Sweden, Covid and lockdown – a look at the data

Over the last year, the debate about lockdown has been driven to extremes – everyone has, by now, made up their mind. Sweden has been used as an example of either a liberal heaven or Covid hell. To the outside world, Sweden is a country that defied lockdown, carried on regardless and ended up with what is (now) the highest case-rate in Europe. In reality, Sweden shows that you don’t need lockdown to significantly reduce mobility: it forced down two waves. It failed to protect care homes, leading to a scandal of thousands of avoidable deaths. But the question is whether, by avoiding lockdown, it managed Covid while minimising damage to the economy, society, healthcare and schools. I looked at this in my Daily Telegraph column a few weeks ago. Seeing as this is such a contentious (and misrepresented) issue, I thought I’d include some of the data and sources here for those interested.

Sweden’s story is more complicated than the UK narrative allows. We tend to see the problem only in terms of Covid cases, deaths, vaccinations etc. The BBC reads out these figures every day on the news – but we seldom hear about the aspects of the pandemic. The effect on society, schools (Swedens were kept open for the under-17s), unemployment, the public finances and the likely long-term implications of wider economic damage. The fall in Sweden’s urgent cancer referrals, for example, was far less than that of the UK – meaning fewer avoidable deaths.  Sweden also argues that lockdown brings isolation which can be fatal to the elderly.

Lockdown-related damage has (controversially) always been excluded from calculations used inside UK government.  Seen through only one dimension – the spread of Covid – Sweden looks like a flop. But add other factors (as Swedes have always done) and the picture changes. 

Let’s start with a table where Sweden looks bad: Covid infections. Since the pandemic started, its per-capita infections have been amongst the highest in Europe – and remain so today.

But when you switch to looking at Covid deaths, Sweden about average How can that be, given that it has tolerated such high Covid cases for so long? Tegnell says