In corona fight in Scandinavia, Sweden stands apart

The country has drawn global attention with an unorthodox approach while its neighbours have imposed extensive restrictions

When the coronavirus swept into the Scandinavian countries, Norway and Denmark scrambled to place extensive restrictions on their borders to stem the outbreak. Sweden, their neighbour, took a decidedly different path.
 
While Denmark and Norway closed their borders, shut restaurants and ski slopes and told all students to stay home this month, Sweden closed only its high schools and colleges, kept its preschools, grade schools, pubs, restaurants and borders open — and put no limits on the slopes.
 
In fact, Sweden has stayed open for business while other nations beyond Scandinavia have attacked the outbreak with various measures ambitious in scope and reach. Sweden’s approach has raised questions about whether it’s gambling with a disease, Covid-19, that has no cure or vaccine, or if its tactic will be seen as a savvy strategy to fight a scourge that has laid waste to millions of jobs and prompted global lockdowns unprecedented in peacetime.

 

By Saturday, Norway, population 5.3 million, had more than 3,770 coronavirus cases and 19 deaths; Denmark, population 5.6 million, reported 2,200 cases and 52 deaths; Sweden, with 10.12 million people, recorded more than 3,060 cases and 105 deaths.
 
A recent headline in the Danish newspaper Politiken, encapsulates the question ricocheting around Europe, “Doesn’t Sweden take the corona crisis seriously?”
 
There is no evidence that Swedes are underplaying the enormity of the disease rampaging across the globe. The country’s leader and health officials have stressed hand washing, social distancing and protecting people over the age of 70 by limiting contact with them.

 
But peer into any cafe in the capital, Stockholm, and groups of two or more people can be seen casually dining and enjoying cappuccinos. Playgrounds are full of running, screaming children. Restaurants, gyms, malls and ski slopes have thinned out but are still in use.
 
The state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, said in an interview that Sweden’s strategy is based on science and boiled down to this: “We are trying to slow the spread enough so that we can deal with the patients coming in.”
 
Sweden’s approach appeals to the public’s self-restraint and sense of responsibility, Tegnell said. “That’s the way we work in Sweden. Our whole system for communicable disease control is based on voluntary action. The immunisation system is completely voluntary and there is 98 per cent coverage,” he explained.

 
“You give them the option to do what is best in their lives,” he added. “That works very well, according to our experience.”
 
Sweden’s approach flies in the face of most other nations’ stricter strategies. India is attempting a lockdown that affects 1.3 billion people. Germany has banned crowds of two or more, except for families. In France, residents are asked to fill in a form stating the purpose of each errand when they leave their homes; each trip requires a new form. Britain has deployed police officers to remind residents to stay home.
 
Still, while Sweden may appear to be an outlier in Scandinavia and in much of the wider world, it is too soon to say whether its approach will yield the same results as other countries’. And the Swedish authorities could still take stronger action as coronavirus-related hospitalisations rise.

 
In explaining Sweden’s current methods, experts point to other underlying factors: The country has high levels of trust, according to the historian Lars Tragardh, and a strict law in the Constitution prohibits the government from meddling in the affairs of the administrative authorities, such as the public health agency.
 
“Therefore, you don’t need to micromanage or control behaviour at a detailed level through prohibitions or threat of sanctions or fines or imprisonment,” Tragardh said in a phone interview. “That is how Sweden stands apart, even from Denmark and Norway.”
 
The government has deferred to the agency’s recommendations to fight the virus, which has infected more than 600,000 people and killed more than 27,000 worldwide by Saturday. If the health agency were to say that closing borders and shutting down all of society was the best way to go, the government would most likely listen.

 
Tragardh said Swedes’ level of trust was manifested in other ways: Not only do citizens have confidence in public institutions and governmental agencies and vice versa, but high social trust exists among citizens, as well. That is evident in the country’s approach to the virus. Norway did not completely shut its 1,000-mile land border with Sweden, but most people returning from abroad must enter a two-week quarantine (Reindeer herders and daily commuters are exempt.) Finland closed the borders of its most populous region — which has 1.7 million people and includes the capital, Helsinki — for three weeks to fight the outbreak there.

 
Norway limited groups outdoors to no more than five people, and those indoors must keep a distance of more than six feet (except relatives). Denmark closed its borders, sent public workers home with pay and encouraged all other employees to work from home. It shut nightclubs, bars, restaurants, cafes and shopping centres, and banned gatherings of more than 10 people outdoors.
 
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