The number of people infected with the Covid-19 virus is increasing across Europe, but no government seems to have any intention of ordering a second quarantine. Without declaring it openly, everyone is adopting the Swedish model, the one that has been harshly criticized by all experts, but which is proving, as the pandemic develops its course, not without positive aspects.
France, Spain and Great Britain are reluctant to take drastic containment measures, despite the number of new cases having reached and sometimes exceeded that of last March. Even the director for Europe of the World Health Organization, Dorit Nitzan, recommended this change of mentality in an interview with the Guardian: “The Swedish model – she said – has elements that can be an example to the global community: it is In fact, the time has come when we all have to learn to live with the virus ».
Experience has shown that there is no one-size-fits-all remedy: every situation is different, and decisions made from above by central government do not always adapt to different communities. Adapting the response to the context and to the characteristics of the people proved to be the best solution.
Accusing Sweden of having underestimated the problem was easier last March, but today it must be recognized that in some respects it was right: the schools were closed for students over 16, but they remained open for the little ones. Gatherings of more than 50 people were prohibited, but bars, restaurants and gyms remained open.
People were asked, not ordered, to keep their distance, and those over 70 to stay at home. The principle that inspired the decisions of Anders Tegnell, the only virologist consulted and listened to by the government, was to prevent the consequences of a strict quarantine from causing more victims. People also die from the economic crisis, unemployment, psychological problems caused by isolation, the lack of treatment of other diseases, less considered when everyone’s attention is focused only on the virus. The fight against Covid, argues Tegnell, must be a marathon, not a sprint race.
These are the same principles that European leaders now seem to be inspired by, who, as Sweden did, are beginning to think that the safeguarding of the economic system, jobs, treatment of other diseases are values that must be safeguarded even in the presence of a threat. such as Covid-19. Many argue that the Swedish model has produced ten times more victims per million population than in Finland and Norway. It is true, but these painful accounts will have to be done in the end: in the last two weeks Sweden has had 37 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants against 320 in Spain, 205 in France and 139 in Belgium.
In Stockholm there is a joke that explains why the government has basically let it go: the Swedes, it is said, are looking forward to the end of the rule of distancing one meter from person to person, in order to finally be able to return to the normality of five meters that were there before. But even in peoples less used to being alone, the Swedish recipe could work better today than the constraints of the past.
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