Health officials in Sweden, who chose not to respond to the first wave of Covid-19 with a national blockade, have misjudged the power of the virus resurgence, the country’s prime minister said, when an independent commission criticized the country’s strategy.
“I don’t think most people in the business envisioned such a wave; they talked about different clusters, ”Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Tuesday.
Sweden stood out among the European and other countries for the way it handled the pandemic, not mandating lockdowns like other countries, but relying on the citizens’ sense of civic duty.
But the country of just over 10 million people has seen 341,029 confirmed infections and 7,667 virus-related deaths, a death toll far higher than neighboring Norway, Finland and Denmark.
During the summer, Sweden’s left-wing minority government had said a commission would be appointed once the crisis was over, but it came under pressure to act sooner.
The commission said in its report that the strategy to protect the country’s elderly was partially unsuccessful, and its head stressed that current and previous governments would bear “ultimate responsibility” for the situation.
Commission President Mats Melin told a press conference that care for the elderly in Sweden has major structural deficiencies and that the country has proved unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the pandemic. The committee also considered that several measures taken in the spring were late and insufficient.
Melin said that the blame for structural failures in the Swedish health care system can be placed on various authorities and organizations.
“But we still want to say that the government runs the country and therefore the ultimate responsibility lies with the government and previous governments,” Melin said.
The Swedish Statistics Office said on Monday that it had registered a total of 8,088 deaths from all causes in November – the highest death rate since the first year of the Spanish flu that raged across the world from 1918 to 1920. In November 1918, 16,600 people died in the Scandinavian country, said Tomas Johansson of Statistics Sweden.
The Löfven government and chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell have defended the country’s controversial coronavirus strategy, despite Sweden having one of the highest Covid-19 mortality rates per capita in the world.
Authorities have advised people to distance themselves socially, although schools, bars and restaurants have been kept open all the time, and have urged people to focus on good hygiene and social aloofness to stop the outbreak.
Still, authorities, including Tegnell, have been criticized – and some have apologized – for failing to protect the elderly and residents of nursing homes.
The committee’s report on Tuesday said Sweden’s Norwegian neighbors paid more attention to caring for the elderly during the pandemic.
“In the other Nordic countries… care for the elderly seems to be more of a focus in the early pandemic measures taken by the authorities,” the report said.
In the fall, Sweden saw a rapid increase in new cases of coronavirus putting pressure on the healthcare system. Infections have spread rapidly among medical personnel, prompting the government to introduce more restrictions, including a nationwide ban on the sale of alcohol after 10pm in bars and restaurants.
Sweden has also imposed the strictest virus restrictions so far by banning public gatherings of more than eight people.