RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Sweden is self-critical. For the first time, the architect behind Sweden’s uncommon – and highly criticized – strategy to tackle the coronavirus, has conceded shortcomings. “I think there is clearly potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden,” epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told Swedish Radio on Wednesday, June 3rd.
In addition, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, who has always backed the decisions of health experts, has now taken a step towards opening an investigation into crisis management this semester, according to the local newspaper Aftonbladet .
The Scandinavian country, with 4,468 deaths and 38,589 infections, has left the entire world dumbfounded with its approach to the pandemic. While its Nordic neighbors, European partners and the United States were confining their citizens, and economic activity was being halted, Swedes continued to drink on outdoor bars, eat in restaurants and travel by public transportation.
The authorities, who relied on the civic-mindedness of the country’s population and individual responsibility, merely offered certain recommendations, such as restricting visits to nursing homes, limiting meetings to 50 people – the other Nordic countries set the limit at ten; Iceland at 20 – closing universities and urging social distancing.
To date, the result is that in Sweden there are far more deaths than in Norway (237), Denmark (580) and Finland (320), which have enforced restrictions and much stricter measures by means of such mechanisms as the state of alarm.
Tegnell, who until now advocated less stringent measures precisely to ensure their long-term sustainability, publicly conceded for the first time that the country should have imposed tougher restrictions to reduce the death rate, which today is among the highest per capita in the world.
Spanish epidemiologist Fernando Simón acknowledges that many people died very early and now believes it would have been preferable to find a midterm strategy between Swedish openness and the limitations of movement and other freedoms, as in Denmark, Norway, Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, which initially flirted with the same strategy that Sweden followed.
“If we were faced with the same disease, with everything we now know, I believe we would reach a halfway point between what Sweden has done and what the rest of the world has done,” he reflected.
Tegnell, 64, has held positions at WHO and is the national epidemiologist for the Public Health Authority which, while independent from the Executive – a sacrosanct condition in Scandinavian political culture – has a moral obligation to respect its guidelines. For months, Tegnell enjoyed the full support of the government – made up of social democrats and environmentalists – and a large part of the opposition.
They all closed ranks in the national strategy against the coronavirus. But now, three months later, this apparent unity is starting to fracture, as Prime Minister Löfven intends to open an investigation on the handling of the health emergency, as he announced in an interview with Aftonbladet. “We need to take a general approach to see how administration has worked at national, regional and local levels,” he said. “We must accept that the party in charge of caring for the elderly, in terms of the spread of infection, has not worked. It’s obvious. Many elderly have died,” he acknowledged. Approximately half of deaths by Covid-19 in the country occurred in nursing homes.
Sweden, a country of some ten million inhabitants, has always focused on preventing the collapse of the health system, which has been accomplished, as many health professionals concede in statements to the local press. But several experts have stressed that what the epidemiologist was really looking for was herd immunity. He has consistently denied that he intended for the virus to quietly and progressively penetrate the population to increase immunity and gradually eradicate the disease.
But even if that was his intention, the latest data show that 7.3 percent of residents in Stockholm, the main focus of infection, have already been infected with the virus, a figure far from amounting to mass immunity. “It’s less than expected,” the epidemiologist said. In Denmark, this indicator is only one percent nationwide, according to a recent serological study. And in Spain, with more than 27,000 deaths, it is five percent.
Slowing down the economy
On the economic front, the strategy of swimming against the tide leaves no good results. Sweden will not escape a recession, despite having kept the country open for business. Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson recently warned that Sweden is facing its worst economic crisis since World War II, with GDP dropping seven percent in 2020, Bloomberg reported.
The indicator is similar to the 7.5 percent experts project for the EU as a whole. According to the latest projections, unemployment will rise and near ten percent. Sweden is drifting away from countries that boasted (almost) full employment.
It turns out that much of the country’s wealth hinges on exports, led by giants like Volvo and Scania, which have been paralysed by worldwide shutdowns. Sweden mainly exports to its Nordic neighbors, Germany, the UK and the USA.
But with the limitations of cross-border transport and the mistrust generated by the Swedish strategy – which led Finland, Denmark and Norway to consider closing their borders – the Scandinavian power is now entangled in its own crisis management.
Source: El País