Mr. and Mrs. Lockdown Left: We Told You So!
Official studies on extra mortality in Europa show Sweden which had no Lockdowns performed better than most other countries
By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 26 March 2021, www.thecommunists.net
Mr. and Mrs. Lockdown Left, it is now for more than 12 months that you parrot the bourgeois governments and their media and wholeheartedly support the Lockdown policy. Repeating their words, you told us that lockdowns are the best available response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of you even praise the ultra-authoritarian “Zero COVID” policy, a reactionary policy calling for police and army to lock up the whole population in their houses for a long time (“until the last virus has been eliminated”)! [1]
In concert with your masters, you condemned Sweden as its social democratic government did not follow the “consensus” of the ruling class in the imperialist states. You said that Sweden behaves reckless and doesn’t care about its population. You even claimed that Sweden would suffer particularly badly from the pandemic.
We, and a few other socialists who didn’t capitulate to the bonapartist COVID-19 Counterrevolution, strongly opposed this nonsense. We showed and explained in numerous documents that this is simply wrong and that the Lockdown policy is mainly politically motivated (in order to justify a shift towards an authoritarian state) and not based on health considerations. [2] We published a number of articles where we demonstrated on the basis of official statistics and studies (among them reports on Sweden) that a) the rise of extra mortality did not justify mass curfews of the whole population and b) that countries resp. regions which did not impose the Lockdown policy did not fare worse (or even better!) than those which did so. [3]
Mr. and Mrs. Lockdown Left, fortunately we do not need to debate any longer about the facts. Eurostat, the EU official agency for statistics, has published now a report about extra mortality in Europa in 2020. Several news agencies like Reuters have reported about these studies. [4]
Here is what the EU statistics report (and, please, Mr. and Mrs. Lockdown Left, read this carefully!):
“Sweden, which has shunned the strict lockdowns that have choked much of the global economy, emerged from 2020 with a smaller increase in its overall mortality rate than most European countries, an analysis of official data sources showed. (…) While many Europeans have accepted lockdowns as a last resort given the failure to get the pandemic under control with other methods, the moves have in recent months prompted street protests in London, Amsterdam and elsewhere.
Sweden, meanwhile, has mostly relied on voluntary measures focused on social distancing, good hygiene and targeted rules that have kept schools, restaurants and shops largely open - an approach that has sharply polarised Swedes but spared the economy from much of the hit suffered elsewhere in Europe. Preliminary data from EU statistics agency Eurostat compiled by Reuters showed Sweden had 7.7% more deaths in 2020 than its average for the preceding four years. Countries that opted for several periods of strict lockdowns, such as Spain and Belgium, had so-called excess mortality of 18.1% and 16.2% respectively. Twenty-one of the 30 countries with available statistics had higher excess mortality than Sweden.”
We note in passing that these are calculations based on absolute figure. This means that they don’t take into account the growth of population in the last years. As we did show in our articles, Sweden’s population (as well as that of many other countries) increased in the past years. Hence the increase of mortality per capital has been lower than the figures in absolute numbers.
Anyway, the Eurostat report is a total confirmation of the Marxist position which has been upheld only by very few people on the left. [5]
Mr. and Mrs. Lockdown Left: We have nothing else to say to you except that we told you so!
[1] See on this e.g. Michael Pröbsting: COVID-19: Zero Socialism in the “ZeroCOVID“ campaign. Following the model of China and Australia, some British Stalinists and “Trotskyists” call for a “total and indefinite lockdown”, 22 December 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-zero-socialism-in-the-zerocovid-campaign/
[2] The RCIT has analyzed the COVID-19 counterrevolution extensively since its beginning. Starting from 2 February 2020 we have published nearly 80 pamphlets, essays, articles and statements plus a book which are all compiled at a special sub-page on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/collection-of-articles-on-the-2019-corona-virus/. In particular we refer readers to the RCIT Manifesto: COVID-19: A Cover for a Major Global Counterrevolutionary Offensive. We are at a turning point in the world situation as the ruling classes provoke a war-like atmosphere in order to legitimize the build-up of chauvinist state-bonapartist regimes, 21 March 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-a-cover-for-a-major-global-counterrevolutionary-offensive/. In addition, we draw attention to our book by Michael Pröbsting: The COVID-19 Global Counterrevolution: What It Is and How to Fight It. A Marxist analysis and strategy for the revolutionary struggle, RCIT Books, April 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-covid-19-global-counterrevolution/. See also our very first article on this issue by Almedina Gunić: Coronavirus: "I am not a Virus"... but WE will be the Cure! The chauvinist campaign behind the “Wuhan Coronavirus” hysteria and the revolutionary answer, 2 February 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/wuhan-virus/; Michael Pröbsting: The Second Wave of the COVID-19 Counterrevolution. On the ruling class strategy in the current conjuncture, its inner contradictions and the perspectives of the workers and popular resistance, 20 July 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/the-second-wave-of-the-covid-19-counterrevolution/; by the same author: The Police and Surveillance State in the Post-Lockdown Phase. A global review of the ruling class’s plans of expanding the bonapartist state machinery amidst the COVID-19 crisis, 21 May 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/police-and-surveillance-state-in-post-lockdown-phase/; COVID-19: The Great Barrington Declaration is indeed Great! Numerous medical scientists protest against the reactionary lockdown policy, 11 October 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-the-great-barrington-declaration-is-indeed-great/; Michael Pröbsting: COVID-19: The Current and Historical Roots of Bourgeois Lockdown “Socialism”. Police State and Universal Basic Income are key elements of the new version of reformist “War Socialism” of 1914, 19 December 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/covid-19-the-current-and-historical-roots-of-bourgeois-lockdown-socialism/.
[3] See on this our numerous articles on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for total mortality: Michael Pröbsting: COVID-19: A Comparison of Historical Data. An analysis of the COVID-19 death figures and those of past pandemics and climate disasters based on data from the World Bank, 19 January 2021, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-a-comparison-of-historical-data/; by the same author: COVID-19: Sweden's Total Mortality in 2020 Compared with Past Years, 23 January 2021, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-sweden-s-total-mortality-in-2020-compared-with-past-years/; COVID-19: Some Interesting Facts (Which Governments & Media Conceal) Some Calculations about Total Mortality in Europe in 2020 compared with 2016 and 2018, 23 December 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-and-total-mortality-in-europe/; COVID-19: How Severe is the Pandemic in Sweden Really? Once again, a comparison demonstrates that the mortality rate in 2020 is barely larger than in 2018, 8 December 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-how-severe-is-the-pandemic-in-sweden-really/; COVID-19: Revealing Figures from Sweden. A comparison of the mortality rates of the first 9 months in 2020 with previous years confirm that this is a serious but not unprecedented pandemic, 23 November 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-revealing-figures-from-sweden/; see also the chapter “Telling figures for Europe, Sweden and Ischgl” in the above-mentioned essay “The Second Wave of the COVID-19 Counterrevolution”.
[4] Johan Ahlander: Sweden saw lower 2020 death spike than much of Europe – data, 24 March 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe-mortality/sweden-saw-lower-2020-death-spike-than-much-of-europe-data-idUSKBN2BG1R9; Sweden’s 2020 death spike lower than much of Europe, data shows. Despite shunning strict COVID lockdowns, Sweden’s overall mortality rate was lower than most other European nations. 24 March 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/24/swedens-2020-death-spike-lower-than-much-of-europe-data-shows
[5] On our critique of the Lockdown Left see e.g. chapter V of our above-mentioned book by Michael Pröbsting: The COVID-19 Global Counterrevolution: What It Is and How to Fight It; see also by the same author the last chapters in the above mentioned essay: The Second Wave of the COVID-19 Counterrevolution; COVID-19 and the Lockdown Left: The Example of PODEMOS and Stalinism in Spain, 24 March 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-lockdown-left-podemos-and-stalinism-in-spain/; Social-Bonapartism in Argentina. The Partido Obrero (Tendencia) of Jorge Altamira supports the State of Emergency, 29 April 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/social-bonapartism-in-argentina/; When Ultra-Leftism marries Social-Bonapartism and Gives Birth to “Post-Marxist” Obscurantism. A reply to the CWG/ILTT, 5 May 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-when-ultra-leftism-marries-social-bonapartism/; Brazil: Social-Bonapartism of the Lockdown Left in Practice. How the leaderships of the trade unions, PT, PCdoB, the pseudo-Trotskyist PSTU and PSOL sabotage the struggle against the Bolsonaro government, 10 June 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/brazil-social-bonapartism-of-the-lockdown-left-in-practice/; Lockdown Left says: “Cops Need to Enforce Laws”. The ex-revolutionary L5I as another example for shameful social-bonapartism in the era of the COVID-19 counterrevolution, 24 July 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/lockdown-left-l5i-says-cops-need-to-enforce-laws/; COVID-19: Zero Socialism in the “ZeroCOVID“ campaign. Following the model of China and Australia, some British Stalinists and “Trotskyists” call for a “total and indefinite lockdown”, 22 December 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-zero-socialism-in-the-zerocovid-campaign/; COVID-19: The Current and Historical Roots of Bourgeois Lockdown “Socialism”. Police State and Universal Basic Income are key elements of the new version of reformist “War Socialism” of 1914, 19 December 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/covid-19-the-current-and-historical-roots-of-bourgeois-lockdown-socialism/