DEAR EDITOR:

A recent letter was highly critical of Sweden’s nonlockdown approach to COVID-19. The writer was correct in that the mortality rate was higher than the other Nordic countries. It was less than France, Italy Spain the UK and Michigan (similar population).

The government of Sweden has admitted their major mistake was not protecting elderly and nursing home individuals. The numbers from Sweden a couple of weeks ago show hospitalizations and case numbers approaching zero. Not sure, but it is possible that they may have reached a herd immunity.

Alex Berenson (former New York Times reporter) has found in his research that, for the most part, lockdowns have had little effect on the spread of this virus. For the first time in history, a healthy population was quarantined. Drug overdoses are up, suicides are up and who knows the number of individuals harmed by the canceling elective health procedures (biopsies for cancer is one of these). In July, the French prime minister, Jean Castex, said his country would never lock down again.

Perhaps the wise approach would have been to quarantine the at-risk population. It would be nice for the media to investigate this, but don’t hold your breath.

Also, Japan has had few cases of this virus and did not lock down. No one knows why, but American public health officials ignore this fact.

Maybe the U.S. may have a very unhealthy population due to poor lifestyle choices. It would be nice if many in the media would have at least questioned the lockdowns that the states have done instead of just accepting them.

JIM McCLOSKEY

Boardman