Sweden: The facts about how Sweden is battling the corona virus pandemic

Since the last election, in September 2018, Sweden has been governed by a politically weak and unpopular coalition consisting of the Social Democrats and the Green party, with Stefan Löfven (Social Democrat) as prime minster. This coalition does not have a majority in the parliament and is therefore dependent on at least passive support from three other parties: the left wing former communist party and the two center right (by Swedish standards – which is basically middle of the road democrats in the US) liberal parties.

Prime minister Löfven’s handling of the corona virus crisis has resulted in his approval ratings shooting up from 26 to 47% in just a couple of weeks. Needles to say, this would not have been true if people thought he had botched it in any way.

Stefan Löfven’s approval ratings were very low – sitting around 25% - in January, but the government’s handling of the pandemic crisis has been widely approved by the citizens of Sweden, including supporters of the main opposition party Moderaterna (right wing, by Swedish standards, thus basically center left or moderate Democrats by US standards). Löfven’s approval ratings have now shot up dramatically to about 50%. The only party that has somewhat criticized the government’s handling of the crisis has been the Trumpian, Russia friendly and anti-immigrant far right party called the Sweden Democrats. Their leader Jimmie Åkesson has gone from being 4% up on Stefan Löfven to to being 21% down in approval...

Since the new corona virus first started to spread in Sweden, the government and the health authorities have been very clear, that there is one main objective with everything they do: flatten the curve, so that as few people as possible in the country will suffer and/or die from covid 19. The government of Stefan Löfven has completely deferred to the country’s best medical and scientific expertise and promptly followed and implemented all the measures that the experts have called for – as for example banning all gatherings of more than 50 persons.

In other words, the government of Sweden is taking the corona virus extremely seriously and has the exact same objective as all other nations in the European Union: flatten the curve, so that as few people as possible in the country will suffer and/or die from covid 19.

Though the goal of the Swedish government is the same as that of almost all other nations and even though the Swedish government has taken some extraordinary action (like the above mentioned ban on gatherings of more than 50 people in one place), there are some clear differences with the approach taken by Sweden as opposed to most other countries. For example the Swedish government has not locked people in their homes or closed down restaurants. Instead Sweden has largely asked the country’s inhabitants to follow a number of far reaching precautions and restrictions voluntarily. This may sound strange for those who are not familiar with the culture and society of Sweden. However, it does make sense here, because the Swedes in general have an extremely high level of trust in the country’s government and authorities (especially the health authorities), because there is no history of these institutions either lying to the people or failing (in modern times). The result has also been quite the expected – people by and large have been following the recommendations of the government and authorities very closely.

It is also important to note that there have been stark warnings from the government and the authorities that if people do not follow the (so far) mostly voluntary restrictions and rules or that these would prove insufficient, the government will immediately impose mandatory restrictions, just like in many other countries.

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