In early March when COVID-19 became a pandemic, most of us did not know what to expect, and neither did our policymakers. Heads of governments were suddenly confronted with a situation they had not previously encountered and which they did not expect. This is partly the reason for different policies with regard to public measures against the virus. Some countries began shutting down in March while others remained open for a much longer period. The outcomes have thus been quite different. By August 2020 the pandemic had spread across the world. With a view to the current time period since March, policymakers are discussing the most effective measures against the spread of the pandemic. One country has drawn the attention of the critics. The country is Sweden.
The Swedish approach has been both applauded and criticized for its outlier strategy. When most governments worldwide ordered their citizens to stay at home, the Swedish government used a far more relaxed approach. Norway introduced the strictest policies since the World War II on March 18th while Swedish schools and shops remained open. Photos of bars filled with people were contrasts to the Norwegian social isolation in which most people stayed home. Although secondary schools and universities did later close in Sweden, the Swedish approach relied more heavily on voluntary social isolation as compared to the other Nordic or European countries.
In the beginning most Scandinavian local newspapers, as well as English-speaking media, began criticizing Sweden’s approach. Seemingly, many Swedes died as a result of Sweden staying open. At least that is the common narrative. Their voluntary approach raised headlines in Norway but the long-term effect of their open and voluntary approach is still uncertain. More people have died from COVID-19 per capita in Sweden than in many other countries. By August 31st, 84,379 Swedes were infected and 5,802 had died according to Worldometers. This makes Sweden one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe. In comparison, Norway had 10,746 cases and 264 deaths, Finland had 8,086 cases and 336 deaths, and Denmark had 16,985 cases and 624 deaths. The differences in deaths among the Nordic countries seem numerically astonishing.
Overall, the voluntary approach has had a positive impact on the spread of the virus within the younger part of the population. Most Swedes like Norwegians trust their politicians, and when they ask people to stay at home people do. According to the research institute Our World in Data, 65% of Swedes trust their national government. This trust may be of advantage when relying on voluntary social isolation. Following a recent study by the University of Uppsala and the University of Virginia, individual responsibility did to a certain extent have a positive effect in Sweden. The same analysis finds that nearly a third of Swedish residents voluntarily self-isolated. It should also be noted that Sweden, compared to most other countries, is limited by their constitution which prohibits the government from restricting activity or isolating the population in peacetime. Therefore, the country mainly relied on individual responsibility and slowly emerging restrictions. “Our study shows that individually driven infection-control measures can have a substantial effect on national outcomes, and we see Sweden as a good example of this case. Higher levels of individual action would further suppress the infection, while a complete lack of individual action would likely have led to runaway infection, which, fortunately, hasn’t happened” stated the co-author, Peter Kasson.
However, for the older generation, the Swedish approach has had a negative impact. According to the same study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the outbreak of the disease did not overload the nation’s health care system or its intensive care units as predicted. Swedes of old age were unlikely to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit anyway. Analyzed by categorical age group, older Swedish patients with confirmed COVID-19 were more likely to die than to be admitted to the ICU. Sweden decided to emphasize personal responsibility, leaving the medical staff to decide who may or may not be admitted to the ICU. Medical professor Kjell Skogen at the University of Oslo recently warned Norwegian politicians this month about the Swedish approach to health care, especially for the elderly.
The voluntary approach might have been a sufficient way to stop the spread of the virus. The Our World in Data statistics follows the daily deaths per capita in 108 countries. Based on their data, the Swedish graph seems to be moving in the right direction with very low numbers of new deaths per capita, which, taking the rise infections worldwide into account, seems to be good news. Whether the Swedish government will change its approach to the coronavirus and whether Sweden will become ‘risk-free’ in the future is still uncertain. However, so far, the outlier strategy of taking a softer approach to the pandemic certainly did lead Sweden to lose more elderly people than they could have. Nonetheless, Sweden still seems to be a clear example of how trust in the government and responsible self-isolation may lead to positive results.
