Name: If Sweden’s Covid strategy is such a disaster, why is it still so popular?
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If Sweden’s Covid strategy is such a disaster, why is it still so popular? 

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If lockdown is the greatest social experiment in the world, then Sweden is the control. By keeping everyday life going it has become a global rebel – and to some, a rogue state. , it was held up as proof of the terrible price paid for reckless defiance. There is only one missing ingredient to this great cautionary tale: a lack of remorse among Swedes. Even now, with another wave underway, they have no intention of locking down.The story told of Sweden by those outside of the country is certainly damning. Headlines proclaim that its great experiment has been “abandoned” and that even its king now admits its more relaxed policy led to disaster. Michael Gove talks about how Sweden started well, but ended up with a battery of measures to keep people apart – even to stop them visiting bars. He says this not out of any animus to Sweden but because his critics point to it as the alternative to locking down: what Britain might have done.So Sweden has ended up as a target in the bizarre culture wars over lockdown, invoked by both sides as an example of either heaven or hell. the state epidemiologist, says it’s too early to judge because it takes years for any post-pandemic picture to settle. But a recent poll showed three-quarters of Swedes have their minds made up, saying Tegnell’s team has handled things either well or very well. So how to reconcile Swedish confidence with the story of Swedish disaster?For a start, much of what’s said about Sweden is false. The argument that its “herd immunity strategy” failed to stem the virus is fairly easily answered: there never was such a strategy. Tegnell has always said so. He sought to keep virus levels low enough to stop hospitals being overwhelmed – but, also, minimise the collateral damage to people’s lives and health. This would always mean tolerating higher Covid levels than in locked-down countries, as the price of protecting more lives overall.Another fallacy is the idea of Sweden as a restriction-free utopia. Bars, restaurants and cafes are all socially distanced and must close by 8.30pm. Millions of Swedes have been working from home since all of this started. A rule of eight is in place, albeit with private homes exempt. So there are some laws, but most is guidance.The recent "personal lockdown"&nbsp;in the region of Uppsala is really no such thing. “It just restates the same non-binding advice we’ve been given since the start of the pandemic,” says a friend of mine, who lives in the city. One of its local politicians promoted the stay-at-home message on his Facebook page then, the next day, published high praise for a Persian restaurant he’d just visited. It wasn’t even a scandal: personal interpretation of guidelines is the norm. Sweden has used its folkvett: common sense. The big question is whether that could have worked here.If you look only at Covid deaths then Sweden does as badly as Britain, at least in the first wave (not the second, which is very much still ongoing). But factor in collateral damage, and things change. Studies of all age-adjusted deaths – not just deaths from the virus – shows an increase of just 1.5 per cent in Sweden last year: England’s were up 10 per cent. Excess deaths among under-65s actually fell in Sweden but rose sharply here. A lockdown effect, or only a coincidence? It’s hard to tell. But in Sweden, such jigsaw pieces matter: it always was about the whole picture.Swedish pupils up to the age of 16 still haven’t missed a day of school: this also has a value, albeit one that’s harder to quantify. The Institute for Fiscal Studies guesses £350 billion of lost earnings for British children. But the impact on society – not least on the thousands of pupils who have mysteriously vanished from school rolls – is something you can’t put a price on.Judging economic damage is easier. By minimising disruption, Sweden’s economy shrank by 3 per cent last year: Britain’s plummeted by 10 per cent. Sweden’s budget, published yesterday, envisages the economy making a full recovery from the pandemic by Christmas. Britain is shooting for mid-2022, even with our vaccine success. The cost of the pandemic (measured by extra public debt) is heading for £7,700 per head in Britain by next year, more than twice as much as in Sweden. Per capita, they (still) have less Covid death.Sweden’s fast recovery means its furlough scheme has almost run out of takers. At the last count, almost five million Brits were still on furlough, unsure if their job will exist at the end of all this. And while Tegnell didn’t expect a vaccine, its arrival hasn’t changed his lockdown strategy. Or, it seems, ours.It’s always tough to make meaningful comparisons between different economies, but cancer diagnosis is easier. Fear of a virus keeps people away from hospitals. Swedish breast cancer referrals were down by about 10 per cent in the first ten months of last year. But the British figures are far steeper: a roughly 30 per cent decline in breast cancer referrals, for example. The question – still waiting for a clear answer – is how far lockdowns raise the death toll by discouraging use of basic healthcare. For cancer, heart disease and more.This isn’t to say that Sweden got it right and Britain got it wrong, just that there is far more to all this than can be summed up on any Covid league table. Tegnell has made plenty of mistakes. He didn’t expect the second wave and some of his admirers have been made to look ridiculous by predicting that the virus would die out by last summer. Only this week he was forced to admit another failure: in the second wave, just as in the first, not enough was done to protect pensioners in care homes.Stefan Löfven, the Swedish Prime Minister, unwittingly summed up his country’s approach when, after begging people not to hit the high street before Christmas, he was caught doing precisely that himself. Swedes want to control the virus, but also to protect normal life. As does most of the world. What marks Sweden out is an unbroken belief that its method could still be proved right in the end.Do you think Sweden's Covid strategy could still be proved right? Let us know in the comments section below.&nbsp;Related TopicsThe Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our.You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. 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If lockdown is the greatest social experiment in the world, then Sweden is the control. By keeping everyday life going it has become a global rebel – and to some, a rogue state. , it was held up as proof of the terrible price paid for reckless defiance. There is only one missing ingredient to this great cautionary tale: a lack of remorse among Swedes. Even now, with another wave underway, they have no intention of locking down.The story told of Sweden by those outside of the country is certainly damning. Headlines proclaim that its great experiment has been “abandoned” and that even its...

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Fraser Nelson

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If Sweden’s Covid strategy is such a disaster, why is it still so popular?

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