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Interim Report From Corona
Commission Identifies Several Shortcomings In Sweden’s Response To
COVID-19
Did Sweden
Underreact and Other Countries Overreact ?
Interest in the
epidemiology of COVID-19 in Sweden has been high since the onset of
the pandemic because Sweden’s initial strategy in response to the
pandemic was more low-key than that of many other Western countries,
especially its neighboring Nordic countries.
As characterized by
the Swedish Corona Commission, “Sweden chose a different path to many
other countries, one based on a voluntary approach and personal
responsibility rather than more intrusive measures. The majority of
other countries, by contrast, made
greater use of lockdowns or other intrusive regulatory interventions.”
The
question has always been did other countries overreact or did Sweden
underreact. As phrased by the Commission, the question is “whether
Sweden’s choice of path was reasonable, or whether it would have been
better to introduce other types of measures to limit the spread of the
virus.”
Unfortunately, the Commission has delayed answering that controversial
question until its final report in February 2022. However, the
Commission did conclude that Sweden’s handling of the pandemic has
been marked by “slowness of response” and found that “the initial
disease prevention and control measures were insufficient to stop or
even substantially limit the spread of the virus in the country.”
But
these conclusions should not be surprising since the rationale for the
lower key response in Sweden was to have a more sustainable control
strategy at the cost of allowing more people to get infected to begin
with and thereby acquire a gradually increasing natural immunity.
Whether it was reasonable to do that remains unanswered and the
Commission will have to determine in retrospect if the tradeoffs
involved were sound public health practice or not. The Commission will
be making this determination in hindsight and not with all the
uncertainty that surrounded the initial choice of strategy.
Anders
Tegnell,
Sweden’s chief epidemiologist who promoted the lower key strategy, is
taking the longer view not focused only on the initial strategy and
comparing Sweden to other European countries that are struggling now.
He told the Financial Times that “Now we're two years into this and
Sweden doesn’t really stand out. We’re not the best but we’re
definitely not the worst. That’s what I hear now: how much good did
all these draconian [measures] do for anybody?” The Financial Times
reports that Tegnell is unapologetic for Sweden’s approaches.
Other
conclusions reached by the Commission as of now are listed below.
These and all the conclusions are based on the work of thirty external
researchers at various universities and institutions as well as
several independent experts, many of whom provided background reports
for the Commission.
The most
important conclusions to date are
•
Sweden’s pandemic preparedness was inadequate. This is similar to most
other countries, according to the Commission.
•
Existing communicable diseases legislation was and is inadequate to
respond to a serious epidemic or pandemic outbreak. In commenting on
this finding, the Commission added that “the Communicable Diseases Act
has proved inadequate for handling a pandemic, as it is too focused on
the individual. In a pandemic, the challenge is not just to look after
individual citizens, but to protect an entire population.”
•
Sweden’s system of communicable disease prevention and control was and
is decentralized and fragmented in a way that makes it unclear who has
overall responsibility when the country is hit by a serious infectious
disease. The Commission called for strengthening and clarifying the
positions of County Medical Officers and making other changes in how
Sweden is organized for communicable disease prevention and control.
• The
health care system has been able, at short notice, to adapt and to
scale up care for people with COVID-19.
• In
several areas there is a problematic lack of data, making it harder to
monitor the pandemic while it is in progress and to satisfactorily
evaluate its management when it is over.
To
access an English summary of the Corona Commission’s interim report,
visit:
https://bit.ly/3DtOPXT ■
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