Munchau starts this article off by stating that: "Only a fool would draw strong conclusions from sketchy data."

But what if you are policymaker in a crisis, and all you have is sketchy data?

Munchau misses here. In a crisis, half measures often leads to irreprable harm. https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1305634982988218368

Munchau draws a strange analogy in this piece: How relying on VAR models led to problems in policy analysis. The better analogy is how central bankers - from Sept 2008 to March 2009 - and more recently from Jan-April 2020 - threw away caution to fend off crisis

The context here is critical: Lockdowns seemed to work in both China and South Korea. Italy implemented one. on March 9, and within two weeks, the case curve flattened.

There was no other succesful playbook to draw on. Implementing lockdowns seemed effective and prudent.

Looking at the spread of COVID19, countries did what appeared to work to stave off a human health disaster - and implemented lockdowns.

France: March 17
Germany: March 23
Greece: March 23
Spain: March 14

Lockdowns were costly. But compared to the lives of your citizens?

Sweden stood out amongst developed economies and opted not to impose a lockdown. And for quite some time, their case counts rose faster than European peers with similar population sizes.

Returning to Munchau:

"The biggest fools this year were those who prematurely declared the spike in Swedish infections from April until June as evidence that the Swedish decision...was wrong."

Teleologically correct. But that doesn't justify Sweden's decision in March.

Sweden leaned on their own health professionals, who apparently had a different belief in how COVID19 worked. But they were working with the same data - and the same external precedents - that led every other country into prudential lockdowns.

The economic costs in the short-term were known. But the widely shared belief was that lockdowns were necessary to control viral spread - it was the only thing we KNEW worked at the time. And the costs of bucking the trend could have - and arguably did - cost Swedish lives.

With a second wave increasingly apparent across West Europe - a function of easing social restrictions - Sweden does appear to be doing better: They better internalized social distancing requirements.

There's an old joke attributed to Napleon, when he said he'd rather have a lucky general than a good general. That's what Sweden reminds me of here.

All the good generals implemented lockdowns. The responsible policy was to lock-down. Sweden got lucky, they were not right.

The good generals threw every policy they had faith in - and some they thought might work - in order to limit human deaths from the frightening wave of COVID. That's what policymakers have to do during a crisis.