Similarly, the fact that yet again in a thread on this topic, perfectly reasonable comments are being downvoted to oblivion, should give everyone serious cause for concern about the way things are going.
Does it though?
Or is it "just asking questions" about the competence of experts and "the media"?
Have you looked at which countries were identified as high risk back in April 16 2020?
https://www.newsfirst.lk/2020/04/16/sri-lanka-ranked-16th-am...
Then compared it to actual deaths?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...
Things are better due to vaccinations having been administered fairly successfully.
It would be unwise to accept the numbers presented in this article without any skepticism, in particular given that the author is very transparent about their agenda (discredit mask usage). The numbers are very cherry-picked to precisely fit their argument.
First off - herd immunity was never the strategy to combat COVID-19 in Sweden. We had some forms of restrictions, we mostly just strayed from the 'majority' of countries, if you will, by not mandating that some businesses shut down, and by not making mask usage mandatory. Notably, we also do not mandate quarantine for arriving travelers - we merely encourage it.
Sweden, their response to COVID-19 and the results of that response are most accurately discussed in the context of our close neighbours. It would be inaccurate to measure against other countries with wildly differing cultures and economic situations, it's making too much of an apples to oranges comparison. The death rate numbers in that context (which as you may note are conveniently left out by the author) speak for themselves - Swedens death rate per capita is around 3 times as high as the next neighbor, Denmark (1434/million vs 449/million), 7 times as high as Finland (190/million) and 9 times as high as Norway (157/million). These numbers should be expected to more or less converge now that we have vaccinated at fairly similar rates, and hence comparisons of recent numbers, as made in the article, is fairly useless.
Because it’s expected in a highly vaccinated population.
As of Sep. 1, 82% of eligible Swedes have had one shot, and 70% are fully vaccinated. Sweden seems to be close to, if not already at, the coveted herd immunity by vaccination. In comparison, in Israel, 65% have had one shot and only 60% are fully vaccinated (a smidge over half of those 3x).
You should compare eligible to eligible, not 82% of eligible Swedes to 65% of all Israelis.
In Israel, "eligible" includes being over 12 years old (the vaccines aren't approved for younger children yet), and according to NPR, as of a month ago "78% of eligible Israelis over 12 years old are vaccinated."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/20/1029628...
Sweden: 61.9% of population fully vaccinated, Israel: 61.6% of population fully vaccinated. Those numbers are pretty much the same.
I think your error was to compare % of elegible Swedes and % of Israel population.
From Aug 20, "That means only 58% of Israel's total citizenry is fully vaccinated. [1]"
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/20/1029628...