Coronavirus: Medical chiefs failed us with light touch, says Swedish leader
As hospitals buckle under the weight of virus victims, Sweden’s PM says medical advisers didn’t see second wave coming.
Sweden’s health experts misjudged the resurgence of the coronavirus by recommending a light-touch approach, the prime minister said.
The country, which has pursued a form of herd immunity strategy under Anders Tegnell, its chief epidemiologist, has been hit so hard by the second wave of infections that hospitals in Stockholm are struggling to cope.
Stefan Lofven, the prime minister, told the Aftenposten newspaper that his medical advisers had not seen such a wave coming. “They talked about different clusters,” he said.
Sweden’s neighbours, Finland and Norway, which adopted stricter social controls and have suffered fewer fatalities per capita, have offered medical help after Stockholm reported that 99 per cent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds were full and called for more staff.
Failed to protect elderly
Mr Lofven, who leads a Social Democrat-Green Party coalition, spoke hours before a commission examining Sweden’s handling of the pandemic concluded that it had failed to protect elderly people during the first wave. A high level of community spread was the biggest factor in the virus getting into care homes, the commission said.
Sweden’s pandemic strategy, shunning lockdowns and masks, has been much debated as an alternative approach to tougher curbs. Schools, restaurants and businesses were largely left open while people were advised to maintain social distance and hygiene.
The strategy was coupled with a goal to “ring-fence” the most vulnerable. As deaths mounted, especially at nursing homes, the commission said that it had failed to do so effectively.
The approach has been called reckless and cruel but it also won praise from people seeing it as more sustainable and business-friendly. About half of Sweden’s almost 7700 deaths have been nursing home residents.
Cases soar
The country now faces a significant rise in cases and fatalities. Its statistical agency recorded a total of 8088 deaths from all causes last month, the highest mortality in any November in Sweden since the first year of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, when 16,600 people died. Since Friday 153 people have died from COVID-19 related causes, bringing the total to 7,667. There have been 320,000 confirmed cases.
The coronavirus death toll in the past month stands at about 1,400 compared with about 100 in Norway and 80 in Finland, each of which have about half its population of nine million. Sweden’s death rate per capita, while several times higher than that of its neighbours, is lower than some European countries that chose tough lockdowns.
As of December 13, its 14-day cumulative number of infections per 100,000 inhabitants was 738.8, the fifth-highest of the 31 European countries surveyed by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and more than twice Britain’s level of 338.8.
Health staff drafted to ICUs
Finland and Norway said that they were ready to help. Sweden has not yet asked for assistance, however. The National Board of Health said that even though the situation was strained in parts of the country, Sweden had the capacity to meet its needs for now.
Stockholm health officials have asked private healthcare companies and the military to help with a shortage of staff. More than 100 workers from a children’s hospital have reportedly been drafted in to help in ICUs.
‘We need help’
“The situation is serious and we need help,” Bjorn Eriksson, Stockholm’s health chief, told a news conference. “About a third of healthcare in Stockholm is carried out in the private sector. It makes sense for them also to take responsibility.”
He said that the region had only one intensive care bed vacant. “It cannot be worth this for after-work drinks, to do Christmas shopping or meet people outside your household,” he added. “The consequences are awful.”
Sweden announced tougher measures last month in response to surging infections but they are far less stringent than in many other countries.
“Christmas is a time where we want to be together,” Mr Lofven said this week. “But this year we cannot have a normal Christmas.”
The Times
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