Letter to the Globe and Mail: Lessons from the Pandemic

Re “Hindsight is 2020” (March 10) and “2020 hindsight on COVID-19” (March 11): These and other recent pieces have compared Canada’s pandemic performance with that of some other countries without ever mentioning the small group of countries that imposed far fewer restrictions. Sweden in particular was widely vilified for its lack of restrictions. It ended up with a 2020–2023 “excess death rate” higher than that of Denmark but lower than that of either Norway or Finland (comparable countries that enacted much stricter measures).

As we now know, lockdowns had long-lasting ill effects on children’s learning and on the mental health of many people. Plus, of course, they caused serious harm to the economy. It’s no wonder that (as a March 5 BBC article reported) “even some researchers who have found evidence that lockdowns saved lives have cautioned against turning to this measure in haste in the future.” Vaccines definitely worked; the verdict on lockdowns is more mixed.