Can we take Sweden out of the “do-nothing” category now?
I find it quite interesting that a month or two ago all the talk here was how other countries were moving to be more like Sweden were as it was clearly the correct way to handle things. And now Sweden is slowly but surely moving to how other countries have handled it.
This is less about Sweden and more that it just happens to be studied in Sweden. I’ve been seeing cases of reinfection being investigated in other areas as well in the news lately.
And today we are up to 96 new recorded deaths, almost up to the peak that we had in April. (Daily deaths and daily recorded deaths are different as these will be spread over the past few days, but the same is true for deaths announced tomorrow, the day after etc. The peak daily deaths so far is 115 people).
So Sweden is now in lockdown too, right?
More than 6,000 people with COVID-19 have died in Sweden since the pandemic began, a death rate per capita several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours, if somewhat lower than some larger European countries such as Spain.
Only they do not want to call it a total lockdown. If I was a Swede I would feel that the response so far has not been good.
It isn’t lockdown. People are still out and about, they just can’t have organised groups over eight people. I’m staying away from the centre of Stockholm, but my friends tell me it is still busy and the public transport is very busy.
Things are getting interesting here though. Folkhälsomyndigheten, the public health authority that Anders Tegnell is a member of, has been very, very anti mask. A lot of the everyday Swede’s reaction to masks is pretty much repeated verbatim from FHM. Namely that they don’t help protect you, people don’t wear them properly and they give a false sense of security. As we all know, masks are more about protecting others (amongst other things from an infection you may not know you have) than anything else, but thanks to the idiocy of FHM this is pretty much lost on the Swedes. I’ve had this argument a lot.
Well, today the Swedish Academy of Sciences publicly recommended that people wear masks, putting pressure on FHM. This could get interesting.
The WHO is also recommending that Sweden consider instituting a mask wearing policy, which is what led to this recommendation.
Some of Sweden’s large cities are closing some government run places like gyms, museums, swimming pools, art galleries, zoos, meeting places in libraries, etc., to help slow the spread of covid.
Tegnell has always said that Sweden wasn’t trying for herd immunity. They were trying to create a sustainable model. He felt that the loose regulations in the beginning would be sustainable over the long term. Neither was right. The hard hit Sweden took in the beginning doesn’t seem to be slowing the virus now, and the original model of loose regulations wasn’t sustainable. There have been more regulations lately to help stem the tide of the infection so the hospitals are not overrun.
Even if you accept that Tegnell and others are now disowning the specious herd immunity arguments for their policies, the sustainability was hardly more credible a rationale for their policies.
This is why I have always got quite annoyed at Swedes claiming that Sweden took “the scientific approach” (and as I have mentioned here, the implication that other countries did not). Sustainability, especially due to the economy, has bog all to do with the science of pandemics. The economy has very, very clearly always been at the forefront of Sweden’s policy.
I don’t know. Sustainability also has to do with human nature and politics. I guess if we were a world of robots then you could ignore that and depend solely on the “science of pandemics”.
But that’s exactly the point. We can’t just work on science as other things come into play, yet the rhetoric from Sweden (and as a Swede, living in Sweden, I kind of have been subject to it a lot) has been about what makes them different is that they have taken a scientific approach. But not only have they not, but the hybrid method of part science part the realities of running a country are pretty much what every country has done.
You might be interested in this (thorough) review:
Again, I’m not saying they haven’t followed some science. I am saying that science wasn’t their only concern, despite that being the claims that both Folkhälsomyndigheten and the Swedish population have made. They quite clearly have had one eye on the economy the whole time, exactly the same way as other countries have had.
I’d argue that this has been typically Swedish. Looking down their noses at everyone else for not being 100% the same as them, but ignoring their own failures and misrepresenting their own motives.
The irony is that Sweden’s economy has suffered along with the other European nations, sometimes more so because they were not allowed in other countries for a time due to the high infection rate in their country.
Sweden’s excess death rate can be seen in these graphs. The excess deaths are marked in weeks 15-25.
For people in upper secondary school, generally aged 16-18, school will go to remote learning from Dec 7 to Jan. 6 in Sweden. The reasoning is to reduce the load on public transport and because the infection rate in this age group is rising.
Sweden has a high infection rate that has been increasing lately, including over 7,007 deaths.
More signs that Sweden is slowly but surely coming round to kind of thinking that was going on in countries six months ago. They are now looking at introducing emergency legislation:
Looks like their deaths may be tapering off at the moment, and the peak there significantly lower than it was in the spring despite a reported case count several times larger. Let’s wish them well.
There might be another motive other than finally agreeing with other countries. After all, they are still doing better than some at the moment. To me, the quick development of a vaccine has invalidated their whole stated reason for a light touch. This will no longer be a years long grind. No need for a manageble burn of the disease. Everyone who dies of covid now could be saved if you hold on for six months.