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Sweden is one big exception: while in many other parts of the world there are still strong measures against the pandemic, in Sweden all restrictions are lifted today. How did they achieve it? Comment by Miodrag Soric for Deutsche Welle.
Let’s start with the fact that the Scandinavians do not agree much with each other. If you talk to Danes, you will learn without asking them that the Swedes were arrogant. The Swedes, on the other hand, consider the Danes to be eccentric, and the two peoples (Swedes and Danes) are united by their common envy of the Norwegians – because of their vast reserves of oil and gas.
Model of the responsible citizen
But some stereotypes and prejudices are only partially valid, which further complicates the overall picture. For example, the Swedes developed their own different model in the fight against the pandemic: it was not politicians who decided what needed to be done to keep the insidious disease under control. The Swedes left this task entirely to scientists.
And the experts regularly gave advice to the citizens through the media: how to wash their hands, keep their distance, stay at home. However, citizens were not obliged to comply with these recommendations. Strict lockdown or high fines for non-compliance did not fit at all into the Swedish model of a responsible citizen who takes care of his own security. However, this had fatal consequences, as was seen later.
Scientists initially reassured the population that the pandemic was unlikely to spread to a sparsely populated country such as Sweden. Restaurants, schools and shops remained open, but the virus did not stop at any limits. As in the rest of the world, it has slipped everywhere, especially in homes for the elderly and sick. The number of Swedes infected and dying from the coronavirus turned out to be many times higher than in neighboring countries.
But the most remarkable thing in this case was that this failure did not undermine the authority of the country’s experts. Moreover, they still question the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), according to which wearing a protective mask protects against infection.
End of restrictions
As of today (September 29), the Swedes have lifted almost all restrictions – as did the Danes and Norwegians before them. Experts attribute their decision to the high proportion of people vaccinated, especially among the elderly population. Anyone who wanted to get vaccinated could do so in the last few months. And whoever did not want to, is to blame. All Scandinavian countries have a developed and digitalized health care system, as well as a sufficient number of free beds in intensive care units.
Despite the higher number of victims than in other countries, most Swedes are satisfied with their chosen strategy to fight the coronavirus and trust the state. They point to the fact that the pandemic has harmed the Swedish economy far less than in a number of other countries, and point out that schools and kindergartens have remained open all along. Even teachers infected with the coronavirus, but without severe symptoms, could continue to teach in Sweden. Such a thing was unthinkable in other EU countries, where those infected must be quarantined.
On the other hand, the Swedish welfare state only works if kindergartens and schools are open. Because of the high taxes and fees, parents simply have no choice: fathers and mothers have to earn money to support their families. The housing cloak in Stockholm is expensive and scarce. That is, there must be someone to take care of the children during the day so that both parents can work.
Restrained media
Unlike journalists in Germany, France or the United Kingdom, those in Sweden did not vehemently criticize the government’s mistakes, but preferred to explain in detail the reasons for one decision or another.
This type of constructive journalism seeks not to question the state, which provides citizens with a good life. This is one of the reasons why it is more difficult for Swedes to make sense of their own mistakes in the fight against the pandemic.
Yes, it is true: Swedes are really different.
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