Odd Man Out Sweden, Slommed by Virus, gets along with the program

Photographer: Jonathan Nackstarnd / AFP / Getty Images

After arguably the world’s gentlest approach to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Sweden is tightening the screws.

Starting Sunday, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s government can impose fines and companies that fail to adhere to restrictions such as visitor limits, and restrict private gatherings, under a new law that runs through September. It’s a departure from relying primarily on recommendations and trusting people to follow them. With healthcare under increasing pressure and the number of deaths on the rise, some say it was too little, too late.

“Like many places in Sweden has learned about the virus the hard way, ”said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s School of Public Health in Boston, who has followed the country’s strategy closely. “Sweden was too slow. There was ample evidence from the spring, in Sweden and elsewhere, of what could be expected in the fall and winter if policy were not changed and these are the consequences. “

While Sweden pursued its unusual strategy, it questioned other countries’ decisions to lock themselves up. The road to mandatory restrictions has resulted in the Nordic country experiencing more than three times more virus deaths per capita than Denmark, the closest regional peer in terms of fatalities. Trust in the government has waned and strengthened as top officials – including Lofven himself – ignore their own rules. Even King Carl XVI Gustaf called the nation’s response a failure.

As in the rest of the world, the debate in the pandemic era has centered around the balance between human health and the consequences of economies shutting down. The Swedish economy has fared better than most, with more than 9,600 deaths now.

Nordic outlier

The death toll from Covid-19 in Sweden is the highest in Scandinavia

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who in June labeled countries that opted for strict lockdowns as “crazy, ”said the pandemic law not as a reversal, but rather as an extension of what has already been done.

“We still mainly work with voluntary measures for individuals,” he said in an interview. “And we mainly work with regulating different types of agencies, different types of stores where rules are needed to meet their obligations.”

One of Tegnell’s main opponents, Professor Bjorn Olsen of Uppsala University, said, “Reality has caught up with the Public Health Agency.”

“They have been extremely stubborn in sticking to the strategy without listening or performing outside analysis,” he said.

Anders Litzen lost his 71-year-old mother Agnetha in the spring, while she spent the last 16 hours by her side in full protective gear. The 42-year-old, who lost his job due to the pandemic and started working as a runner in a hospital, said government communications were too vague.

“My mom, and I think most Swedes didn’t really take it seriously,” Litzen said. “I can’t say what Sweden did is right or wrong, but from a personal perspective, I think when you want a message must be strong and clear. “

Praise and health officials, face early criticism including from President Donald Trump, who acknowledged in April that the country had failed to protect its elderly in nursing homes. A government-appointed committee recently came to a similar conclusion.

Sweden has made “good decisions” towards tougher measures, Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s emergency program, told reporters Monday.

“It is an example of how difficult it is to enforce public health and social measures that are determined purely by the individual’s willingness or determination to implement those measures,” Ryan said. “It somehow tells us that early 2021 how difficult, how challenging that environment is.”

Health versus economy

The Nordic region’s largest economy has weathered the crisis better than most Western countries, with factories less affected by interruptions in supply in the second half of 2020.

Differences in lockdown strategies between the Nordic and Baltic countries have been offset by their common dependence on production, so they have benefited from a recovery in world trade, according to SEB AB Chief Economist Robert Bergqvist. “Summarizing 2020, the industry has helped us cope with some of the downturns in many other countries.”

Bounce after the holidays

Economic activity partially recovered in early January

Source: Bloomberg Economics, Google, Moovitapp.com, German Statistical Office, BloombergNEF, Indeed.com, Shoppertrak.com, Opportunity Insights

Low debt levels also allowed Sweden to unleash fiscal stimulus, supported by the Riksbank purchase program. While the pandemic law may require additional stimulus measures, “Sweden will still have very strong public finances from an international perspective,” Danske Bank said in its Nordic Outlook last week.

Leadership lapses