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If you talk about Sweden's separate corona approach, you are guaranteed to get into a discussion on social media. The ones will point out that this country, without any 'lockdown' and only banning meetings of more than 50 people, is doing better than many other European countries, such as Italy, Spain, the UK and, of course, Belgium. Others will argue that Sweden has the advantage of being a sparsely populated country and is doing a lot worse than its Scandinavian neighbours.

Flemings do not, of course, discuss the Swedish approach out of academic interest, but because of the inferences that can be made for coronation policy in their own country. You may indeed wonder how meaningful the discussions are about the precise details of a mouth mask duty in the open air, the size of the bubbles and the number of days children should be taught online, when in the meantime there is a country that has never introduced any mouth mask obligation, never has even thought of bubbles and the schools have not closed at any time, yet noticeably outperforms Belgium.

Comigned in a strategy
I wrote a column about it in April, but then decided to leave the debate until the dust would lie down.. Meanwhile, through the press, occasionally, reports of Swedish disasters have been sent to me. Have you heard of the village of Gällivare? Neither did I, at least until Het Laatste Nieuws informed me that an “uncontrolled outbreak” of the coronavirus had arisen in this obscure municipality in Swedish Lapland.

A large part of the press seemed particularly keen to be able to report the Swedish failure. This attitude is understandable after months of uncritical reporting on the Belgian 'lockdown' approach. Publicist Lionel Shriver said the same thing about the press in the UK: “One wants Sweden to fail, that desire is tangible. It's about being engaged in a strategy of lockdown: no one wants to admit that they did something terrible to their country for no good reason.”

We are now four months later and, although the final balance will not be available until later, Sweden is still performing much better than most expected.

Cosmopolitanism
It is true that the country has more victims than its neighbours, but there are few reasons to pay Sweden alone within the Scandinavian group. Population density is not an argument if almost 90% of the population lives in urbanised regions and is therefore comparable in terms of lifestyles and social contacts to that of Western Europe. How small the role of distance is proved to be enough in Flanders, where the general outbreak was the result of people who had gone skiing hundreds of kilometers (with the blessing of Marc Van Ranst) and were allowed to return without quarantine obligation (with the blessing of Marc Van Ranst). Cosmopolitanism, moreover, appears to be a much more important factor in the spread of covid-19 than theoretical population density.

Moreover, not so much the rigour of the measures seems to play a role as the speed at which they were taken. For example, that Denmark was the first country in the EU to close its borders is a lesson to remember. There is a difference between an approach that can keep the virus out or embed it and a policy that wants to smooth the curve, as implemented in Belgium and Sweden.

The Swedish balance sheet

The aim of the Swedish approach was not to overload the healthcare sector, but at the same time to limit the freedom and social life of its citizens as little as possible. Both objectives were achieved.

The additional scheme to limit economic damage has been half successful. Sweden's economy shrunk by 8.6% in the second quarter, but did a lot better than the European average of 11.9%.

Human losses are high in Sweden, but are half lower relative to the population than in Belgium. It should be added that Sweden, like Belgium, has disproportionately many victims in the rest homes, where specific policy errors have been made which are separate from the discussion about the sense of a general 'lockdown'.

In France, Spain and several other European countries there is now a 'second wave'. Norway and Denmark have also been affected, but Sweden is spared. Belgium had 16 dead yesterday, Sweden 0.

The reason why the doom predictions for Sweden did not come true (96,000 deaths were predicted in that country. It became 6000.) and the reason why there won't be a second wave, could be the same. The study is still at an early stage, but a significant part of the population may already be immune by a form of resistance (memory T cells) resulting from exposure to Covid-19 or earlier milder coronaviruses, but which cannot be detected with a test for antibodies.

No more lockdown
By the way, one thing is often forgotten when the balance of human costs is taken: death by 'lockdown'. It is becoming increasingly clear that the measures against Covid-19 are killing themselves. In the UK, it was calculated that 25,000 people were killed by the virus at the peak of the coronacrisis, but 16,000 people died because of the lockdown medical care.

This does not include the lost years of life due to depression, loneliness, domestic violence, lack of physical activity and economic recession, says that country's Office for National Statistics. Covid-19 kills. The measures against Covid-19 also kill, now or in the long run.

Virologists regularly threaten a new lockdown if the number of infections continues to increase. I suspect the fear of second wave is exaggerated. Of course I'm not sure, but what I do know is that the reaction can never be a general lockdown.. The proceeds are too small, the costs are too large.


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