Big news in Sweden this afternoon where Stefan Löfven, the Prime Minister, has just tightened Covid-19 restrictions. Still no lockdown, but there’s now a rule of four for restaurants (it had previously been six) and an 8pm curfew on sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants (it had been 10pm). A cap is to be placed on numbers in shops, gyms and swimming pools: universities and sixth-forms will switch to remote learning until 24 January. But beyond that there are no new laws (or restrictions for private property). Löfven said he still has faith that Swedes will respond to his voluntary approach. ‘I hope and believe that everyone in Sweden understands the seriousness,’ he said.
But one big change: it is to recommend that face masks are be worn on public transport – albeit only at certain times. Given Sweden’s status as pretty much the only country in the Western world not to recommend masks, this is quite a turnaround. In Sweden – as in Scotland and England – it was politicians who moved to recommend what certain scientists had previously said were unnecessary. Since the start of the pandemic, policy has been decided by the Public Health Agency and the face of the Covid-19 response has been Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist. He wasn’t present today: instead an ashen-faced Löfven was joined by Tegnell’s boss, Johan Carlson, director-general of the Public Health Agency and also a longstanding sceptic of both lockdown and masks.
In the press conference, journalists sought to tease out what Carlson made of the u-turn. He said it’s just advice: ‘there are no sanctions, just recommendations’ – so police, it seems, will not enforce mask-wearing as they do in Britain. Carlson went on to restate his problem with masks: they can give a false sense of security, not much protection and discourage social distancing he said. Asked if he now believed there was scientific evidence for them, he said: in hospitals, yes. But outside of them, ‘we don’t think it will have a big effect. It might have a positive effect.’ The problem, he said, is that wearing a face mask is easy; social distancing is hard. If you end up with more people travelling on crowded buses, feeling that the masks protect them, ‘then that’s not the outcome we want.’ He said he’ll be issuing advice as to what kind of masks are worth wearing: it’s unlikely that floral design ones won’t be on his list.
The big question is whether the voluntary approach is enough
Sweden’s voluntary lockdown has left its streets are far quieter, restaurants emptier, workplaces sparse. Swedes are being given a slew of non-binding advice: work from home, don’t go to shopping centres. The big question is whether the voluntary approach is enough. Carlson this evening admitted that shopping centres are busier than he’d like, with clusters rather than queues outside. He urged retailers not to try any crowd-pulling sales (as is traditional in Sweden between Christmas and New Year) and warned that there may be closures – including gyms – if advice is not heeded. The Covid plateau seems to have arrived, he said, but it’s still too high. Figures below (the chart is updated daily).
.
English-language reporting of Sweden is very different to the debate over there with plenty lost (or, more often, added) in translation. There are a great many people wishing to declare the Swedish experiment over, and find Swedes now atoning for their lockdown defiance. Everything that happens in Sweden now seems to be reported from this perspective. For example, the Swedish king recently gave an interview where he said that there had been failures – in general – over Covid. Outside of Sweden was this was reported as criticism of not locking down, even though the royal court specifically said he was not making any point on policy.
Inside Sweden, there has been criticism galore of the the Covid strategy. There has been was a big, damning inquiry by Sweden’s Corona Commission but even that didn’t focus on lockdown. Instead, it faulted the authorities for not doing enough in care homes, not grasping the danger of asymptomatic transmission until it was too late.
The big point, that is so often missed, is that Sweden’s strategy is not to minimise Covid-19 deaths at all costs. Tegnell sought to minimise collateral damage to society, the economy and wider public health – he took a holistic view, rather than judging everything only on Covid cases. The English-language press often misreports this as Sweden pursuing a herd immunity strategy – one that has now been debunked by the arrival of the second wave. But in fact Tegnell has always rejected the concept of letting the virus rip: the “herd immunity” strategy is ascribed to him by his critics. Sweden’s strategy has been to keep Covid to levels that the health service could manage, while minimising the deep damage that pandemic control can cause on other aspects of society.
Sweden’s Covid level is certainly high – almost as high as in Britain, and far higher than its neighbours. But there are other things to factor in. Aside from sixthformers, pupils didn’t miss a day of school. That has to count for something. Sweden has not been dispatching police to hound parents hosting their child’s birthday parties, or walking their dogs. Then the economy: the latest forecast has Sweden’s economy falling by just 2.9 pc over 2020, against Britain’s 11.7pc. In Sweden, the economy is often regarded as proxy for the government’s ability to fund the health service, pay pensions etc. It’s a very different debate.
Sweden has made many mistakes, as its Covid trajectory now is far worse than Tegnell and others said it would be only a few weeks ago. Egg lies on the face of certain academics, like Stockholm University’s Tom Britton, who claimed Sweden had achieved herd immunity in April (he later changed it to May, and has now stopped making predictions). In the autumn, Tegnell was rash enough to say that he doubted there would be a second wave in Sweden. Faith in him has started to wane. A poll this month shows just 59pc saying they have confidence in Tegnell’s handling of the crisis – and while Boris Johnson would kill for such approval ratings, it’s quite a drop from the 72pc figure Tegnell enjoyed in October. Perhaps this emboldened Löfven and the politicians to move in.
There may, yet, be a big Swedish u-turn on lockdown – accompanied by the nostra culpa that so many are waiting for. But for now, it carries on: rejecting lockdown, rejecting all form of coercion and relying on people voluntarily taking advice. The question for Löfven is whether this trust-the-public strategy can survive into the new year if cases and deaths keep on rising. On that, the jury is still out.
Comments