9◼ REMARKS Bloomberg Businessweek May 18, 2020PHOTO
ILLUSTRATION
BY
PHOTO:
AKE
ERICSON/REDUX.
*PERCENT
CHANGE
INVISITS
TO
PLACES;
DATA:
STEFFEN
JURANEK
AND
FLORIS
ZOUTMAN;
NHH
NORWEGIAN
SCHOOL
OF
ECONOMICS;
On May 8, Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell gave
an interview via Zoom from a parked car. The hot pink cord
of the earbuds plugged into his phone flapped distractingly
in the foreground. Before this year, it would’ve been hard to
scare up 10 journalists to listen to him or any other epide-
miologist, but Tegnell drew 450 reporters and other curious
people from 60 countries. An additional 10,000 have since lis-
tened to the recording of the colloquy with Joyce Barnathan,
president of the International Center for Journalists.
The next few weeks or months will tell whether Tegnell’s
strategy is brilliant or—as many experts outside of Sweden
believe—benighted.TheSwedishgovernmenthasdeferred
tohimandhisfellowscientiststosettherulesfora relaxed
semi-shutdownofSwedishsocietyinresponsetotheCovid- 19
pandemic. Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned,
but Swedes have continued eating in restaurants, shopping,
going to work, getting haircuts, and sending children under
16 to school. Few Swedes wear masks. Bloomberg Economics
expects the economy to shrink 5.6% in 2020, vs. 8.1% for the
nations of the euro zone.
The downside to the strategy is that the virus has claimed a
far higher percentage of lives in Sweden than in its neighbors
that locked down. As of May 10, Sweden had about 31 deaths
per 100,000, vs. Denmark with 9 and Norway with 4. (The U.S.
had 24 per 100,000.) Many of Sweden’s deaths were in nurs-
ing homes, which the government admits were poorly looked
after. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven now says his government
plans to spend about $220 million to protect senior citizens.
Tegnell argues that the scales will tip: the better the job
countries did suppressing the first wave of infection, the
greater their risk of a second wave. He estimates that roughly
25% of Swedes have been exposed. The more people who
are immune, the harder it is for the virus to spread; full herd
immunity in a homogeneous population comes at 60% or so.
It’s a very risky bet. The standard strategy, pioneered by
China and replicated by the likes of South Korea and New
Zealand, is to subject the population to extreme but tempo-
rary social distancing measures to drive down the number
of active infections to the point where they can be kept to
a minimum through testing, tracing, and quarantine. It’s a
costly strategy: The suppression phase devastates the econ-
omy, and the subsequent stamping-out-brush-fires phase
requires ceaseless effort. In Seoul one 29-year-old man inad-
vertently infected dozens of people in a single evening when
he visited a number of recently reopened bars and nightclubs.
The siren song of Sweden is that none of that is necessary.
Trust your citizens to be prudent about social distancing and
stay home if they’re sick. Keep the number of cases low enough
so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. Isolate the most vulnerable
while allowing the disease to spread gradually through the rest
of the population, most of whom will get only mildly ill. That will
increase resilience. Such a strategy can be tolerated for years, in
case that’s how long it takes for a vaccine and antiviral drugs to
be developed. “The Swedish strategy is sustainable for a long,
long time,” Tegnell said in the interview.PollsofSwedesshowstrongsupportforTegnell’sapproach.
One man got a tattoo of the epidemiologist on his arm.
“Sweden does not seem to be much worse off in terms of the
spread of the virus than countries with stricter measures,”
says Victoria Denie, owner of a clothing boutique outside
Stockholm.“Thishasbeena toughspringforusSwedes,but
it is acceptable.”MichaelRyan,whorunstheWorldHealth
Organization’shealthemergenciesprogram,saidonApril 29
that “if we are to reach a new normal, in many ways Sweden
represents a future model.”
Perhaps. But it’s too soon to declare the strategy a success, as
even Tegnell concedes. Accepting more deaths in exchange for
long-run sustainability won’t look so smart if a vaccine or effec-
tive treatment arrives soon. Conversely, there’s no certainty
that Sweden’s neighbors will have serious secondary flare-ups
of infection—not if they master testing, tracing, and quarantine.
“If you want to put out a forest fire, it’s a lot better to start doing
it when only a few square meters are burning than when thou-
sands of hectares are in flames,” says Anders Vahlne, a profes-
sor of clinical virology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
ThehighdeathtollinnursinghomesalsosulliesSweden’s
record.Thegovernmentwasslowtorestrictvisitstothem.
AuthoritiesinStockholmemailedoneonMarch11 saying it
had no legal right to bar visitors. Despite the new spending
for senior citizens, the fact remains that nursing home work-
ers live in the community and are liable to bring infections into
their workplaces if the virus is on the loose.
Evenif therelaxedattitudeis rightforSweden,it might
notberightforothers.Thecountryhasa generallydisease-
resistant population and the world’s lowest rate of obesity,
a condition that makes Covid-19 more deadly. Close to half
of households in Stockholm are single-person, allowing for
easier social distancing.
Tegnell isn’t budging. “If you look at the curve over time,
it is quite clear now that it is slowly but surely decreas-
ing,” he told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “As it
get warmer, it means that you are more out in the environ-
ment where the virus can’t thrive and spread as quickly.”
As the white nights of summer come to Sweden, the white-
hot spotlight of international attention isn’t going away. <BW>
�With Niclas Rolander and Love LimanNordicDivergence
Sweden Norway DenmarkMobility change,* retail and recreation Hospitalizations per million inhabitants2001000
3/18/20 5/2/20 3/18/20 4/21/0%