[RESPONSE] Please don’t apologize. My response was sincere. I was truly trying to understand where you were coming from.

I am sad you interpreted that when I showed Sweden on that graph. It was not my intention. It is definitely not due to prestige. I am in fact very interested in Sweden’s case, and the strategy might turn out to be the right one, if IFRs are close to 0.1% and there’s few chronic conditions. My belief based on data today is that’s it’s a heavy gamble, but I’ll write about it next week.

For this article, I think I was fair. Here are specifics:

My quote about “Some countries are imposing less aggressive suppression measures, perhaps going for herd immunity. It is unclear what the effect will be.” sounds to me very precise and definitely not disparaging. This is exactly what is happening and also what you describe. Indeed, the measures are less aggressive, and indeed, the country is going for her immunity, and indeed, the effects are not clear. I don’t see how you read bias in that statement. Please help me see it!

As for your comment on “Sweden is better than Spain or Italy” you’re right, but there are many many many other factors at play. You want to take controls that are as close as possible, and both fatality rates and death rates in Sweden are multiples of those in other Scandinavian countries.

On the comprehensive discussion of economics, please read Out of Many, One. I go in depth there.

You mention that Sweden’s strategy will turn out to be successful. We don’t know that. Specifically we’re missing:

• Prevalence today, and forecast for the future
• Death rates
• IFRs
• Rates of chronic conditions
• Long-term drop in demand due to fear of widespread contagion

Best,

Tomas