The truth about Sweden's COVID policy
The Swedish government's decision to forgo lockdowns as most of Europe, Asia, and North America's political leaders forcibly closed businesses and schools in the early days of the pandemic became one of the most controversial COVID policies of 2020.
The New York Times in April 2020 designated Sweden "the world's cautionary tale," and President Donald Trump proclaimed that "Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown" as an early wave of COVID deaths hit Sweden harder than its Nordic neighbors.
But to Swedish officials, "it looked like it was other countries that were engaging in a dangerous experiment," writes Cato Institute senior fellow Johan Norberg in a policy paper entitled "Sweden during the pandemic: Pariah or paragon?"
The attacks on Sweden's laissez-faire approach were short-sighted, says Norberg. Today, Sweden's COVID-19 death rate is not an outlier, and its excess death rate from 2020 to the present is the lowest in Europe.
In a retrospective report on the country's pandemic response, Sweden's public health officials say that they should have more aggressively protected senior citizens and tested and quarantined travelers from COVID hotspots in those early days, but consider the focus on public health recommendations that people can "follow voluntarily" over coercive lockdowns was "fundamentally correct."
Norberg also points out that Sweden avoided the economic contraction that its neighboring countries suffered, as well as the learning loss experienced in countries that closed schools for months or even years.
JoinReason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe for an in-depth discussion with Norberg about the lessons to draw from Sweden's pandemic policies this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel or on Facebook.
Sources referenced in this conversation:
Johan Norberg: Sweden during the pandemic
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/sweden-during-pandemic
Trump: Sweden is “paying heavily” for not locking down - April 30, 2020
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1255825648448348161
NYT: Sweden has become the world’s cautionary tale -
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html
Sweden’s Corona Commission: https://coronakommissionen.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/summary_20220225.pdf
Imperial College report on COVID-19 mitigation: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2020-03-26-COVID19-Report-12.pdf
Trump on Sweden, White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, April 7, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpaaOXZbKXY
Bernie Sanders: U.S. should look more like Scandanavia, May 3, 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz0u2FH5Bnk
Anders Tegnell talks on herd immunity on BBC HARDtalk, May 19, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Biqq34aUJcQ
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How Florida beat California to high speed rail
Brightline is betting that it can run a commercially viable passenger rail service without massive federal subsidies.
Full text and links: https://reason.com/video/2023/09/20/how-florida-beat-california-to-high-speed-rail/
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In 19th century America, trains symbolized modernity. Passenger rail connected the east and west coasts and helped settle the frontier. By 1916, rail accounted for 98 percent of intercity travel.
As it became easier to drive or fly, passenger rail use plummeted. In 1971, the government created Amtrak, which survives on federal subsidies. And most recently the Biden administration gave Amtrak $66 billion in federal subsidies as part of the federal infrastructure bill.
But in Florida, Brightline is showing that it's still possible to run a viable, privately operated passenger rail line under certain conditions. The company is starting service from Miami to Orlando on September 22.
Not only is Brightline the first privately funded intercity rail line in the U.S., but it's also the fastest train in the country outside of the northeast corridor. Topping out at 125 mph in Florida, it will travel from Miami to Orlando in about three hours. For comparison, the Amtrak in the area takes about six and a half hours to complete that same trip.
Mike Reininger, CEO of Brightline, toldReason that passenger rail makes commercial sense under specific conditions, such as the case in Florida, where it connects two populous, tourist-friendly cities that are about 250 miles apart. At that distance, Reininger says, "It is too far to drive and too short to fly. You can approximate the time of flying significantly, improve the time of driving, and you can offer it at a price point that makes it an economic proposition."
There has been one other ambitious effort to build high-speed rail in the U.S.—in California. But that project turned into something so "foolish" that it's "almost a crime," according to Quentin L. Kopp, the former state senator who was crucial in rallying support for a $10 billion bond measure to build high-speed rail in California. He became a fierce opponent of the project when it ran out of money and the agency in charge, he says, broke its promises to voters.
The 520-mile railway between San Francisco and Los Angeles was supposed to be completed by 2020. But after fifteen years of construction, they've only laid track for a 170-mile stretch in the Central Valley. The project, which has received more than $20 billion in state and federal subsidies, is now projected to cost over $128 billion.
Following on its success in Florida, Brightline is also starting to develop a high-speed rail line out west—connecting Las Vegas to Los Angeles. The 218-mile line will have just a handful of stops and plans to reach speeds over 186 mph. But the company is pursuing about $3 billion worth in federal subsidies to complete the project, or about a third of the total estimated cost. Though not even close to the amount of money California needs to finish its project, Robert Poole, the director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, is "skeptical" once federal money gets involved at all in large infrastructure projects.
"It becomes far less of a business venture. And much more of this attitude that we can do grand things because we don't have to worry about what it costs," says Poole.
But Brightline's Florida project remains a true test of whether there are narrow cases in which American travelers value passenger rail enough to pay for it with their own money.
Photo Credits: akg-images / Paul Almasy/Newscom; Chris Kleponis - CNP/Newscom; Ron Sachs - CNP/Newscom; DPST/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom; National Motor Museum / Heritage Images/Newscom; Gary Reyes/TNS/Newscom; Gary Reyes/TNS/Newscom; Gary Reyes/TNS/Newscom; Underwood Archives/Universal Images Group/Newscom; Underwood Archives/Universal Images Group/Newscom; Underwood Archives/UIG / Universal Images Group/Newscom; Darryl Heikes/UPI/Newscom
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https://reason.com/video/2023/09/13/the-secret-history-of-psychedelics/
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Erika Dyck is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies the history of psychedelics with a special interest in the legacy of Humphry Osmond, the British-born psychiatrist who coined the term pyschedelic, gave Aldous Huxley his first dose of mescaline, and conducted pathbreaking work using LSD to help alcoholics stop drinking. Among Osmond's best-known patients was Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Reason sat down with Dyck at the MAPS Psychedelic Science 2023 conference held in Denver this June, where a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about all aspects of today's psychedelic renaissance. We talked about why drugs such as MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD are making a comeback; how tensions are rising between indigenous people and medical practitioners; and whether prohibitionists have finally lost the war on drugs.
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Volokh Conspiracy — Retribution, Deterrence, and the Case for Prosecuting Trump for Conspiring to Overturn the 2020 Election: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/08/02/retribution-deterrence-and-the-case-for-prosecuting-trump-for-conspiring-to-overturn-the-2020-election/
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Are California’s new 'woke' DEI college standards illegal?
California Community Colleges' new teaching standards "mandate viewpoint conformity" and "compel professors to teach and preach the State's perspective," according to a lawsuit called Palsgaard v. Christian, filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.
JoinReason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a discussion with Jessie Appleby, an attorney with FIRE, and Bill Blanken, a chemistry professor at Reedley College in California and plaintiff who says the standards advanced by the state's community college board amount to "compelled speech" in the classroom.
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Sources:
Palsgaard v. Christian complaint - https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/palsgaard-v-christian-verified-complaint
California Community Colleges DEI curriculum model principles: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/palsgaard-v-christian-dei-curriculum-model-principles
FIRE: The Academic Mind in 2022 -
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/academic-mind-2022-what-faculty-think-about-free-expression-and-academic-freedom
Tema Okun: Dismantling White Supremacy Culture - https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf
The Intercept: Tema Okun on Her Mythical Paper on White Supremacy: https://theintercept.com/2023/02/03/deconstructed-tema-okun-white-supremacy/
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https://reason.com/video/2023/08/29/rick-perry-the-conservative-case-for-psychedelic-medicine/
_________
In June, I traveled to Denver with Zach Weismueller to cover the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, which was organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a group that has been working to gain Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and related ailments since the late 1980s. That approval is likely to come in the next year.
We produced a 30-minute documentary about what is rightly called today's "psychedelic renaissance," or a new flourishing of substances and subcultures that mostly went underground at the end of the 1960s but are now popping up everywhere: in medical research, therapeutic settings, the arts, the workplace, you name it. Watch the documentary here.
The most surprising speaker at the conference was Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and Trump administration energy secretary. What in tarnation was a conservative Republican doing on the stage, extolling the virtues of drugs long associated with hippies and '60s counterculture?
I sat down with Perry to learn why he believes psychedelics should be legal medicine for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, how to allow more immigrants to come to America lawfully, and why if he were ever to take a psychedelic drug it would be Ibogaine, a notoriously powerful substance made from the bark of an African tree.
Photo Credits: Riccardo Savi/Sipa USA/Newscom; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; Bob Daemmrich/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; David Peinado/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Kgjerstad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Marco Schmidt, CC-BY-SA-2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Music Credits: "The Ride" by Itamar Doari via Artlist
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