[Foundation for Economic Education] Few people in 2020 came under more heat than Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top epidemiologist.
 "I think people will probably think very carefully about these total shutdowns, how good they really were," Tegnell told Reuters in a recent interview. "They may have had an effect in the short term, but when you look at it throughout the pandemic, you become more and more doubtful."
Tegnell was referring to data published by Reuters that show Sweden, which shunned the strict lockdowns embraced by most nations around the world, experienced a smaller increase in its mortality rate than most European countries in 2020.
Many critics countered by comparing Sweden’s death rate to its Nordic counterparts Norway and Finland, which had some of the lowest mortality rates in Europe. Norway and Finland, however, embraced policies even less restrictive than Sweden's for most of the pandemic.
Public health experts in Sweden say the latest data are further evidence that Sweden was one of the few nations to get the virus right. "Some believed that it was possible to eliminate disease transmission by shutting down society," said Johan Carlson, Director, Public Health Agency of Sweden. "We did not believe that and we have been proven right."
Pandemics are awful and COVID-19 is a nasty virus. But lawmakers around the world made two severe miscalculations when they decided to discard fundamental liberties and embrace lockdowns.
First, they concluded that they could contain a virus through central planning. They failed—as numerous academic studies show.
Summary of studies, from the link
Second, policymakers forgot the basic reality of tradeoffs, something economist and political scientist James Harrigan recognized early in the pandemic.
"In times of crisis, people want someone to do something, and don’t want to hear about tradeoffs. This is the breeding ground for grand policies driven by the mantra, "if it saves just one life." New York Governor Andrew Cuomo invoked the mantra to defend his closure policies. The mantra has echoed across the country from county councils to mayors to school boards to police to clergy as justification for closures, curfews, and enforced social distancing."
Rational people understand this isn’t how the world works. Regardless of whether we acknowledge them, tradeoffs exist.
Sweden avoided much of the collateral damage associated with lockdowns, which includes economic distress, increased suicide, depression from social isolation, drug and alcohol abuse, and other adverse public healtth consequences.
 America did not. For example, the US saw mental health hit a 20-year low last year. The CDC reports surging depression in young people. There have been spikes in suicide, [and] drug overdoses.
"We can't stay locked down for such a considerable period of time that you might do irreparable damage and have unintended consequences, including consequences for health," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, told CNBC last year.
Fauci was right. Unfortunately, unlike Tegnell, he didn’t have the courage of his convictions. And Americans paid the price.
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