Sweden also surrenders to the deadly evidence

It was like the Gallic village of Asterix. Sweden had become the last major European country to resist drastic measures to combat the coronavirus. The Swedish Prime Minister, the Social Democrat Stefan Löfven, had wielded the "civic and responsible sense of Swedish citizens" to prevent the imposition of the confinements that have become widespread in most parts of the world. 

Löfven had simply decreed the closure of higher education institutions and reduced meetings in the streets, parks or public places to a maximum of 50 people. He did not close schools or kindergartens, and did not impose, but only recommended that people over seventy should refrain from making non-essential trips, while those over seventy should try to stay at home. But cafes, restaurants and all kinds of shops and entertainment venues continued their routine. 

Sweden did not even follow the example of Denmark and Norway, which, like almost all of the European Union, had decreed the confinement of the population except for those attending essential services, and the closure of borders. It did not even imitate Finland, which decided to isolate the entire perimeter around Helsinki. 

The picture changed on Sunday, when the government announced the figure of 401 deaths due to Covid-19, 8% more than the deaths recorded up to Saturday. That figure is more than the total for its three Nordic neighbours combined. It represents 37 deaths per million inhabitants compared to 28 in Denmark, 12 in Norway and 4.5 in Finland. The announcement of the rising infection rate and the resulting mortality was followed by questions as to what measures the Government would take, which it was acknowledged would submit the resulting isolation and containment provisions to the Riksdag (Parliament) this week.  
 

After the United Kingdom, Sweden is bowing to the evidence that its strategy of allowing the population to be gradually infected, and corresponding immunisation, would enable it to combat the pandemic better than the rest of the European Union. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, - himself infected - had hoped, as had the Netherlands, to quickly build up a large contingent of immunised citizens (Herd immunity), a strategy that both London and The Hague abandoned as soon as the casualty curve became more vertical. 

Nevertheless, Anders Tegnell, the head of epidemiology guiding the Swedish government, argues that it is not a mistake to attempt this progressive self-immunization of the population. He believes that containment and isolation measures are not at all sustainable in the long term. Sooner rather than later," he said, "people need to get out of the house and lead normal lives," implicitly pointing out that prolonging the time of "drastic measures" could lead to other illnesses, especially psychological ones. 

Given the population distribution in Sweden, the expansion of COVID-19 is not uniform, with the result that the capital, Stockholm, is the urban centre where the greatest explosion of infected people is found. As in other EU countries, nursing homes are also the biggest source of infection. And just as in Spain, Italy and France, their carers complain of a dire lack of appropriate equipment, which seriously exposes them to the virus. 

In Sweden, as in the rest of the EU and the world, there is also a debate on priorities, both economic, to prevent the country from collapsing, and ethical, how to triage ICU candidates when the ICUs are grossly inadequate, and doctors have to decide who will live and who will be left to die. Sweden was definitely not that different from its other European partners.