The FT and @gideonrachman go down a well-worn path when criticizing the Swedish corona strategy – and end up with a predictably misguided conclusion. /1 ft.com/content/4f6ad3…
In Rachman's narrative, "Sweden's failure" can be traced back to a single "decision" – viz., the "refusal to go for a hard lockdown" – which was "a policy error" driven by "self-confidence … shaded into arrogance about the country's supposedly superior rationality." /2
As is well-known by now, the Swedish constitution does not permit a hard lockdown. There were things on the margin that the government could have done differently, but home confinement, travel bans, etc., were simply not in the cards. /3 bppblog.com/2020/04/23/the…
It's misguided to blame someone for failing to take an action that was not available to them. It is a mistake to accuse people of making an error when they could not have done otherwise. /4
Rachman doesn't even mention the constitutional framework. And it's easy to see why he didn't. The moment you recognize that a hard lockdown was not an available option, the entire analysis comes crashing down. /5
If there was no such decision, you can't blame the government for having selected the wrong option, and there's no error that you can pin on overconfidence and arrogance. There's just no there there. /6
It is fair to describe Sweden's COVID-19-related fatality rates to date as much worse than its neighbors', and certainly there were decisions that can and should be reassessed in light of what we now know. But Rachman and the FT completely miss their target. /7
