The Swedes have done the world a favor by demonstrating clearly that throwing hundreds of millions of people into unemployment and destroying complex supply chains was stupidity of grotesque proportions. Let’s be really clear: the Swedish mortality rate makes it obvious that covid-19 was never the threat the sensationalist media presented for the purposes of generating revenues. Today, five months into the pandemic, fewer people have died worldwide than in an average flu season. When we remember that more than 60,000,000 people die every year in the normal course of events, this means that even if every single covid-19 death was entirely due to the virus (which is in fact not at all the case in most such deaths) this would mean that the covid-19 mortality rate is 1% of total deaths over the relevant period. In other words, we shut down the entire planet and plunged 1,500,000,000 people into abject poverty for what amounts to a statistical rounding error.

They say people are stupid, but I think that under-states the case rather severely. More people will die of starvation in Africa and India/Pakistan/Bangladesh because of our shutdown than would ever have died from coronavirus infection. That’s not only stunningly stupid but profoundly immoral too.