[conspire] Notes to myself: Sweden Is Staying Open for Business During Its Coronavirus Outbreak

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Elise Scher (elise.scher01 at gmail.com):

> https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/24/sweden-coronavirus-open-for-business/
> 
> I am interested in how Sweden is doing because my son Joseph is a PhD
> student in computer science at KTH in Stockholm.

Ah, Sweden.  My, where do I begin about our cherished Swedish cousins?
(I'm Norwegian-American, and the history between Norwegians and Swedes
is complex, fraught, and had some very unhappy bits in it.  Cheryl my
mother-in-law, one of the three members of my household[1], is ethnic
Swedish-American, so Chez Moen lives with this legacy in miniature.)

Sweden as a nation deeply believes in its ability to maintain social
cohesion and have a sense of purpose and societal progress.  Outsiders
to Scandinavia often imagine this to be true of all the Nordics, but,
believe me, it's overwhelmingly a Swedish national-culture thing.   The
cited article also uses the term 'social trust', a related concept.
Critics would also accuse them of a troubling and mindless conformism,
but that's a matter of perspective.

The Foreign Policy article is not wrong in its description of these
things.  Whether the stronger measures Sweden is so far avoiding are
necessary is something that remains to be seen.

To learn more on this subject, I can strongly recommend the very funny
and insightful book _The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth behind
the Nordic Miracle_, by English journalist Michael Booth (who lives in
Denmark and has a Danish wife).  Expecially for those of us who are
ethnics of the five countries he deftly but fairly skewers (Denmark,
Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden), it's hilariously funny and also
dead-on accurate.  Each country has a specific section of the book
devoted to it.

FYI, Booth came to adore the Finns and Finland -- for exactly the same
reasons I have.  But you should see the book about that.

If you're asking a more-pragmatic question, like 'How well is Sweden
_really_ doing against SARS-CoV-2, setting aside self-congratulatory
national bullshit?', I'm afraid I really have no idea.


[1] Not counting a pair of Feline-Americans.