> Nevertheless the titular question deserves to be raised

Does it though?

Or is it "just asking questions" about the competence of experts and "the media"?

What's wrong with asking questions about the competence (and honesty) of experts and "the media"?

Asking questions is obviously fine. "Just asking questions" is a specific bad-faith rhetorical tactic: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions

Nothing is wrong with a good-faith question asked out of an honest curiosity.

Have you looked at which countries were identified as high risk back in April 16 2020?

https://www.newsfirst.lk/2020/04/16/sri-lanka-ranked-16th-am...

Then compared it to actual deaths?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...

we only ever hear about another country when they're doing worse as it's a good way for politicians to boast about their own strategies.

> Nevertheless the titular question deserves to be raised. We heard no end of derision for Sweden's outlier approach when they were having a rough time of it, but now things are better - radio silence. Why? What is behind this?

Things are better due to vaccinations having been administered fairly successfully.

It would be unwise to accept the numbers presented in this article without any skepticism, in particular given that the author is very transparent about their agenda (discredit mask usage). The numbers are very cherry-picked to precisely fit their argument.

First off - herd immunity was never the strategy to combat COVID-19 in Sweden. We had some forms of restrictions, we mostly just strayed from the 'majority' of countries, if you will, by not mandating that some businesses shut down, and by not making mask usage mandatory. Notably, we also do not mandate quarantine for arriving travelers - we merely encourage it.

Sweden, their response to COVID-19 and the results of that response are most accurately discussed in the context of our close neighbours. It would be inaccurate to measure against other countries with wildly differing cultures and economic situations, it's making too much of an apples to oranges comparison. The death rate numbers in that context (which as you may note are conveniently left out by the author) speak for themselves - Swedens death rate per capita is around 3 times as high as the next neighbor, Denmark (1434/million vs 449/million), 7 times as high as Finland (190/million) and 9 times as high as Norway (157/million). These numbers should be expected to more or less converge now that we have vaccinated at fairly similar rates, and hence comparisons of recent numbers, as made in the article, is fairly useless.

> but now things are better - radio silence. Why?

Because it’s expected in a highly vaccinated population.

Israel and UK are highly vaccinated, but their things are pretty far from being better.

I don't have the numbers handy for the U.K. I'm copy pasting what I dredged up for an earlier comment on the comparison with Israel.

As of Sep. 1, 82% of eligible Swedes have had one shot, and 70% are fully vaccinated. Sweden seems to be close to, if not already at, the coveted herd immunity by vaccination. In comparison, in Israel, 65% have had one shot and only 60% are fully vaccinated (a smidge over half of those 3x).

> 82% of eligible Swedes have had one shot, and 70% are fully vaccinated

You should compare eligible to eligible, not 82% of eligible Swedes to 65% of all Israelis.

In Israel, "eligible" includes being over 12 years old (the vaccines aren't approved for younger children yet), and according to NPR, as of a month ago "78% of eligible Israelis over 12 years old are vaccinated."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/20/1029628...

I am taking data from Google search page, it claims it took it from Our World On Data.

Sweden: 61.9% of population fully vaccinated, Israel: 61.6% of population fully vaccinated. Those numbers are pretty much the same.

I think your error was to compare % of elegible Swedes and % of Israel population.

Anyway, I still think that Israel is highly vaccinated. If I sort Google data by % of population vaccinated, I see typical result is 70%-75%, bar microscopic countries like San Marino or Malta. Undervaccinated countries like Argentina or Brazil are at 35%-45%.

Israel was among the first countries to reach a vaccinated majority in March 2021, thats likely where this common wisdom comes from. but since then it appears that the vaccination rate has stagnated.

From Aug 20, "That means only 58% of Israel's total citizenry is fully vaccinated. [1]"

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/20/1029628...