHOTO: 6-year-old Ella Hindsley's gender reveal photo shoot. (HWM Photography)
But they kept it light when it came to Ella's turn in front of the camera. "We told her and her brother we were having a photoshoot to celebrate her now being Ella because it was beautiful," Hindsley said. "She just loves being in front of the camera and was thrilled to have a new pretty dress and wear a unicorn headpiece."
The Waco, Texas, mom said the feedback has been mostly positive, though most of the "nasty" comments focus on Ella's age. But Hindsley said "she is most definitely not too young, and most kids know by age 3-4 which gender they are going to identify as."
PHOTO: 6-year-old Ella Hindsley's gender reveal photo shoot. (HWM Photography)
Hindsley hopes the photos help other families experiencing the same with their child. "I thought celebrating her in this way would help her understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way she is," she said, "and I hoped it would help get more people in our corner about the whole transition."
Sweden's daily coronavirus death rate is approaching zero.
Newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases have fallen to one-sixth of their number at the peak, just two weeks ago.
Suddenly, Sweden's "no-lockdown" approach to the crisis looks like a late-running success.
But experts are warning that the path Sweden took came at a high price: Sweden's death toll was 11 times that of neighboring Norway, and the current drop in fatalities is on a par with Haiti or Pakistan, countries that are struggling to control outbreaks.
By all accounts, Sweden's high rate of coronavirus deaths was evidence that the country had made a horrendous error. Sweden — which did not impose a strict lockdown — suffered 543 deaths per million of its population, compared to just 105 in neighboring Denmark. The Swedish death toll has been roughly 11 times worse than Norway's, on a per capita basis.
Yet coronavirus deaths in Sweden have fallen dramatically in recent days, and are now approaching zero. Between June 30 and July 6, Sweden recorded fewer than five deaths per day on all days but one.
People sit in Tantolunden park in Stockholm on May 30, 2020.
The decline in newly diagnosed cases has been even more dramatic. In late June, Sweden diagnosed more than 1,800 people per day as COVID-19 positive. Today, just two weeks later, only one-sixth of that number are testing positive on a daily basis.
On paper, Sweden suddenly looks like a stunning — albeit late-running — success. But experts are warning that their recent spell of good news does not mean the country's no-lockdown plan was successful, or that other countries should follow its path.
The rate of new cases in Sweden has declined dramatically over the last two weeks.
Worldometer
Jon Tallinger, a doctor who left his job in Sweden to campaign for better treatment of the elderly during the pandemic, said people shouldn't be amazed by charts showing Sweden's progress because they look remarkably similar to those of countries that have been hard-hit by the with coronavirus, including Peru, Pakistan, and Haiti.
He said any decline in deaths now is not a win for Sweden's strategy: "They said that Sweden's response was effective when its deaths were rising, now they are saying it is effective as deaths are going down."
"The deaths rates have fallen but it doesn't change the fact that our strategy has failed. And we don't know when the rates will rise again."
In fact, Sweden's death count is similar to that of countries that failed to take swift measures against the novel coronavirus.
The toll has declined slowly over the months. It follows the familiar pattern seen in Italy, Spain, and the UK, where the coronavirus was only brought under control after a catastrophic wave of fatalities that took more than 100,000 lives.
Cases have started dropping in Sweden
Sweden did not implement a full-scale lockdown. Instead, it allowed people to live relatively normal lives. It banned gatherings with more than 50 people, imposed limits on customers in restaurants, urged people to social distance, and banned elderly care home visitors. The hope, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said, was that people might develop a widespread "herd immunity" as this happened.
Experts pointed to a host of reasons for the shifting numbers. They credited myriad factors, including the arrival of summer, with fewer people in offices creating more distance, and Sweden quietly taking steps to protect people in care homes. Johan Carlson, the director-general of Sweden's public health agency, credited the "effect of us keeping up the social distancing" for the decline.
Although Sweden's death count is nearing zero deaths per day, it has taken a long time to get there.
Worldometer
Swedish authorities said the reason the case rate shot up in June is due to increased testing.
Professor Juan-Jesus Carrero, an epidemiologist at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, backed this idea up. "The number of cases is increasing because the Swedish government has recently relaxed the requirements for testing, and more citizens are being tested mainly in primary care," Carrero told Business Insider.
As for why there's been a recent drop: "The short answer is, that there is no short answer," Pekka Nuorti, an epidemiologist in Finland's Tampere University, told Business Insider, pointing to changes in testing, changes in behaviors, and more time spent outside.
But Nuorti warned against taking much comfort from this chart alone.
"In general, looking only at total reported case counts can be misleading and they have a tendency to fluctuate," he said.
Sweden is now preparing for a second wave, like other countries — a situation it had hoped to avoid. Health Minister Lena Hallengren warned this week "the danger is not over," and announced Sweden is planning in case the virus starts to peak again.
Sweden did not achieve immunity, far from it
Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
Associated Press
Many in Sweden argued that its plan would allow its population to achieve "herd immunity."
But that's not even close to being achieved: Tegnell said in June that "the trends in immunity have been surprisingly slow." One study then showed 6.1% of Sweden's population had developed antibodies by late May.
It's the same for othercountries, where only a small proportion of the population appear to have achieved the immunity, and experts say immunity may not even last that long.
Experts say the small build-up of immunity may be a minor factor in the fall in deaths, but not enough to dramatically drive numbers down.
Summer may have slowed the spread because people are spending less time indoors
Since the pandemic began, research has suggested warmer weather could slow the virus' spread. Heat degrades particles faster, and other coronaviruses have seasonal cycles, hitting hardest in the winter.
It was a small silver lining experts hoped would offset the summer rush of activity which Tegnell warned against in June: "It is very important in summer and midsummer that you keep a distance to each other. If you travel, you must travel responsibly."
But it's unlikely heat alone has been a powerful antidote, as we don't see similar trends in hotter parts of the world, like Brazil, or the southern US — two regions with the highest rates of COVID-19 in the world.
People chat and drink in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, April 8, 2020.
AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
Jan Albert, a professor of infectious diseases at the Karolinska Institutet, pointed to the summer season potentially creating social distancing, with people out of work and school, and spreading to the country's remote areas with their family units.
"It is difficult to tell what the reasons are, but probably a combination of season, partial herd immunity, and social distancing," Albert said.
New rules for care homes, and better hygiene everywhere
Carrero said that now, in Sweden, "there are genuinely more hygiene measures everywhere."
That applies to care homes, too, which have been hit hard: 90% of the country's deaths have been among those over 70. Care home workers previously said they were initially told to not bring residents to hospitals, or to give patients oxygen without a doctor's approval.
Sweden has started providing funding for more staff in care homes, and giving more money to the local authorities that oversee healthcare provision. After some pressure, the government also made it easier for staff to tip-off the authorities to problems at care homes, including infrequent visits from doctors, The Local reported.
According to one report on the handful of Swedish care homes with no cases of COVID-19 at all, it was internal measures — better equipment, less hourly staff, better access to doctors — that made the difference.
Ultimately, 'the more aggressive approach turned out to be the more appropriate one'
People socially distance in a Stockholm shopping center on May 12, 2020.
But Carrero said it is too soon to know how to judge Sweden's strategy: "Whether these have been the best measures to implement, that is another issue that we can discuss, but an issue that probably we will not be able to judge fully until everything is over. "
Professor Luke O'Neill, an immunologist at Ireland's Trinity College Dublin, said the general consensus among European scientists is that, because of the high toll of deaths, "Sweden's strategy failed."
"In some ways, the decisions they made were based on how they assessed the evidence at the time. And other countries decided to be more aggressive and sadly the more aggressive approach turned out to be the more appropriate one."
