'Life Has to Go On': How Sweden Has Faced the Virus Without a Lockdown


Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Coronavirus Outbreak

The country was an outlier in Europe, trusting its people to voluntarily follow the protocols. Many haven't, but it does not seem to have hurt them.

By Thomas Erdbrink and Christina Anderson

* April 28, 2020, 11:38 a.m. ET *

STOCKHOLM - She stood leaning on her cane, briefly resting among dozens of bubbly young Swedes out enjoying one of the first sunny spring days of the year.

"I'm trying not to get too close to people," said Birgit Lilja, 82, explaining that she had left her house to pick up a new identity card in person. "But I trust them to be careful with me."

Trust is high in Sweden - in government, institutions and fellow Swedes. When the government defied conventional wisdom and refused to order a wholesale lockdown to "flatten the curve" of the coronavirus epidemic, public health officials pointed to trust as a central justification.

Swedes, they said, could be trusted to stay home, follow social distancing protocols and wash their hands to slow the spread of the virus - without any mandatory orders. And, to a large extent, Sweden does seem to have been as successful in controlling the virus as most other nations.

Image Götgatan Street in Sodermalm, Stockholm. Sweden has placed no limits on public transport. Götgatan Street in Sodermalm, Stockholm. Sweden has placed no limits on public transport.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

Sweden's death rate of 22 per 100,000 people is the same as that of Ireland, which has earned accolades for its handling of the pandemic, and far better than in Britain or France.

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Yet, on this warm spring day, at least, there was little evidence that people were observing the protocols - adding further mystery to Sweden's apparent success in handling the scourge without an economically devastating lockdown.

All around Ms. Lilja along Skanegatan Street in the Sodermalm neighborhood of Stockholm, younger Swedes thronged bars, restaurants and a crowded park last week, drinking in the sun.

They laughed and basked in freedoms considered normal in most parts of the world not long ago, before coronavirus lockdowns, quarantines and mass restrictions upended social norms. As other nations in Europe begin to consider reopening their economies, Sweden's experience would seem to argue for less caution, not more.

"My respect for those who died, but we are doing something right here in Sweden," said Johan Mattsson, 44, as he was having a drink at a cafe on Skanegatan Street.

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The restaurant consultant praised the freedoms he had in Sweden compared to other countries. "I'm not seeing very different statistics in many other countries," he said. "I'm happy we didn't go into lockdown. Life has to go on."

While other countries were slamming on the brakes, Sweden kept its borders open, allowed restaurants and bars to keep serving, left preschools and grade schools in session and placed no limits on public transport or outings in local parks. Hairdressers, yoga studios, gyms and even some cinemas have remained open.

Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned. Museums have closed and sporting events have been canceled. At the end of March, the authorities banned visits to nursing homes.

That's roughly it. There are almost no fines, and police officers can only ask people to oblige. Pedestrians wearing masks are generally stared at as if they have just landed from Mars.

On Sunday, five restaurants were closed down for failing to observe social distancing requirements. They were not fined, however, and will be permitted to reopen after passing an inspection, Per Follin, the regional medical officer with the Department of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, said.

Throughout the crisis Sweden has had enough intensive care units to deal with Covid-19 patients, the minister of health and social affairs, Lena Hallengren, said in an interview, referring to the disease caused by the virus. "We have 250 empty beds right now."

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A compilation of mortality figures by The New York Times found that many countries were undercounting Covid-19 deaths by the thousands, while Sweden reported just 400 more deaths than expected between March 9 and April 19.

This is not to say that Sweden has escaped Covid-19's deadly consequences entirely.

The Swedish Public Health Authority has admitted that the country's seniors have been hit hard, with the virus spreading through 75 percent of the 101 care homes in Stockholm. Employees of the homes complain of shortages of personal protective equipment.

Image Students in Stockholm celebrating the completion of their secondary education last week. Gatherings of more than 50 are banned.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

The authority announced last week that more than 26 percent of the 2 million inhabitants of Stockholm will have been infected by May 1. But even that figure was presented as something of a win: a number of infections that might limit future outbreaks, reached without suffering an inordinate number of deaths.

The freer approach has not fully insulated Sweden's economy, mainly because the country is dependent on exports, the minister of finance, Magdalena Andersson, said. She said the economy was likely to shrink by 7 percent this year, "but of course hairdressers, restaurants and hotels are less affected compared to other countries."

From the first signs of the pandemic, the Swedish Public Health Authority decided that a lockdown would be pointless. "Once you get into a lockdown, it's difficult to get out of it," the country's state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, said. "How do you reopen? When?"

Scientists like Mr. Tegnell, who has become something of a celebrity in Sweden, and not politicians have driven the debate over the coronavirus response.

Political leaders rarely attend news conferences about the virus, and the Swedish Constitution prevents the government from meddling in the affairs of independent administrative authorities, such as the Public Health Authority.

While there was some early talk in Sweden of achieving "herd immunity," which would mean infecting at least 60 percent of the population, Mr. Tegnell denies that was ever the government's policy.

Image Sun tanning at Sickla beach in Nacka, on the outskirts of Stockholm.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

"Basically we are trying to do the same thing that most countries are doing - slow down the spread as much as possible," he said. "It's just that we use slightly different tools than many other countries."

When responses are assessed after the crisis, Mr. Tegnell acknowledges, Sweden will have to face its broad failing with people over the age of 70, who have accounted for a staggering 86 percent of the country's 2,194 fatalities to date.

That percentage is roughly on par with most other countries, but some critics here say the mortality rate among seniors could have been far lower with adequate preparation. In a letter to one of Sweden's most prominent newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, 22 scientists accused the Public Health Authority of negligence.

"They tell people, stay home, but they also keep the restaurants open," said Lena Einhorn, a virologist and one of the signatories of the letter. "They are advising people working in elderly homes only to wear masks when a patient is sick. Their policies are both ambiguous and rigid."

In the absence of recommendations from the Public Health Authority, a Jewish care home near Stockholm unilaterally decided to ban visitors, said Aviva Kraitsik, the head of operations, who asked that the facility's name be withheld because of previous threats it has received.

Image More than a quarter of Stockholm's inhabitants will have been infected by May, public health officials said.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

The health authority even went so far as to order the "no visitors" signs removed. Ms. Kraitsik refused. "I said they could put me behind bars," she said. "I was prepared to take my punishment to protect our residents."

But it was too late. The virus had already crept inside, and eventually killed 11 of the 76 inhabitants.

It was only after the home required employees to wear face shields and masks when working with all the residents, even those displaying no symptoms, that it managed to halt the spread of the infection, Ms. Kraitsik said.

The minister of health and social affairs, Ms. Hallengren, acknowledged that there had been a shortage of protective gear, though she also noted that "many people in the health care sector for the elderly aren't used to working with P.P.E."

Image Basking in the sun after a long winter. At least one person in Stockholm was obeying social distancing rules.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

"They should have been able to prevent this," said Elisabeth Asbrink, a writer and publicist who has been critical of the government's approach. In recent years Sweden, like many other countries, has transferred such homes from state to private control, she said, and the level of care had suffered. "This has not been good for the weak and the elderly, especially now."

Such thoughts were far from the minds of the dozens of graduating students who gathered to celebrate Friday night in several bars on Medborgarplatsen Square in Stockholm. They crowded around the bar, hugging and kissing, and generally flouting the rules. The police made no move to stop them.

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Horowitz: Sweden obliterates the lie of 'vaccines' as ticket to ending pandemic


Horowitz: Sweden obliterates the lie of 'vaccines' as ticket to ending pandemic

Op-ed Daniel Horowitz November 16, 2021

It is now undeniable that in almost every part of North America, Europe, and East Asia, the pandemic is more prolific than it ever was before a single person was vaccinated, even though most of those countries have nearly every adult vaccinated. Thus, it is impossible to deny that vaccinologists like Geert Vanden Bossche and Luc Montagnier were correct when they predicted that mass vaccination with a suboptimal, non-sterilizing vaccine in middle of a pandemic would create vaccine-mediated viral enhancement. It's hard to imagine how people who pushed this strategy didn't see this coming.

The typical retort to this allegation is that it's all the fault of "the Delta" and that somehow things would have been even worse without the shots. The problem with this assertion is that we are seeing the sharpest waves ever in the most vaccinated countries. Also, the fact that Sweden has never gotten a Delta wave demonstrates that natural immunity alone would have ended this pandemic.

Central and Eastern Europe are now on fire from the latest wave of the virus, which some researchers suspect is no longer Delta. Putting the variant aside, every single European country has gotten at least one wave of the virus - to varying degrees of severity - since Delta proliferated in June. The one exception is Sweden. The Scandinavian country now has the second lowest case rate in all of Europe, but more importantly, unlike Spain, which is the lowest, the Swedes never experienced a single Delta wave (as Spain did in July).

Even other Scandinavian countries like Iceland and Norway, which seemed nearly impervious to this virus until the past few months, are suffering their largest waves to date.

As you can see, even the Scandinavian countries or other countries that currently have low case rates all had one or two Delta waves since June --- except for Sweden.

It is self-evident that Sweden's natural immunity was able to preclude any major Delta wave - the only country in Europe to accomplish this feat. Although Sweden currently has a high vaccination rate - slightly higher than that of the U.S. - the Swedish government didn't start its vaccination drive until much later than the U.S., U.K., and other countries that have had two Delta waves.

According to the narrative of the masters of the universe, Sweden should have been particularly vulnerable to Delta, while the U.K. should have coasted through it. Instead, the opposite occurred.

Let's look at the vaccination curves of Sweden and Ireland and then compare their case rates over the past 4-5 months.

As you can see, the two countries have similar vaccination curves, but Ireland wound up jabbing an even greater percentage of its population. What are the results?



Thus, it wasn't the vaccination success that stemmed the tide of this variant in Sweden, because Ireland should be doing even better. It's that Sweden was lucky to have achieved herd immunity before the disastrous vaccination campaign made the pandemic worse. With most of the population likely already immune, they are not harmed by any form of vaccine-mediated viral enhancement.

If we look at other countries that have higher vaccination levels than Sweden, among them some of the most vaccinated countries on earth, they have all done worse than Sweden since the mass vaccination commenced in the spring. This includes both countries like Belgium that already had the virus bad, as well as countries like Iceland and Singapore, which never seemed to have a problem prior to the mass vaccination.

Case rates:

Vaccination rates:

What is abundantly clear is that a vaccine that, to begin with, doesn't stop transmission and gradually wanes is not a vaccine and, in fact, makes the virus learn to grow stronger and more durable. "Delta" was not inevitable, nor are the coming variants. Sweden could have declined to vaccinate a single person and its curve would have looked the same, because it's clear from its contrast to every other country as a stark control group that its population's greater natural immunity is the active ingredient responsible for the country's success. The mass vaccination, on the other hand, is now the greatest obstacle to ending this pandemic in countries that have not achieved herd immunity through prior infection.

Let's not forget that Sweden conducted the most comprehensive long-term study of vaccine effectiveness in the world and found that after 6-7 months, "no effectiveness could be detected" from the Pfizer shot. In fact, the study found /negative/ efficacy after 210 days for those over 50, which harmonizes with what we are seeing before our very eyes throughout the world. For some older adults, the shots are as much as /-77% effective/, and the numbers seem to drop every month.

Now over 61% of the entire continent of Europe is vaccinated here in November 2021. Despite that, Europe is probably only a few days away from being the highest case rate we've seen at any point. Current at 375 per 1 million, reached a high of 383 in November of 2020.pic.twitter.com/XOUPDxrSSl - Kyle Lamb (@Kyle Lamb)1637007077

As one retired California nurse asked of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, "Why do the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that didn't protect the protected in the first place?"