[gizmo]

So it's not bad because the US is doing it too? Or, maybe, the US doesn't respect the privacy of its residents either.

Taiwan started taking action before the first case had even been reported. And yes, they do deserve credit for that.

Sweden's response was also effective, given that the virus had already spread widely across Europe by the time the politicians woke up. There is some variation in the way cases/deaths are tracked between countries, but when you look at All Cause Mortality it's clear that Sweden is right in the middle of the pack, and they accomplished that without the massive externalities (both human and financial) of a lockdown. That's a success, but yes, Europe should have responded aggressively in Dec as Taiwan did.

[claudeganon]

Sweden cooperates with the US on all that surveillance, so you can’t really argue that they’re better relative to the US or South Korea. Arguably worse, because South Korea actually saved lives with it while Sweden got no pandemic-fighting benefit in return.

The South Korean and Swedish responses began at about the same time, so again, this seems like special pleading. South Korea has more direct exchange with China as well.

If your argument is that Europe overall hasn’t done a great job, and Sweden isn’t that far of a deviation from that performance, ok. But again, that’s not an accomplishment relative to the actually successful countries like Taiwan and South Korea. I don’t understand how having many times more deaths be considered “effective” relative to these countries? Again, they didn’t have any of the economic damage caused by lockdowns either.