As #Sweden continues to refuse lockdown, its deaths per million is skyrocketing, far exceeding the US as well as its neighbors. Compare to Finland and Norway, for example

Be careful what you wish for: I hear Americans longing for a more centralized response to COVID. Sweden has that. The problem with centralized top-down approaches, though, is they're only good if they're good. If you have a *bad* centralized response, the whole country suffers

It's worth noting that #Sweden's system is *more* technocratic than even other European countries. Elected governments give considerable leeway to health authorities to do what's best according to expert assessment. But "expertise" doesn't necessarily lead to better outcomes

Part of #Sweden's justification for their lax approach is their high social trust. But this isn't entirely true. We recently published a @BrookingsFP paper by @LeeTomson on the rise of right-wing populism and "alternative media" in Sweden. Read: https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-rise-of-sweden-democrats-and-the-end-of-swedish-exceptionalism/

We're not the only ones with a self-conception of "exceptionalism" (our exceptionalism isn't exceptional). There's Swedish exceptionalism too. I don't generally have a problem with the perpetuation of national myths. Sometimes myths are good. But sometimes myths aren't.

In short: non-Trumpist leaders + experts + technocracy + strong public healthcare can still (somehow) result in a "Trumpist" response to COVID. Where Trumpist leaders + distrust of experts + weak bureaucracy + weak healthcare can still (somehow) lead to a *less* Trumpist response

Also, if you're interested in the debate over how central Trump is (or should be) in our assessment of the US response to COVID, check out the latest episode of my and @dmarusic's podcast THE WISDOM OF CROWDS: https://soundcloud.com/the-wisdom-of-crowds/episode-14-the-dangerous-temptation-of-ideals-and-anti-politics

How does any of this alter our assessments? For one, Trump, or having Trump-like leadership, isn't the most relevant independent variable in assessing how countries respond to COVID

We should avoid seeing everything, particularly a crisis not of his own creation, through the lens of Trump's badness. He *is* bad, but his badness doesn't have a lot of explanatory power. In an unwieldy federal system, Trump matters, but he's not all or even most of what matters

The mainstream narrative seems to be: If only instead of Trump, we had competent governance, trust in experts, and stronger healthcare, our response to COVID would be significantly better. Sweden (and various other EU countries) have all those things but *more* per capita deaths

Competent governance may be necessary but it's far from sufficient. This might otherwise seem obvious: getting the facts right and "listening to the experts" (which experts do you decide to listen to?) is not, and can't be, *the* only answer to the question

This IMHE projection of #Sweden (somehow) reaching 1313 deaths per million by August seems very, very high to me, but in any case it underscores the *potential* danger of Sweden's response, if it doesn't change

What this means is that Sweden could end up with 7 times more per capita deaths than the US, and that's not even taking into account the fact that Sweden's few large cities have much lower population density than the US cities most affected by COVID