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Tuesday 05 May 2020
No closure, no border closure, no contact prohibitions. Sweden took a special liberal path in the Crown crisis. Even schools and restaurants remained open. But infection numbers are also declining there, and Sweden may have a huge advantage for the second wave.
Sweden’s state virologist Anders Tegnell divides minds. He does not wear suits or medical gowns. Avoid any pathos and scientific posture. In his knitted sweater, he’s been explaining his strategy to fight the pandemic to Swedes for weeks with a casual uncle. And it has everything. Because Tegnell has implemented a brave special path in Sweden.
Unlike almost all western countries, people in Tegnell Sweden do not believe in massive radical quarantines with weeks of curfews and contact bans. The closings with extreme restrictions on freedom and a ruinous slowdown in the economy openly criticized Tegnell as a mistake. A “Pumpbromsa” strategy like in Germany is the wrong way. In Swedish, Pumpbromsa means choppy brakes – you can’t slow down entire companies first, then start again and possibly slow down again. Tegnell even considers the general division at the borders or the closing of schools to be “completely foolish measures”.
Swedish state epidemiologist Tegnell has ordered the country to take an alternative route through the crisis. The intensity of a second wave will also show if this is more successful.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
The 64-year-old man’s strategy of relying on smart self-regulation by citizens with open schools, shops, restaurants, and a continuous economy is highly controversial. Critics accuse him of having to pay a high sacrificial duty to Sweden. They note that 2,770 people in the Scandinavian country have already died as a result of a corona infection. That is 274 deaths per million inhabitants. For comparison: in Germany (82), Denmark (85) and Norway (even only 39) there are far fewer.
“The pandemic gradually decreases”
Tegnell’s defenders argue that he kept Sweden’s collateral damage much smaller. Not only is the economy overcoming the crisis much better than in many blockade countries. Sweden is also not negatively affected by medical harm (the failure of other diseases in the pandemic) and secondary social harm (from domestic violence to suicide). Despite the liberal strategy, the casualty rate in Sweden is much lower than in countries with strict blockade such as Italy (481 deaths per million inhabitants), Spain (544), Belgium (684) or France (381). Keeping society and the economy open did not lead to a catastrophe, as supporters of the contact ban warned.
In fact, the number of new infections and deaths has also decreased in Sweden since Easter. “The pandemic is gradually decreasing,” Tegnell told SVT. The Stockholm health authority reports that the R value has been relatively stable at around 1.0 since April 10. Meanwhile, this should amount to 0.85. Similar to Germany, only with schools and restaurants open.
Among the fields in the Swedish debate, the mediators point out that the Swedes had practiced voluntary but also active “social distancing”. In this respect, it is only half of a special route.
WHO’s explosive praise
However, evaluating Sweden’s liberal path is of great importance for political openness debates in many other countries, including Germany. Because if Sweden manages to overcome the crisis relatively well with wide openness, some governments will not only lack the legitimacy for the continuous closure of contacts, the closure of borders, schools and businesses. In retrospect, the closure strategy appears to be incorrect, as in many places it demands a high price for economic and social damage. The fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) now explicitly praises the Swedish form is politically explosive for many governments in Europe.
Especially in view of the second half of the year, some consultants in Berlin, Rome, Paris and Madrid are becoming increasingly nervous. Because in all the countries of closure there is great concern about a possible second wave of infection. In Sweden, on the other hand, Tegnell argued from the beginning that an open society should be gently and specifically immunized rather than being strictly and uselessly isolated. Massive contact blocks only led to the pathogen returning in the fall, Tegnell warned in March.
In Sweden many more people are already immunized than in Germany. This reduces the risk of a second wave. The so-called herd immunity (herd immunity) could ultimately lead to the fact that Sweden had slightly worse numbers in March than in Germany and Denmark, he explained. In the fall, however, this could change enormously. Therefore, Tegnell calls his critics this week: “We are still a long way from the end of the road, so we don’t know what the end result will be.” The liberal man in the knitted sweaters could have instructed the many strict gentlemen in white coats and ties.
