What is the peculiarity of the Swedish approach to control coronavirus?

Like many other countries, Sweden seeks to slow the spread of the disease as much as possible to avoid the health system collapse.

Swedish laws on infectious diseases are based on the voluntary individual responsibility for preventing the disease spread. This is the legal basis for finding long-term solutions to maintain an acceptable level of SARS-CoV-2 distribution until a vaccine is being found.

What is the main idea of this approach?

The idea is to remind people constantly to comply with measures and improve them (if an adjustment is needed) to prevent the disease from spreading.

It is not necessary to close everything completely; Swedish society finds it as a counterproductive measure.

How does the Swedish public health Agency make decisions?

Each morning, the working group updates recommendations based on current data. Twice a week there is an assessment with the regional authorities.

Parallelly we continue an investigation into COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes. We need to understand which recommendations were not implemented and why.

The Swedish approach has been criticized for being too soft and taking too many risks for people. How do you react?

There is no certainty of such a risk. Nowhere in Europe, the disease spreading has been significantly slowed down. Now there are many people in intensive care units in any country.

Sweden’s Public Health Agency has developed detailed modeling of hospitalization and mortality by every region. There will be slight growth in the next few weeks. In Stockholm, the situation is close to the top of the curve.

Schools will remain open: young people need to stay active for their mental and physical health. Closing them will lead to no effect.

Scientists have criticized the Agency for not taking enough account of the role of asymptomatic carriers. Is the absence of symptoms a problem?

Recent research shows that asymptomatic carriers can be contagious. However, with a Gaussian distribution, the main part of the curve is the presence of symptoms. There are few asymptomatic carriers compared to people who have symptoms.

Is the Swedish approach successful?

It’s too early to tell because nobody knows how long the pandemic will last. Each country must achieve collective immunity. So far, there are only very few cases of re-infection have been registered.

What could have been done differently?

Generally, the health system is functioning in an exemplary manner, but we should have monitored nursing homes more closely.

Are you happy with the chosen strategy?

Yes! We have data showing that the incidence of winter norovirus and flu has decreased this year. This means that hand washing and social distancing have proven to be effective tactics. Monitoring has shown that the movement of people has decreased significantly during the epidemic. The Swedish voluntary strategy has had a real effect.

Still, most of the current issues are not related to COVID-19. Security measures among the elderly were not properly observed – this is the main problem and we are fighting it hard.

 

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