on closing schools

Hold on Sweden, the World's Eyes are on You

I am a very critical person. I try to fact check whatever I hear or read. And to understand the motivation underlying the statements as well as what they intend to achieve. I am from Austria and am currently living in Austria. I love this country and have moved back here three times after having lived in three other great countries. Nevertheless, I surely am amongst the most critical people when it comes to Austria's response to SARS-CoV2. Why exactly am I so alarmed, you will ask. There are so many reasons, but I'll pick two.

First, like so many other countries, the Austrian government waited with strict counter measures until the spread of the disease was unstoppable in Austria.

Second - and that is the much more important reason now - Austria flipped to an authoritarian lock-down that is presented - day in and day out - as the sole inevitable option.

The latter must trigger a creative person's critical thoughts. Why are there no alternatives or what makes all other alternatives so bad? Why aren't local media more critical of the policies? What is the long term plan to protect the vulnerable of our society? Is this virus going to disappear from the surface of our planet if we just wait long enough? How long is long enough?

While criticizing our government, I also need to give credit for not repeating some of the sad mistakes made in Italy. For example, patients with symptoms of a SARS-CoV2 infection were not allowed to regularly enter hospitals to protect the most vulnerable residing there. But is that enough to stop challenging everything the government does?

In this posting, I focus on one of the first things the government did - to discourage children from attending day care or schools. The Austrian government currently believes that continuing the education of our children jeopardizes the vulnerable. This is something that almost everybody in Austria - and an increasing number of other countries - immediately seconds. And nobody challenged loudly whether the two are really mutually exclusive. The reason for closing schools is that children may get the disease without any symptoms which would be terribly dangerous. It is said that they could infect vulnerable people without being aware they might carry the virus. But is there any data that demonstrates this risk?

We, as a society, must ensure that vulnerable people have as little physical contact to other people as possible during this crisis. That means, the elderly have to avoid getting too close to anybody, including children. Regardless whether they have the disease or not. In addition, we must not forget why a virus causes symptoms. Does the virus have an incentive for making its host feel miserable? Not directly - it does so for conserving its species. It causes symptoms to spread. While there might be exceptions, how could a child without symptoms, that is avoided by all vulnerable people, be such a massive threat that justifies putting at risk a generation's education by not allowing them to attend school for weeks or months? So far, neither Austrian politicians, nor the Austrian media have been able to give a proper answer to this question. So I looked at other countries. Sweden used to be a good example for smart policies in the past. It compares nicely to Austria in overall population as well as the economic approach as a social market society with proper healthcare. Both countries had their first 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19 almost at the same time (March 7th for Sweden and March 8th for Austria, according to the World Health organization's COVID-19 Situation Dashboard [1]).

The Swedish answer to SARS-CoV2 has been very different from most other countries. Given the importance that the Swedish people see in education, they would not allow schools for young children to be closed. At least for now. Swedish media reports are including more statistical data and spread less panic than what can be seen in Austria. The Swedish government does by far not apply the same scale of authoritarian measures to prevent the spread of the disease. And how did this reflect in the current result? While there are fewer confirmed cases in Sweden, their testing strategy also differs in that they prioritize only hospitalised patients and people that work in healthcare or elderly care, with suspected COVID-19 [2]. Therefore, it must be assumed that Sweden has at least as many people infected with SARS-COV2 as Austria. As of today (2020-03-30), the number of fatal casualties of COVID-19 in both countries is very similar [1].

I leave it to the reader to make their own conclusions about which policies they prefer after investigating the status quo of available data. Personally, I hope that the Swedish people’s approach will prove to be successful. To protect their vulnerable while putting a lower toll on all other aspects of society including education and the economy. To ensure that the remedy does not get worse than the disease. I cannot help but suspect that many of the measures taken in Austria are ad-hoc and are not nearly thought through. For lack of knowledge and for lack of a better model to copy. To give an example, the Austrian answer to the virus was a lockdown. The lockdown required economic aid for the affected. The well intended and necessary economic counter-measures were off by an order of magnitude and had to be corrected twice within only a few days. And they will put a burden on all of us, including our children and grand-children. More than 170,000 additional unemployed within only a few days (36000 in Sweden). Unionists successfully demanded that food stores have reduced opening hours which breaks the important principle of physical distancing by increasing rush hour effects and congestion. Other unionists' now suggest keeping schools closed (at least) until fall.

Before anybody criticizes how Sweden deals with SARS-CoV2 I urge them to look at the data. The sad reality is that all approaches damage the economy and cost lifes. Allowing critical discourse and a different way of thinking to tackle the current pandemic is of utmost importance. The world needs to be able to learn from countries other than an authoritarian China. So please allow the Swedish approach to continue.

The future will show if the Swedish government will have to give in to the pressure of other European countries to copy their approach. Alternatively, other European countries might start to respectfully compare the data and learn from the Swedish response to SARS-CoV2.

[1] https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd

[2] https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/communicable-disease-control/covid-19/