Sweden’s strategy, so it was worse than Norway’s.

Iceland managed to control the spread of the corona virus as early as April. Norway performs significantly better than Sweden. Although it is difficult to compare individual countries, they all have different conditions, there is one thing that distinguishes our Nordic neighbors from Sweden: the offensive strategy.

As early as February, Iceland was actively tracking infections. Thanks to this, Iceland first discovered that Austria was a source of infection and raised the alarm to the rest of Europe.

In Norway, they have worked according to the same strategy: test, trace and isolate. The country today has less than a twentieth the number of deaths that Sweden has and in Iceland only 24 people with crown have died.

– We are satisfied and happy to have prevented so many deaths and to have had the time and opportunity to develop other strategies, Camilla Stoltenberg, Director General of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

Sweden reduced testing

In Sweden, on the other hand, the tracking of infections fell at the same time that signs of social spread began to appear.

– It is no longer so significant, when you have many cases in society, find all the chains of contagion. It will not stop the epidemic in this situation, Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, told Expressen TV on March 12.

At the same time, the advice of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU Communicable Disease Control Authority (ECDC) was to test, test, test and detect infections.

Both Norway and Iceland significantly increased the number of covid tests already in March. In Sweden, it took until summer began to approach.

Blame the regions

Both the Minister for Social Affairs, Lena Hallengren, and the Director General of the Swedish Public Health Agency, Johan Carlson, want above all to blame the regions.

– There was money, strategy and analytical skills. I think it is difficult to answer why the regions did not accept their share of the tests, says Lena Hallengren.

But in early May, the Swedish Public Health Agency continued to write in its strategy: “At present, in principle, there is no medical need for a person to know if the acute infection is covid-19.”

Harriet Wallberg, a professor of physiology, became a national testing coordinator in May to increase testing. She says the government wanted to move faster in testing capacity, but that the Public Health Agency stayed in its priority groups.

– They chose not to carry out testing and infection tracking as a strategy, it was not part of the strategy, says SVT’s “Assignment Review”.

Harriet Wallberg left her post after just three weeks.

– The government and the Public Health Agency wanted me to continue, but I have come to the conclusion that when I take on assignments, I want to feel that I can really do something. I feel that I have now contributed to pointing out what to do in terms of testing in Sweden, he told Expressen at the time.

If testing and follow-up had started earlier, Harriet Wallberg is convinced that the number of deaths in Sweden would have been lower.

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