Over the past year, we have witnessed an array of approaches on how to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic. A year on we are able to judge who got it right and who got it horribly wrong. While Sweden tackled the pandemic with an unconventional approach, Israel seems to have come off the successor.

Delving deeper into Sweden’s response and comparing it a year to countries like Israel, which seem to have normality and minimal daily cases. Tegnell, the mand behind Sweden’s unique approach to a global pandemic, has countlessly said in interviews, “Judge me in a year”, and that is exactly what we will do.

Sweden  

Sweden, with a population of 10.38 million in October 2020 and its most densely populated city, Stockholm, home to 952,058 people, has taken an unconventional approach to the global pandemic compared to the other countries in Europe.

The man behind Sweden’s coronavirus response is Anders Tegnell, the country’s head epidemiologist. While Tegnell has an extremely impressive résumé, it is interesting to see how different his response to COVID-19 was to his counterparts around the globe. Tegnell worked in Zaire during the 1995 Ebola epidemic, and then served as an expert on infectious diseases for the European Union before being hired by the Swedish public-health agency, in 2013.  

Why Tegnell had so much say?

It is important to recognise how the Swedish constitution is contracted and therefore, how it gives government agencies extraordinary independence. For instance, Tegnell and the public-health agency were able to lead much of the coronavirus response, and, constitutionally, the government has had little power to impose restrictions.

Sweden’s approach is not purely fixated on minimising COVID-19 deaths, but rather to keep the economy going and keeping education, restaurants, shops, and fitness centres.  The graph below shows that Sweden’s economy is similar to the other Nordic countries, however, their death toll is one of the worst in Europe.

Tegnell’s stance on the masks

Over the course of the pandemic, while evidence supporting the wearing of face masks has piled up to reduce the spread, Tegnell has a different outlook.

Research done in German towns on mask mandates’ effectiveness found that they may have reduced COVID-19 infections by about 45%. Another study done in the USA on mask mandates found that the daily growth of infections was 2% lower in states where a mask mandate was in place for a few weeks.

By April 2020, the World Health Organisation, Centres for Disease Control (C.D.C), and other groups decided that there was enough evidence, and recommended face coverings. However, the C.D.C. now firmly concludes that “experimental and epidemiological data support community masking to reduce the spread of sars-CoV-2.” Yet Tegnell, Sweden’s head epidemiologist remained unsatisfied. In April 2020, he wrote a letter to the European Center for Disease Control urging against a mask recommendation, saying, “The argument for and evidence for an effect of face-covering to limit the spread from asymptomatic persons is not clear. . . The arguments against are at least as convincing.”

Truthless Tegnell exposed

Johan Giesecke, Sweden’s former head epidemiologist, told ‘UnHerd’, a British YouTube channel, that he expected the infection fatality rate to be “much, much lower” than was being reported in the media at the time. “I think it will be like a severe influenza rate, on the order of 0.1%.” (A study by the Swedish public health agency later found that the rate was at least six times higher in Stockholm.) 

By December, cases and hospitalisations were higher than they’d been since the earliest days of the pandemic.

Sweden, one year on

Tegnell’s prediction of a tapering epidemic curve and quickly attained immunity never came to pass. Sweden’s per-capita case counts, and death rates have been many times higher than any of its Nordic neighbours, all of which imposed lockdowns, travel bans, and limited gatherings early on. Overall, in Sweden, thirteen thousand people have died from covid-19. In Norway, which has half the size of Sweden’s population, and where stricter lockdowns were enforced, about seven hundred people have died.

Israel

“With 56% of citizens vaccinated and another 15% recovered, Israel may be the first country where people who are immune protect those who aren’t”

Israel, a country of 9.23million, with its most densely populated city, Jerusalem, home to 936,425 people, responded to COVID-19 in a more conventional way, similar to most of the world’s national lockdown.  

Beginning on 11 March, Israel began enforcing social distancing and other rules to limit the spread of infection. Gatherings were first restricted to no more than 100 people, and on 15 March this figure was lowered to 10 people, with attendees advised to keep a distance of 2 m (6 ft 7 in) between one another. On 19 March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a national state of emergency, saying that existing restrictions would henceforth be legally enforceable, and violators would be fined. Israelis were not allowed to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. Essential services—including food stores, pharmacies, and banks—would remain open. Restrictions on movement were further tightened on 25 March and 1 April, with everyone instructed to cover their noses and mouths outdoors.

Israel’s approach to the pandemic has followed most country’s steps with social distancing, encouraging face coverings, and implementing national lockdown. While most countries have seen a handful of waves where COVID-19 cases have spiked, they seem to keep the death rate minimal. On 19 March, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared a national state of emergency. He said that existing restrictions would henceforth be legally enforceable, and violators would be fined. Israelis were not allowed to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. Essential services would remain open. News reports showed hundreds of Israelis ignoring the new ban on Shabbat, 21 March, and visiting beaches, parks, and nature spots in large numbers prompting the Ministry of Health to threaten imposing tighter restrictions on the public, henceforth, restriction become tighter on 25 March.

Israel’s vaccine role out

Israel, which has run the world’s fastest Covid vaccination campaign, may be reaching a point where other countries take months or years to get to an endgame scenario for the pandemic.

The country of 9 million people has administered both shots to more than half its population and infection rates have consistently dropped. That has continued even though daily life has returned almost completely to a pre-pandemic situation.

Entry to gyms, hotels, theatres, and concerts is available to people who have a “green pass”, an app that proves people have been fully inoculated or have presumed immunity after contracting the disease.

In the coastal city of Tel Aviv, beaches have been packed for the Passover holiday. When the sun sets, thousands of people head to bars and restaurants. While indoor locations are supposed to scan people’s green pass, which has a QR code, many bars appear to assume their customers are immunised.

The green pass, launched last month and eyed as a potential strategy by countries such as Britain, has been credited with helping motivate unvaccinated Israelis to get the jab. At the Jerusalem arena, Avishag Buskila, 26, said the app was why she finally decided to do so.

The main visual sign that Israel remains in a pandemic situation is the masks, which remain mandatory indoors in shops and outdoors everywhere. Still, many people have stopped wearing them.

Adi Niv-Yagoda, an expert in health policy at Tel Aviv University and a member of the health ministry’s Covid-19 advisory panel, said he believed Israel may have almost reached an endpoint in the pandemic.

Israel’s international criticism

Israel has faced international condemnation over its decision not to vaccinate millions of Palestinians who live under its military control. During the past couple of months, the government agreed to donate several thousand doses. It also completed a program to immunise 100,000 Palestinian workers who regularly enter Israel and Jewish settlements for work.

“Judge me in a year”

While initially many were in ore of Sweden’s response to the pandemic and Tegnell had public support on his side, a year on and the number of deaths compared to other countries of a similar population has slandered his theory and made it look reckless.

NO SOCIAL DISTANCING, NETA IS HERE

Netas are godly figures in India. Nothing proves this other than that there is no requirement for social distancing when attending political rallies for electing the next Netaji. Even the virus knows that.

Everywhere else, the Government is insisting that people wear masks and follow social distancing. It’s the Government directive to protect against Covid-19.

The police have been given powers to splat fines on people not wearing masks in cars, even when the driver is on his/her own. The Rt Honorables, the Judges have decreed that a car is not a private space, especially when it is on a public road. That must have come as a shock to millions of drivers who have been treating their cars as their private property. ‘why have you touched my car with dirty hands’ may have led to a few quarrels on property rights and intrusion. Now it might be ‘why have you touched this public property (car) with dirty hands’. Can it be considered anti-national to defile someone’s car as it is no longer a private space? Will spitting on a car in a public road be the same offense as breaking a brick on the side pavement on the road, ‘damage to public property? Who knows until a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) settles it.

So when a driver (one-time owner, now a driver of a public space vehicle) is on his/her own in the car with windows closed, air condition blowing, radio blurting, and thinking of going for a jalebi junction or an ice cream, the driver has to wear a mask in the car! Because the driver is not in a private space. It’s delusional thinking to consider the car as private property except when paying installments. After all, he/she (driver) is not only on a public road, but occupying a public space. It makes sense. After all the air in the air, com is coming from the public space.  Does the driver have to social distance from him/her self when alone in the car? We need a PIL.

Do the driver and his/her family members with whom he/she shares home and spends all day in close proximity, have to social distance in the car? It is after all a vehicle on a public road? There is a need to bring a PIL on this very vexing question to their honorable Lords to ponder and give a considered legal directive while others are dying of Covid due to Government negligence.

Drivers have become easy prey for the thousands of hapless Indian police who have not much else to do during the non-existent lockdown. They are busy standing on roads and pathways, prying into cars with darkened windows, and catching egoistic drivers without masks.

But no such restriction appears to apply to crowds gathering to worship the Netas. Not only families but whole villages and even unrelated and unconnected people can sit next to each other. Clearly a research challenge for scientists. Coronavirus disappears when people in unison shout ‘Modi Bhai’ ‘Modi Bhai’, or ‘Didi Bhen, Didi Bhen’. Such is the power of chanting an Indian leader’s name and being in their presence. Blessed are they who gain the title ‘Neta’.

An enterprising driver can be somewhat ingenious if he/she were to record the chants of the crowds and play that in the car. Then he/she may not need a mask or be social distancing in the car as the driver can say to Honorable Lords, ‘I believe My Lords, the chanting of Neta’s name gives the same immunity as it does to thousands in the political rally’. It is ‘heard’ immunity my Lord’.

DON’T INTERFERE IN INDIA, JUST INTERFERE FOR INDIA

The Godi brigade is busy around the world, telling anyone and everyone that making comments supporting farmers is a direct interference in India’s internal matters.

That OFI or Overseas Friends of India are more active than Chinese or Russians in organising vote banks for pro-India candidates in the USA or UK is an open secret. If they say unfaltering things about India, that pro-India NRI cartels vocally canvass against electoral candidates in UK and USA is no secret. It’s not even done discreetly. It’s there on social media and media.

That India proactively set about wooing people of Indian origin everywhere to promote India, invest in India, and champion India is officially declared policy.  Even those with great grandfathers born in India have been issued with OCI cards, (Overseas citizen of India). The gamble is that they will be Indian ‘nationals’ first. Their nationality of residence (British or American) is secondary as far as Indian bureaucracy is concerned. NRI are meant to eat, breathe and dream motherland India except….

Trouble is that thinking of mothers is not always a one-way complementary wavelength. Sometimes children get angry with their mothers. So NRIs get angry with ‘Mother India’ too. If they don’t like the policies of the government, they feel, as people of Indian origin, however distant from the past, that they have a ‘family right’ to speak out the truth. The government of ‘Mother India’ does not like that.

Criticism of the Indian Government was not in the bargain. The OCI card and NRI label was meant to be a one way traffic in commentary. NRIs are only meant to say good things about Mother India, even if her Government makes poor elderly farmers sit on the road in cold weather, deprive them of toilets and water at times, drives other people into poverty, etc.  Those are off-limits for NRIs. In the mind of the GOI (Government of India), NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) are expected to interfere in other countries to strengthen India and not interfere in India. It must be somewhere in the small print. ‘SPEAK FOR US, NOT TO US!’.

What have Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, Nike, and Fed-Ex among others have in common? They all pay less percentage tax than the average tax-paying employee and the average Business around the corner. For decades, these mega transnational corporations have played cat and mouse with the tax systems and avoided as much corporation tax as they can legally get away with. Now President Biden is going to put an end to that. It will depend on the cooperation of other countries.

Biden is turning out to be the pendular opposite of Trump. Having announced a 2.1 Trillion dollar stimulus package, he now needs the money to make it happen. The big 100 companies that have had it so good so far, are in line to start paying up.

These companies have been hopping and changing their headquarters to places where corporation tax is least. In Europe, Ireland lifted itself out of the financial crises of 2008 by offering refuge to these companies. As opposed to 19% (UK) and 30% tax (Germany) levied in other European countries, Ireland offered 12.5%. There are the UK offshore places such as Isle of Man that have 0% corporation tax. 

Ireland offers a number of highly complicated schemes to multinational corporations. Through some of these schemes, the tax effectively comes down to between 2.2% to 4.5%.  Compare that to the 30% tax in Germany or 21% in the USA. Facebook effectively saves 18% tax simply by rerouting its profits through Ireland.

Ireland offers both a skilled force and as an EU country, access and privileges of the EU without the other EU countries’ taxes. So over 1000 multinational corporations have made their headquarters in Ireland. These include Facebook, Pfizer, Twitter, IBM, Apple, etc.

It is estimated that some $420 billion are avoided by Transnational corporations every year simply by rerouting their profits through a mirage of accounting systems and tax havens or low tax countries. This would be enough to end poverty around the world.

Transnational corporations claim that they do pay tax. They say that they employ a lot of people and those employees pay income tax! This excuse could be used by every business. That the Business has 10 employees who pay income tax and that cumulatively this is enough, therefore there is no need for corporation tax.

Trump protected the Transnationals from any attempt to tax them around the world. Twitter, which finally banned him, gained a lot from his policies.

Biden on the other hand has now floated the idea of a minimum corporation tax around the world and that tax would be paid in the country where the business is conducted. So if Facebook has 10 million followers in India and earns 10 crore rupees from India through ads and promotion, it will have to pay Indian corporation tax on that money before it can take its profit out.

This is being welcomed by Europe. Countries have suffered a lot with Transnationals avoiding tax in the country they do business. As a result, the small businesses and income tax and indirect taxes cover the deficit run by Governments to meet their obligations, such as health care spending, etc.

The pandemic has brought the issue to the fore as Transnationals got richer while countries have gone into debt. That debt will have to be paid either by citizens or a fair tax regime on Corporations who have been playing wily games with their obligations while pretending to be great philanthropists and humane by donating morsels in charity. Many activists have pointed out that there would be no need for any charity from these multibillionaires if they simply paid the expected taxes.

The proposal for a minimum agreed tax around the world by every country has been discussed at the G20 where ministers agreed to make progress on this. Biden’s proposal is that countries agree to a minimum corporation tax below which they cannot go. They can go as high as they want. His proposal is for 21% as minimum tax in every country and kill off tax-havens.

The combination of companies having to pay tax in the country they do Business and a minimum tax agreed internationally will have a seismic effect on the world economy, taxation on ordinary citizens, and the recovery from the pandemic.

The 135 nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is likely to agree to the Biden proposal. Pascal Saint-Amans, the head of tax administration at OECD says that the game is over for these tax-avoiding transnational corporations.

This proposal challenges one of the most notorious countries that have both introduced tax systems and created pirate economies acting as tax havens. The United Kingdom has the most number of tax havens dotted around the world. These include Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Bermuda.

It is likely to bring further tensions in the much-hyped special relationship that British politicians talk with megaphones but Americans rarely mention except on British soil when forced to. Britain is likely to resist the Biden proposal and will no doubt try and influence many a US politician to vote against it in the Congress and Senate.

Biden has a tough job both internationally and nationally to get this policy through. It is much bigger than the Obama health care plan and is likely to pit the Democrats against some of the very big corporations that were encouraging a change from Trump.

Either way, all countries including India will gain. It will help the world to start its recovery and reduce the burden on the average taxpayer. Economists have said taxes have to go up in countries that have spent Billions and Billions in meeting the challenge of Covid. Others have predicted a back to ‘Austerity’ economics. Biden is pitching for a fair tax system instead.