While most of Europe is in lockdown, Sweden is up and running.
Schools are open for children up to the age of sixteen, trains and buses are packed, people are going to work, ski resorts are crowded, people are partying, nightlife is alive, businesses are open… and so are its borders.
Unlike most of the world, Sweden “cannot take draconian measures that have a limited impact on the epidemic but knock out the functions of society,” said Johan Carlson, Director General of the Public Health Agency of Sweden.
With some 150 people (out of a population of 10 million) having died from the virus, Dr. Anders Tegnell, the country’s leading epidemiologist at the Swedish Public Health Agency, said, “The incline [in infection and death rates] in Sweden is less steep than in many countries and that’s exactly what we’re trying to achieve.”
While it is true Sweden’s population is smaller than Italy, Spain, and the UK, its percentage of deaths from COVID-19 to its overall population is significantly lower. And while it’s also true that Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbors Norway and Denmark have even lower percentages of deaths to total population, Sweden has about twice as many people.
Citizens Volunteering vs. Citizens Taking Orders
Dr. Tegnell, while stating the nation’s strategy is science-based, adds,
“Sweden has gone mostly for voluntary measures because that’s how we’re used to working… And we have a long tradition that it works rather well… Our whole system for communicable disease control is based on voluntary action. The immunization system is completely voluntary and there is 98 percent coverage.”
TRENDPOST: While nations such as the United States, which invades foreign nations and overthrows governments in the name of bringing freedom and democracy while egregiously robbing its people of their rights and violating its Constitution and Bill of Rights in the name of Executive Orders, the political difference between Sweden and other democracies is a constitutional law that prohibits political interference in public agencies, such as its Public Health Agency.
