From the start of the Coronavirus crisis, Sweden’s approach to managing the virus has sparked huge debate. While its Nordic neighbours, and many others, enforced strict lockdowns, Sweden took a more libertarian route, leaving most schools, businesses and restaurants open throughout the pandemic.
Sweden soon became known as an “experiment” in whether lockdowns work, with Covid “hawks” and “doves” closely monitoring it over the last year to see who would be proved right. Did the experiment pay off? Unfortunately, the answer now seems to be no.
Sweden has struggled immensely with the pressures of the second wave, with one Stockholm region recently reporting that 99 per cent of its intensive care beds were full, and the country recording its highest new case count yet (9,659) last Thursday. Sweden has had more deaths than the rest of Nordic countries combined (8,000 have died in Sweden compared to 400 in Norway), and even its King, Carl XVI Gustaf, claimed it had “failed” to manage Coronavirus.
The severity of the situation is most obvious from the fact that Stefan Löfven, Sweden’s Prime Minister, has increasingly intervened on pandemic policy. In other countries, having a leader do this would not be such a strange occurrence, but the Swedish Public Health Agency typically presides over such decisions. Löfven’s intervention has thus been taken as a sign he disapproves of its past strategy (as does the public – apparently – with support for Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s leading epidemiologist, dropping by 13 points in a recent poll, and support for its public health agency dropping from 68 per cent in October to 52 per cent.).
On Friday, Löfven announced the strictest measures yet for Sweden, with the government lowering the limit at restaurants to four people per group and banning alcohol sales past 8pm. It has also asked citizens to wear face masks on public transport at certain times.
The measures still show Sweden cares greatly about freedom. It has not made face masks compulsory, for instance, and shops are responsible for deciding the number of people who can enter them at one time. Unlike in other parts of the world, there are no penalties for breaking the recommendations, and Löfven also still believes full lockdown was not the right choice for the country. However, he has said that if these measures do not have the planned effect, “the government will also plan to close those businesses”, so it remains to be seen how far Sweden will venture from its original Covid response.
Whatever the case, it is clear that there will be big implications for Sweden in the future in terms of its governance, with Tegnell said to be increasingly sidelined. Does the government want to continue letting the Public Health Agency take charge of health policy after the events of this year?
Some of the Sweden “experiment” is more complex than is sometimes made out. It still has a lower death rate than other countries, a higher population to the Nordic countries it is frequently compared with, and its GDP has not been as badly hit as other nations’, which will in turn have an impact on health.
But it’s still clear that the case for “doing a Sweden” will struggle after this point. While the Covid Recovery Group hasn’t called for a “Sweden” exactly, it has been deeply sceptical about the tiered system. With the current second wave situation, and Löfven’s intervention, it will find its arguments for reopening the economy increasingly hard to make. Not even the country that invented the “anti-lockdown” policy can now sell this approach.