- Sweden chose not to shut down after the coronavirus pandemic, and suffered far more deaths than its neighbors Denmark and Norway.
- Thousands of Swedish people over the age of 70 died, about half of them living in care homes.
- The Swedish economy is also expected to shrink by about 6% this year.
- Critics are now asking whether Sweden’s hands-off approach to the pandemic went horribly wrong.
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When the coronavirus sent many of the world into lockdown in March, Sweden was a clear outlier.
In the Scandinavian country, restaurants, schools and gyms remained open, and images of smiling Swedes enjoying an almost normal life outside cafes and bars seemed to appeal to those living in other countries under strict orders of staying home.
Sweden drew worldwide attention and criticism for its hands-off approach to the pandemic, which hoped the virus could circulate until the majority of the population became naturally immune.
But at the end of April it became clear that Sweden was in trouble. Deaths began to skyrocket, and for one week in May, the country had the highest death toll per capita in the world, according to a study by the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, its European neighbors used strict lockdowns and suffered far fewer casualties. To make matters worse, the Swedish economy is also suffering, as many Swedes have taken it upon themselves to stay at home.
Now, as many of the neighbors have now reopened, observers in Sweden are asking the question of whether their country’s gamble went horribly wrong.
Sweden’s strategy has resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths, critics say.
Unlike most of its neighbors, Sweden resisted a lockdown when the pandemic struck, leaving restaurants, schools and gyms open.
Paul Rhys for Business Insider Weekly
It was out of sight and away from the seemingly carefree cafes and bars of Sweden that the true damage of the coronavirus pandemic was done.
The vast majority of the 5,700 people in Sweden who died at the end of July were more than 70, and according to the National Health Board of Sweden, almost half were in residential care.
“We did not have the logistics to deal with this pandemic completely and the price is being paid by the elderly,” said Jon Tallinger, a Swedish doctor who left his post as GP in May to campaign for better treatment of the elderly.
“They let people who get sick and are over 80 in nursing homes, for example, die instead of receiving oxygen.”
Tallinger believes it was a mistake to keep so many people with COVID-19 in nursing homes instead of transferring them to intensive care units, where they would have stood a much greater chance of survival.
While Sweden greatly expanded its ICU capacity, many of the beds remained empty. A large field hospital that was built in Stockholm almost in April was dismantled without taking in patients.
Tallinger said facilities like this should be used for the elderly.
“There was always oxygen. This has absolutely nothing to do with the lockdown,” he told Business Insider Weekly. “We could have just as much freedom, so to speak right now in Sweden and save thousands of people.”
ICU treatment for the elderly could have actually saved lives, said Peter Kasson, a professor of molecular physiology and biological physics at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine.
“Many, many more people died than ever before inside an ICU. Our data suggest that provision of more intensive care would have improved survival,” he said.
“I certainly believe that earlier use of more comprehensive, personal protective equipment in nursing homes would also have had an impact.”
Swedish authorities are also accused of closing access to care homes too late, and that they are slow to follow up and track cases.
Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has admitted some guilt in this regard.
“Obviously, we are painfully aware that too many people have lost their lives due to COVID-19,” Löfven said at a recent press conference. “Like several other countries, we have failed to protect our most vulnerable people, the most elderly, despite our best intentions.”
Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is seen as the chief architect of the nation’s mitigation strategy. Despite the alarming number of deaths from COVID-19, he has acknowledged that the policy is the right one.
“There are always aspects where we could have handled this situation even better than today. We are still very happy with the basic strategy. It works well. We have a low level of spread in society,” he said. “We have a very high mortality rate, but we are working on it, and we are seeing it decrease quite rapidly.”
Sweden’s hands-off strategy stands in stark contrast to that of its neighbors.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has acknowledged a number of culprits in Sweden’s response strategy.
Reuters
Sweden’s strategy is in stark contrast to that used by Denmark, just 30 kilometers off Sweden’s west coast.
But during the COVID-19 pandemic, it may have been just like a world gone. Denmark closed early in the pandemic, closing schools, restaurants and shops.
By the end of July, the country had recorded nearly 6 million 615 deaths – which is almost 10 times less than its neighbor, according to figures from Our World in Data.
Denmark closed its borders with Sweden in March as well – and kept them closed as their business numbers continued.
“People have been in awe,” said Søren K. Villemoes, a Danish journalist with the newspaper Weekendavisen. “How can they continue this strategy, which has obviously been flawed for people in Denmark from the beginning?”
Compared to its northern European neighbors, Sweden’s policy stands out as a failure. Yet many suggest that it could have been much less.
Authorities are closing some schools and banning large gatherings – while advising the elderly to stay home – but analysts feel that without the vigilance of ordinary Sweden, the pandemic could have spiraled out of control.
“I think Sweden was hit a lot harder than it could have been, but also a lot of savings from the illness and death that it would probably have experienced if not for the action of individual citizens,” Kasson said.
Despite opposition to a lockdown, Sweden’s economy could still shrink.
Gym operations manager Maria Persson said despite staying open through the pandemic, business has declined, and she has yet to take a financial hit.
Paul Rhys for Business Insider Weekly
While there were no measures to stay at home, data from Google Mobility Trends mobile phones suggest a significant decrease in movements, as many Swedes are isolated themselves. As a result, the economy, which should have benefited from the open-ended approach, has also been hit.
As an export-dependent country, Sweden’s locks are closely tied to those of its neighbors and the wider world economy.
“Whatever we do in Sweden, the effects of our policies, our national policies will be limited,” Erik Wengström, professor of economics at Lund University, told Business Insider Weekly. “When other countries close, that affects demand. So in some sense in the globalized economy, we are here together.”
Wengström predicts that Swedish GDP will fall between 4.5% to 6% by the end of the year – exactly the type of downswing that Sweden wants to prevent by keeping the country open.
A loss of that magnitude may be less than that of Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, but it is equal to the figures of their Scandinavian neighbors who shut them up.
According to Wengström, unemployment in Sweden will probably reach 10% by the end of the year.
The companies that remained open saw a noticeable drop in customers. Maria Persson, the operations manager for the Friskis & Svettis gym in Malmö, said that they keep their doors open, but that does not mean that they do not avoid a financial hit. She now predicts losing about a quarter of her income this year.
“It’s really been like a hurricane,” she told Business Insider Weekly. “The first weeks after everything was closed, we were really, really, just thinking every day that this will be the last day, that we can keep it open. We could see really big drop-downs at visitors, no completely new clients in the beginning. “
“But it’s still a struggle. That it’s really been up and down.”
Despite a crazy economy, high mortality rates, and no clear evidence to suggest that Sweden has achieved anything close to herd immunity, it is too early to dismiss Sweden’s experiment.
And although it was much smaller than its neighbors, it suffered fewer deaths per capita than the likes of the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, who all locked up their populations.
The Swedish government emphasizes that lockdowns are not sustainable as a long-term solution, and maintains that their lighter touch will be proven in the ongoing fight against COVID-19.
