The course Coronavirus 101 is, really, ongoing. Our grading of Sweden’s performance is meant to be suggestive.
We might say that there are three principal components of the overall grade in Coronavirus 101: The midterm exam is the entire polity’s handling of the elderly care challenge. The term paper is the government’s pandemic policy; that is, the extent and duration of locking down the life of society. The final exam is the government’s policies dealing with the social and economic fallout; policies such as bailouts, extended unemployment benefits, “stimulus,” and so on. Other actions, too, matter, such as waiving obstructive restrictions, avoiding “price gouging” folly, smartly pursuing therapies and vaccine development, and so on.
For the three main components we give, if somewhat tentatively, Sweden a D on elderly care, an A on lockdown, and a C on economic-fallout policies. Overall, Sweden gets a B- in the course. There won’t be many polities with an overall course grade higher than Sweden’s.
Giancarlo Angulo's Blog