A scathing assessment of Sweden’s COVID response reveals “failures” to control the virus
A scathing review has been released assessing the “failures” of the policy that guided Sweden’s response to Covid-19 pandemic.
The reviewpublished in the journal Humanities & Social Sciences Communications Tuesday, discusses how throughout the pandemic Sweden tried to avoid lockdowns and stay-at-home orders implemented by many of its neighboring countries.
The authors – from Sweden, Belgium, Norway and the US – said Sweden could achieve this by portraying advice from independent researchers as “extreme”, keeping the public in the dark about the facts of how covid-19 spreads and not issuing any mandates.
This is despite the country’s history of collaboration between authorities and the scientific community and the public’s high trust in those in power.
As a result, Sweden had a higher mortality rate from COVID than the surrounding Nordic countries.
“The Swedish response to this pandemic was unique and characterized by a morally, ethically and scientifically questionable laissez-faire approach, a consequence of structural problems in society,” the team wrote. “More emphasis was placed on the protection of the ‘Swedish image’ than on saving and protecting lives or on an evidence-based approach.”
Before the covid-19 pandemic, the Public Health Agency had published two pandemic planning documents in the past decade to prepare for such an event, according to the review.
While both focused on the value of antiviral drugs and vaccines in treating and preventing cases, they also emphasized the importance of “limiting the consequences for individuals and society” and how “the adverse effects on society must be as small as possible.”
So when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, Sweden was determined to keep its economy going, emphasizing individual rather than collective responsibility.
According to the review, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health and Social Affairs referred “mainly to the authority of the Public Health Agency”, a sharp contrast from previous cooperation between the government and researchers.
Unlike the strict lockdowns implemented by most of Europe, the PHA recommended only staying at home if you feel sick, washing your hands regularly, practicing social distancing and avoiding unnecessary travel.
Meanwhile, restaurants, bars and shops remained open; children under 16 had to attend school in person with no exceptions for those with family members at risk; and no worm mandates were ever implemented.
The review noted that the PHA eventually recommended face masks in hospitals and nursing homes in June 2020, but only when treating confirmed or suspected covid patients.
The authors said the PHA discouraging the use of masks and claiming they were ineffective helped spread fear in the population and misinformed the public about how covid spreads, that asymptomatic people can be contagious and that masks protect the wearer and those around them.
According to the review, there was also a lack of transparency from the public health authorities. The number of intensive care beds per region was not publicly available, and schools often did not inform parents or teachers when students tested positive for the virus.
Efforts were then made to actively crack down on medical researchers who criticized Sweden’s strategy and accused authorities of not being properly prepared.
When researchers voiced their criticism in social media, in interviews or in scientific articles, they were often reprimanded by their superiors for reasons such as not being allowed to use their university affiliation, even though it is against Sweden’s right to academic freedom of expression, according to the review.
Additionally, the PHA “discredited all criticism and national/international scientific evidence” and the authors say the agency “cherry picked” scientific articles that agreed with its point of view.
In the end, this led to Sweden having worse outcomes from covid-19 than the neighboring Nordic countries.
At the end of December 2020, Sweden recorded an average of 44 deaths from COVID-19 per 1 million people, according to Our World in Data.
In comparison, Denmark recorded 5 deaths per 1 million, Norway recorded 0.5 deaths per 1 million and Finland recorded 0.3 deaths per 1 million, the data show.
A month earlier, a report from the Health and Care Inspectorate showed that half of the country’s deaths at the time were among residents of nursing homes.
About a year later in January 2022 – during the omicron wave – Sweden fared better, registering 5 deaths per million.
However, the other three countries recorded half as many deaths with Denmark recording the highest at 2.4 per 1 million, Our World in Data shows.
“The cost in terms of infections and deaths of this pandemic in Sweden has been greater in some other more densely populated and more centrally located countries, but is still markedly higher than in the other Nordic countries,” the authors wrote. “This Swedish laissez-faire strategy has had a great human cost for Swedish society.”