Israel vs Sweden: COVID-19 Comparison Update

Good news. Covid-19 cases in Israel appeared to have peaked around September 14, 2021, and the number of cases and deaths are dropping significantly. However, the contrast between the Israeli and Swedish data is still remarkable.

Both countries are similarly vaccinated and have high urban densities, but the Israeli government has pursued, and continues to pursue, an extremely authoritarian approach to fighting Covid. Israel is also aggressively pushing boosters that were not part of the original vaccination protocols. Sweden, on the other hand, has taken a more voluntarist and laissez-faire approach to fighting the disease– and not pushing boosters for vaccines that have clearly not lived up to their hype.

Israel and Sweden are highly developed, technologically advanced first-world countries. You could reasonably conclude that they would show similar results with respect to their Covid-19 cases and deaths. But, you would be wrong.

According to Our World in Data and as of September 20, 2021, Israel is experiencing approximately 772 new daily cases of Covid-19, where as Sweden is only experiencing 74 cases. Similarly, Israel shows 2.10 deaths per million people from Covid-19, where as Sweden shows on 0.86 deaths. That’s well over twice the number of deaths in Israel. Do the countries’ Covid-19 policies explain these dramatic differences?

Based on the numbers, Sweden’s approach continues to appear superior.