A Note of How the State Handling the Pandemic: Sweden
- Izzan Fathurrahman
- Jun 4, 2020
- 7 min read
The bahasa Indonesia version has been published in the Detik News in this following link https://news.detik.com/kolom/d-5014687/menangani-pandemi-pelajaran-santai-dari-swedia
Perhaps there is no country that has been rampantly criticized in the whole Europe, if not, the world, except Sweden. While some of its European Union counterparts facing massive restriction and full lockdown, Swedes are still casually enjoying the cherry blossom and spring’s sunshine. Sometimes I am also confused to answer questions from my friends regarding the loose situation in Sweden without telling them the context of the country.
Apart from banning public gatherings of more than 50 people, there is no more strict regulation in Sweden. Not everyone is tested for the virus unless you are in the critical condition. People are only advised to avoid non-essential travel, stay at home and quarantine yourself if you show any mild symptom or belong to the high-risk group. Companies are strongly urged to adopt work from home. Bars and restaurants are still open even though they have been advised to only serve the takeaway and avoid the counter service. Except for the university and secondary education, schools for children under 16 remain open.
Anders Tegnell, the Swedish State Epidemiologist who is in charge of the pandemic has accentuated during the interview with BBC that the government’s view of this pandemic is in the long term. Amidst the critique that the government has been playing Russian roulette to the Swedish population, Tegnell keeps confident in his argument. Therefore, it is important to analyze at least several consideration points behind the government’s bold response.
First, understanding the context of society. Unlike its European Union neighbors like Italy or Spain, people in Sweden are used to live independently and separately from their parents in their own apartment since they are 18. An article from BBC’s correspondent, Maddy Savage, explained that more than half of Swedish housing is made of one resident. This means a social distancing has been normally practiced by people without having a strict order from the authority. This situation is benefitted by the fact that the population density in Sweden is relatively low.
Moreover, Sweden has been a long-term pioneer of equality, human rights and feminist approach. A survey from the SOM Institute of Gothenborg University shows that level of trust to other people in Sweden is very high and has been stable in these past 20 years. With this level of trust and equality, the Swedish population already have a very strong community responsibility. This exactly the reason of low key intervention of Sweden as stated by its Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven. During a television live he said that he believes everyone in Sweden will take their own responsibility. Knowing the context of its society with its historical background helps the government to adjust a more contextual policy in the long run.
Second, relying on data. Sweden has been widely famous as an innovation champion and for its technological advancements. Many IT inventions emerge from Sweden, such as Spotify and Skype. This level of technological advancement is not only in the private sector but also in the public sector. Sweden has a very well-connected population data. Everyone living in Sweden must be registered and their residence personal number is connected to all aspects of life. This helps the government to monitor the population distribution as well as classify them based on certain criteria.
As per April 21, the data from Coronakartan shows the number of positive cases in Sweden is already 15.404 by excluding people who are not in the critical condition since they are not tested. The number of death is already 1.799 with 2.234 people are hospitalized. However, there is still no stricter regulation from the Swedish government. This is because they rely on data that indicates no stricter regulation is essentially needed at the moment.
Looking at the demographic of death, the majority of them are people that belong to the old age population. Data from Statista shows that on April 17, from 1.400 deaths in Sweden, 1.335 of them are people above 59 years old. Thus, a tighter regulation such as closing the elementary school is not necessary. Apart from the risk of losing healthcare workers who need to take leave for taking care of their children if the elementary schools are closed, these children do not belong to the risk group. This data reliability leads the government to take more contextual and quick decisions. People are avoided to visit elderly care and if you belong to the old age group, do not go outside and you need to ask someone’s help to buy groceries and daily needs.
This also happens during the massive spread in Stockholm. Using their population data, the government quickly analyzed where is the exact epicenter and what is the cause behind it. It was later found out that the massive spread was in the immigrants’ densely resident and the reason was the late information due to language barrier. The government quickly tackled this issue by distributing the density and offering short-term housing during the pandemic.
Having reliable data also enables the government to take two to three steps ahead. Tegnell during his interview has confidently said that the government is more than prepared to change into doing more things if there is a reason to do that, such as a rapid increase of case or there is a better coping mechanism applied by other countries that also would work well in Sweden. In fact, the government has been doing so by building outdoor hospitals outside Stockholm to anticipate the worst scenario, even though the bed in these hospitals are still mainly empty.
Third, reflecting to the political context. It is true that Sweden has been facing the rise of populism in these past few years. The most shocking part was when the Sweden Democrat Party (SD) who pursues the far-right ideology gained 17,5 percent of the vote during the last election in 2018. This obviously shocked the Sweden Social Democrat Party, who has been in power for long.
One possible explanation of this as demonstrated by Annina Claesson in The Global Post is not because the Swedes become more conservative, but because the two main parties have been being more centrist and represent no ideology in particular. Thus, people looked down for alternatives in smaller parties with clearer platforms. The vote decline of Sweden Social Democrat Party was also distributed among other parties apart of Sweden Democrat, such as Left Party, Liberals and Centre Party as well as conservative Christian Democrats.
The writer Yuval Noah Harari wrote in The Financial Times that the world and the decision made during the pandemic will define the world we will live afterwards. Lofven with his Social Democratic Party clearly understands that their actions will bring long term effects, not only to Swedish society but also to Swedish politics. Since Sweden has been the long champion of feminist and non-violent approach, flipping the country to a dramatic change of strict restriction will put a high price and this needs a thorough calculation.
This careful measurement by recognizing the political cost also makes the government really aware and avoid any misleading statement when distributing the information to public. Apart from his last speech on March 22, there is no big press conference from Lofven in explaining this pandemic. Tegnell during his interview also did not hesitantly say “I don’t know” once the reporter insisted him to compare the Swedish approach to other countries.
We have been witnessing that the pandemic has been utilized to increase the popularity and approval rate of world leaders. Donald Trump, for instance, has been worried about his approval rate during the pandemic. South Korea President, Moon Jae-in, at least used it in a positive way by adopting a praised mitigation policy that successfully rose his approval rate to the highest level in more than 16 months by stood on 52,2 percent.
There is a thin line between populism and the right action of the government. The main separator between those two is data. In this case, the Swedish government clearly acknowledge the context of society, which most of the populist leaders fall into a trap by only relying their decision on this, and the political situation. However, the Swedish government still emphasizes on data. Carefully read the context of society, acknowledge the political context and anchoring on data that make the Swedish government stands strong amidst the critique while controlling the pandemic, which so far indicates a manageable result.
Perhaps it is a shocking phenomenon that a country that has been prolongedly upholding the universalism like Sweden turns down into the utilitarian by seemly allow its population to embrace the virus without strong state’s intervention. However, this decision is based on careful consideration of at least the context of society, data availability and political context.
Drawing the connection with the Indonesian context, we can also consider those three points. First, understanding the context of society. We have been famous for strong community solidarity and that indeed has been largely shown during this pandemic. Our community-based welfare arrangements (gotong royong) has been widely recognized to provide informal social safety nets during the decade absence of state formal social safety nets. The government can utilize this character by, for instance, creating a public kitchen in every neighborhood and the food is distributed door-to-door without having people gathered. Apart from the household food aid, the food aid can be largely distributed through the community by having a public kitchen to ensure food security among community members. That is only one particular example of the good practice of society that can be utilized during this pandemic.
Second, data. This is the most common complaint of people in all levels, from the housewife who receives the social aid to the scientist who needs to create a model analysis, that our government has different data, vertically among all level of governance as well as horizontally between one ministry or agency and another. Perhaps it is too late to curse this awful mistake, nevertheless, there is still a room to improve during this critical situation. The unreliable data that we encounter during this pandemic should be a harsh reason to have this problem solved after the pandemic.
Third, the political context. This is perhaps another disgrace that has been unnecessarily shown during this pandemic. From the questionable approach of Health Minister in handling this pandemic, controversial decisions of issuing the criminal code bill and releasing prisoners by Law and Human Rights Minister in collaboration with parliament, to the conflict of interest among the president’s millennial staffs, clearly indicates the government and politicians do not understand the political context during this pandemic. Worst, perhaps they acknowledge but simply being ignorant.
The public has been overwhelmed by pandemic news plus the unreliable data that makes them insecure. Adding the fuel by proposing some counter-productive and unnecessary actions definitely does not make the government ease the situation. A sense of awareness from the stakeholders to see the aftereffect of the pandemic is urgently needed to hinder unnecessary and counter-productive decisions. This aftereffect is not only on the people’s trust to the state institutions but also to their welfare aspects in general.
While the historical context and trajectory of Sweden are different than any other countries, does not mean the three main considerations behind the Swedish decision-making process cannot be applied in other countries during this pandemic. As Anders Tegnell has stated that everything is currently uncertain and every country has been figuring out their own coping mechanism, does not mean what Sweden has been doing is entirely wrong looking at its long term manageable result so far.
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