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The second wave of the pandemic is increasing in the Scandinavian country, contrary to the forecasts of the authorities, who have chosen a unique path to face the coronavirus.
Swedish authorities have admitted that their experiment in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic without quarantine has failed. The expected herd immunity did not emerge and could not prevent an increase in the epidemic in the fall: Sweden was covered by a second wave.
Until October, this country had one of the lowest disease rates in Europe; There were days when no one in Sweden died of COVID-19. In this context, WHO used the Swedish model as an example. Correspondent.net says the details.
Sweden in free fall
The Swedish Public Health Agency has admitted that its forecast for the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the country in the fall was wrong.
Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who became the ideologue of the Swedish model condemned by the world, believed that in the fall the epidemiological situation in the country would be better than that of its neighbors who imposed quarantine restrictions, thanks to the development of herd immunity.
In fact, it turned out that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Sweden is now growing faster than in any other country in Europe, writes the Financial Times. One in five tests in Stockholm is positive.
Swedish virologist Lena Einhorn, who initially criticized the government’s chosen strategy to deal with the pandemic, considers the approach a failure.
“Four days ago we had eight times more cases [заражения коронавирусом] per capita than in Finland and 3.5 times more than in Norway. And their situation in the fall should have been worse, because we should have acquired immunity, “Einhorn said.
In the spring, when the countries introduced the blockade one by one, Sweden, as well as Belarus, decided to go their own way, without strict restrictions. If Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko denied the danger of the virus, in Sweden they hoped to develop herd immunity.
Herd immunity is a state of a population in which the majority become resistant to a disease, thus protecting the rest that do not have immunity. According to various estimates, for its appearance it is necessary that 40-60 percent of the population have had the virus. Those figures were believed to be reached in summer.
However, in June, chief epidemiologist Tegnell admitted that the country’s COVID-19 strategy had led to an inordinate number of deaths, primarily among the elderly and in nursing homes. In July, Sweden created a commission to investigate the authorities’ approach to fighting the coronavirus.
At the same time, in October, when European countries began to return to strict quarantines due to the second wave of the pandemic, the situation in Sweden was relatively stable and many believed that the Swedish strategy was actually working.
The New York Times wrote that the Swedish authorities and society have done more to combat the pandemic than many might at first think. It was pointed out that the main thing the Swedes were right about was that the coronavirus will linger for a long time, therefore destroying the economy and endangering the stability of the entire society is completely unacceptable.
The Economist magazine later pointed out that Sweden had five times more deaths per capita than neighboring Denmark and about ten times more than Finland or Norway, but because of this, the second wave did not come.
But they failed to save the economy, even though it is one of the strongest in Europe. Revenue in the second quarter of 2020 alone was down 8.3 percent, the worst rate of any other Scandinavian country. For other pros and cons, see Sweden’s COVID-19 Strategy.
The backbone of the Swedish strategy is extensive testing and contact tracing, as well as voluntariness. In mid-October, when it became clear that the second wave would nevertheless arrive in Sweden, the authorities began to change their approach.
The new rules allow regional health authorities to ask citizens to avoid public places such as shopping malls, museums, libraries, swimming pools, concerts and gyms.
Stockholm Metro / EPA
Citizens can also be asked to stay away from public transport or to avoid visiting older people or other risk groups. The rules are for guidance only and are not required. Of course, no fines are introduced either.
The story of spring repeats itself: the situation is improving again in neighboring countries. In recent years, the infection rate in Denmark has been half and in Norway less than a third of the Swedish figure. Finns have the fewest new COVID-19 cases on the continent, ten times less than in Sweden, Der Spiegel notes.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Leuven issued a warning this week that the situation will get worse, so everyone must retaliate.
As a concrete measure, he announced a new law passed by parliament that limits the maximum number of people gathered in a public place to eight, including cinemas, theaters and religious gatherings. Also, schools may be closed.
However, the use of masks is not recommended. In Sweden, science considers that its effectiveness has not been sufficiently proven. “The masks, in their opinion, create a false sense of security,” says Tegnell.
Tegnell’s opponents in Sweden are very few, writes Der Spiegel. It includes some of the professors and doctors who have joined the COVID-19 Scientific Forum. 27 of them recently published an appeal in the Aftonbladet newspaper demanding “radical measures” against the pandemic.
“The catastrophe is coming,” the experts wrote. They quoted the manager of a hospital in the university city of Uppsala: “We are in free fall, the situation is much worse than in the spring.”
To date, 10 million in Sweden have detected 200 thousand cases of coronavirus infection, of which 6.3 thousand were fatal. During the last day 3.5 thousand new cases were registered. The record was set on October 13, when nearly 7,000 were found infected.
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