I’ll tell you about Sweden struggling with Covid, not the mystified one of the mainstream media
It is the last day of my stay in Stockholm, after a two and a half month break that I was lucky enough to take. A break from the mass media frenzy of the pandemic, from the frenzy of terrified Italian citizens, walking around in an open mask as if we were in Chernobyl after the nuclear explosion. It's the day the kids go back to school after the Christmas holidays. It is also the first day in which, after two months of constant greyness, a warm winter sun comes out on a snowy and cold landscape. Many boys get on the bus that takes me to the subway, all without masks. Like me, after all. In Sweden, nobody wears a mask unless they want to, because maybe they feel safer. Nobody prevents it, but nobody prevents me from not wearing it, even indoors. And I never wear it. It is one of the reasons why I took a break from this crazy and senseless Italian delirium.
On TV they say it clearly; they explain it to their doctors, to Anders Tegnell, the guru of the Social Democratic government who treated Ebola in Africa: the mask is useless because people don't know how to use it and why it should be changed at least 4 or 5 times a day. We need more safety distance to defend ourselves from possible contact with Covid-19 . Masks are not mandatory even on public transport; they are recommended during peak hours (from 7 to 9 in the morning and from 4 to 6 in the afternoon). It is especially beautiful to see the girls of 15, 16, 17 years hugging, kissing, sitting on each other's legs; it feels like the old world, the one someone took away from us.
In the afternoon, a few times I went for a walk in the woods or by the sea. A cold, flat sea, still like the air that surrounded me. Like the ruthless winter of the great north which, as Baudelaire said in his Spleen , has "a low and heavy sky", which "weighs like a lid on the spirit that groans in long troubles and pours, embracing the entire circle of 'horizon, a daytime light sadder than the night ”.
The Stockholm government, unlike the Italian one which threatens to lock us in, invites people to go out to be in contact with nature, go for walks, run, ride a bike. In the city everything is open; no one would ever dream of carrying out a national lockdown ; first of all it is unconstitutional and then Tegnell and associates say it is more psychologically damaging than the virus.
There is another thing, fundamental and that differentiates a civilized country like Sweden from a fourth world place like Italy and its current outlaw government. There, every step is made through the Parliament. In the last days I was there, Parliament granted the government special powers to be able to intervene where necessary to limit the entrances to some public areas (never private), to restrict entrances to shopping centers, to sanction restaurateurs who do not respect the spacing. If a place is closed (as it happened in March) it can reopen after a few days.
Of course, the discontent between the categories is also present there. But if you compare their discontent, for example that of the restaurateurs, to the punctual and continuous harassment carried out by the Pd-5S government against our restaurateurs, you will realize that we are talking about pinzillacchere (as Totò would say). The day before yesterday, for example, I was reading that a Michelin-starred chef from Stockholm staged a protest with pots and pans in the center of the capital to protest against the delay of the "refreshments" (and I remind you that they never closed, even if the business volume has however decreased because people stay more at home). Do you know what the finance minister replied? He apologized (at least that) citing delays because of the EU, and its diabolical bureaucracy.
No one there on Christmas or New Year's day dreamed of entering people's homes. They recommended, of course, a limited number of guests for the house. But no one has imposed bans. There the parties in houses with more than 8 people (we were 11) were held. There, if the elderly, who are constantly under observation and who are advised to make limited journeys, do not feel they are in contact with young people, they can be visited at home, at a distance. We spent Christmas day in the open air (like 0 degrees), under a furious snowfall, eating Corv (the typical Swedish sausage), because two couples of elderly parents didn't feel like spending it at home with us ( we were at least twenty between 50/40 and 20 year olds). Imagine my joy, dressed like a diver, dreaming of the sea and the sun of the Canaries or Ibiza in the middle of a snowy forest. And the warmth of the house next door that urged me … and on the threshold the vampire bat Covid guarding the entrance with his Sino-Communist grin.
Private gyms are open (not public ones). I went regularly. There is a limit of eight people per room, per room. Those who do not respect it are sanctioned (the manager). The cinemas are open, but under the rule of maximum eight people it was not convenient to keep them open. The museums were closed. The professional and amateur sport practiced. Youth training suspended until January 24th. Shops, bars, restaurants, all open. Alcohol was forbidden after 8pm (there they have the specter of guys getting really drunk). The restaurant could stay open after 8pm but could not serve alcohol. Someone has decided to close, others, such as pizzerias, have remained open; consider that, as in all of northern Europe, dinner is at 7pm.
In Italy, the king made headlines, who allegedly complained about the mismanagement of the pandemic. But let's see what the king of Sweden really said. His “We have failed. We have a large number who have died and that is terrible. It is something we all suffer with ” (We have failed. We have a huge number of deaths and it is terrible. And we all suffer from it) it is not clear who it was referring to, whether to Sweden or the EU as a whole. Some have thought of the former, others of the latter. Go and hear his YouTube speech again.
The fact is that the mass media, Italians in particular, which have kept this government of bankruptcy on its feet – which has failed across the board in managing the virus and which has proved indecent tyrannical – have tried in every way to make seem irresponsible and reckless the Swedish handling of the virus; the masses, indoctrinated by the Casalino shows, believed it. But they believed it because, as they say in Rome, deep down they gnaw because there is still an almost normal life. While we are under house arrest due to a handful of incapable virologists, a CTS made by the majority of scientists with the lowest number of publications in the world, according to the Journal .
One final note. Sweden mismanaged its nursing homes, where there were the highest number of deaths among the elderly, and they recognized it. And it is on that, not on anything else, that there was an intense debate in Stockholm. But within the population most at risk the virus has circulated as in other countries, with the same incidence, degree of lethality and spread. This proves, unequivocally, that lockdowns don't work, that masks don't work, but they generate "a false sense of protection" (as recalled by the WHO in unsuspected times). And that the psychological damages of the closures are much more serious than those of the virus. And then let's always remember it. Italy, with all its closures and all its sanitary tyranny, has in proportion the worst number of deaths in all of Europe. The Conte / Casalino / Pd government has failed. And in any civilized country he should go home.
The post I'll tell you about Sweden struggling with Covid, not the mystified one of the mainstream media appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/rubriche/vi-racconto-la-svezia-alle-prese-con-il-covid-non-quella-mistificata-dei-media-mainstream/ on Tue, 19 Jan 2021 04:57:00 +0000.