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Despite reassuring information from the Swedish Public Health Agency earlier in the year, the new coronavirus was released in Sweden. He circled most of the time.
Now both a respected commission and King Carlos XVI Gustavo consider that the management of the Swedish crisis was a failure. Trust in the authorities is rapidly declining.
But the choice of the Swedish route was widely supported when it was rethought, in early March.
In international polls, Sweden often emerges as a country of individualists, where everyone wants to choose their own path. As of early March, most Swedes were still lining the ranks. Confidence in the authorities and the government soared, confidence in the future increased, and people made an effort to comply with the not always clear recommendations.
The Social Democrats had they have been on their knees before the opinion of the voters in January and February, tormented by debates about crime and migration. But support changed with the crisis and both the Social Democrats and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (S) rose in popularity.
The opposition also stood guard behind the government, after threatening to remove the prime minister earlier this year. At the forefront of the Swedish strategy against the virus, the government put the Swedish Public Health Agency to ensure a scientific and apolitical approach.
The public health authority did not believe in bringing the safe rather than the unsafe. The strategy he chose was to keep the spread of infection low as long as necessary so that the health service could care for the sick. Older people should be isolated from infection at the same time. There was great hope that immunity would increase in the population and save Sweden from a second wave of disease.
The government considered that both people and the economy feel better with long-term but less intrusive measures than with multiple short-term closures.
Now, there are many signs that minimizing the risk to our closest neighbors has paid off. Treatment of covid disease has become much more effective since last spring. The vaccines are here now. And in addition, there are tests and protective equipment, unlike last spring when the emergency stocks were empty.
During the important months of February and March, when Sweden could have chosen the same path as Denmark, Norway and Finland, there was no political opposition to the Swedish special solution. Throughout the spring, the Riksdag was a group effort. Additional budgets and new laws were worked out and drafted over days and weeks.
When Norway already in March presented a crown team, Sweden did nothing similar. When Finland later trained an army of detectives, Sweden also refrained from doing so. Calls from the WHO to test many and wear mouth guards were long ignored. It is precisely the experts of the Public Health Agency who decide, not the experts of the infection control authority of the EU, the UN or other countries.
When the first wave sounded, Sweden approached 5,000 dead. Politics then turned against a five-year-old boy, and the government was criticized for employing a massacre (Jimmie Åkesson, SD) and for spreading the infection with determination (Ebba Busch, KD).
But the opposition’s critical stance did not persist, despite the fact that the spread of the infection increased rapidly during the fall. No party leader objected, for example, when the ceiling for public gatherings was raised on November 1 from 50 to 300 participants.
Then it was the second wave, which is already clearly visible in Europe, above us. He took us to bed, because the Public Health Agency did not believe in a strong new wave.
Support for the corona strategy is now declining, but from a high level. The opposition demands stronger action. The moderates are talking about an alternative strategy. Annie Lööf from the center has raised her voice and demanded a new quick crown team. The government, for its part, has become more aggressive and borrows measures from neighboring countries, even if the measures are implemented later and are not as far reaching.
We have passed 8,000 deaths and if the spread of the infection continues to increase, we may soon see a Swedish variant of shutdown.
“The stakes are high right now, take no chances,” urged Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (S )’s residents, after easing restrictions in late October.
But these are precisely the risks that Sweden has made itself known to the world for this gloomy year 2020. A country that has long had a reputation for not wanting to risk anything, for wanting to stay out and be neutral. Now, in the biggest political agreement, a high-risk strategy was chosen.
However, the year ended as it began. The opposition began again to say that the government must resign if it does not toughen up.
