europe is struggling to contain covet 19
infections are increasing so are
restrictions
and the dutch prime minister says it's
the only way we have to be stricter but
is it the only way one country has
offered an alternative
i think sweden got it yeah basically
except they didn't do it right in the
beginning
but basically they got it right is
sweden getting it right this is one of
the big questions of the pandemic
hundreds of articles have been devoted
to it with wildly
different conclusions times analysis
says the swedish response is a disaster
it shouldn't be a model for the rest of
the world
but look at this from the who in late
september it says we must recognize that
sweden at the moment
has avoided the increase that's been
seen in some of western europe
we will be very keen on hearing more
from the swedish approach
well what is the swedish approach put
simply when many countries went into
lockdown in march
sweden didn't instead it pursued
voluntary social distancing
it encouraged a range of things working
from home avoiding public transport
table service in bars and that advice
rested on the assumption
that people feel like this we in sweden
um
trust the authorities and if if the
if the authorities say stay at home
please and work at from home
we do that so they didn't need to say
you have to go on a lockdown
swin's calculation is that people will
social distance effectively
if the message is simple credible and
consistent
also the swedish approach doesn't
include masks officials argue
they give people false confidence which
sometimes undermines social distancing
and all of this is designed to move
sweden towards a goal
that it shares with other european
countries how to reduce contacts between
people you'll hear this referenced again
and again
the number of social contacts and travel
movements
must be drastically reduced
if during these six weeks we follow the
curfew we act collectively to reduce the
number of contacts
that's the point at which we think we
can progressively start to open up again
because reduce contacts and you reduce
the risk of transmission and relevant to
that
is the role of the super spreader it's
thought most covered infections are
transmitted by around 10 to 20 percent
of people who have it
this danish epidemiologist argues sweden
understood this a full knockdown would
be too much
you need to you need to look at this
super spreaders and limit them
and that's basically what sweden did the
the most visible say or actually the
only really
uh intervention they did was to say that
your max gallery was 50.
so that's sweden's approach and to
assess it of course we need to look at
how the numbers
compare i'm going to focus on three
measures first
sweden's total deaths per capita is the
15th highest in the world
higher than most major european nations
second when it comes to the total
numbers of cases per capita
both norway and the uk have lower
figures than sweden but
spain and france have higher and third
the infection rate
sweden has so far avoided an autumn
surge but its infection rate is higher
than norway and germany
and it's rising this all feels a long
way from the success story some would
describe
and there are other issues too some
critics argue the whole thing is
actually a misjudged plan to achieve
herd immunity
something that strongly denied also
sweden's approach has relied on
thousands of vulnerable people shielding
themselves while others
live under lighter restrictions and
sweden's number of deaths was in part
driven by a failure to properly protect
care homes but the man who devised
sweden's approach
thinks in the long term it will work
in parts we in sweden have always had
the same regulations in place the same
recommendations and general advice
and they still apply i think it creates
a sense of security
and a long-term perspective and then
it's easier to follow
consistent long-term consensual this is
sweden's mantra and at the heart of that
is a commitment to the social contract a
contract that requires trust between
people
and national decision makers you could
argue without it any coveted strategy
will struggle
now as we've seen there's nothing in the
data to show sweden is definitely
getting it right
but this emphasis on trust and consensus
feels relevant as european governments
once again
change the rules by which people are
living
you