Lancet Sweden’s covid policies and situation revisited
The Swedish COVID-19 strategy revisited
Published:April 19, 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00885-0
In December, 2020, we wrote about the Swedish response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
1 Our hope was that our Comment, together with hundreds of other fact-based articles, would gain the attention of the Swedish Public Health Agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten [FHM]), that they would revisit and change the national strategy that they had designed so that it would be more aligned with global best practice, and that the political decision makers would act on it. They did not. Since then, the FHM has recorded more than 5600 deaths from COVID-19 in Sweden, and cases and deaths continue to rise as we face the third wave without any widespread sense of gravity or urgency.
The debate among critics of the Swedish national approach to the pandemic has been consistent since March, 2020: be strategic, test and trace more, follow the growing evidence base and recommend the use of face masks, and enforce regulations about physical distancing and ventilation, especially in schools if they are open. Some critics have advocated for more government-led legal interventions such as reinforcing quarantine or lockdown. It has been a call for timely implementation of basic principles of pandemic prevention and control to c
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