The Scandinavian nation controversially rejected the stricter lockdown approach of other countries in their strategy to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping most schools open, as well as stores and restaurants.
According to data from John Hopkins University, now Sweden has a death rate of 297.16 for every 1 million citizens, after 3,040 died from coronavirus. There have been 24,623 confirmed COVID-19 cases and so far 4,074 have recovered.Comparatively the death rate in the US is 226.33 per 1 million citizens, after 74,239 have passed away from the virus.
But officials defended their strategy of not imposing strict stay-at-home measures, saying Sweden’s healthcare system still had spare capacity.
“The curves show that we have, to a large extent, been successful in keeping (the outbreak) within the limits of what the healthcare system can manage,” state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told reporters.
Sweden has not imposed the kind of extraordinary lockdown measures seen elsewhere in Europe, instead opting for an approach based on the “principle of responsibility”.
The Scandinavian country has kept schools open for children under the age of 16, along with cafes, bars, restaurants and businesses, while urging people to respect social distancing guidelines.
The Swedish approach has received criticism both domestically and abroad, particularly as deaths lept passed tolls in neighbouring Nordic countries, which have all imposed more restrictive containment measures.
According to website Worldometer, Sweden’s virus death rate of 301 per million inhabitants is far higher than Norway’s death rate of 40 per million, Denmark’s rate of 87, or Finland’s rate of 46.
However it is still lower than the UK’s 443, Italy’s 491 and Spain’s 558.
Despite the criticism, Swedish officials have insisted their plan is sustainable in the long-term, rejecting drastic short-term measures as too ineffective to justify their impact on society.
return to lockdown, according to the architect of the contentious policy.
Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist who devised the no-lockdown approach, estimated that 40 per cent of people in the capital, Stockholm, would be immune to Covid-19 by the end of May, giving the country an advantage against a virus that “we’re going to have to live with for a very long time”.
“In the autumn there will be a second wave. Sweden will have a high level of immunity and the number of cases will probably be quite low,” Tegnell told the Financial Times. “But Finland will have a very low level of immunity. Will Finland have to go into a complete lockdown again?”
Sweden and Tegnell are under the global spotlight as their response to the pandemic has made them an international outlier.