Herd immunity plan has ‘failed miserably’
Opposition parties break political armistice to call for resignation of scientist behind country’s strategy
SWEDEN’S prime minister was criticised on Sunday over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, with opposition MPS saying the country’s herd immunity strategy had “failed miserably” and demanding the resignation of the chief epidemiologist.
In a blistering opinion article that analysts said marked the end of a political truce during the national crisis, the leader of the populist Sweden Democrats said the state had failed to protect vulnerable citizens with its less restrictive lockdown.
“Anders Tegnell should therefore resign,” wrote Jimmie Akkeson in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, referring to the architect of the strategy. “Only then will he show the Swedish people that he takes responsibility for the mistakes [the Public Health Agency of Sweden] has made.”
Ebba Busch-thor, leader of the Christian Democrat party, also blamed Sweden’s strategy for some of the 4,694 deaths due to the virus. “What we can say about Sweden is that the greater part of those who are now mourning over those they have lost this spring are doing so because Sweden quite knowingly allowed a large spread of the infection,” she said in a heated debate broadcast on Sunday night.
Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the Moderate Party, the biggest party on the centre-right, held back from joining Mrs Busch-thor’s attack on the strategy, instead criticising the implementation of it.
“I had no problem with the strategy. It was a bit slow but, when it was in place, I had nothing against it,” he said during the debate. “But the government didn’t put any power behind the words.”
Nicholas Aylott, associate professor at Stockholm’s Sodertorn University, told The Daily Telegraph that the battery of attacks marked a turning point in the political climate around coronavirus. “This changes the tone of debate. No other party leader had previously criticised so squarely the government’s policy,” he said. “Up until relatively recently, there has been this period of borgfred [castle peace], as they call it – a political armistice around the government’s handling of coronavirus. They [the opposition parties] didn’t want to be hung out to dry as unreliable and semi-treacherous.”
When asked, at a daily press conference, about the resignation call, Dr Tegnell dismissed it with a suppressed smile. “That’s a political discussion that I will leave to the politicians,” he said.
In the debate, the country’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, reiterated his support for Sweden’s decision not to impose a lockdown, instead laying the blame for the country’s high death rate on failures within elderly care.
“I think the strategy is the right one,” he said. “But it has transpired that very many people, in certain areas, have died in elderly care. There’s no doubt that elderly care needs to be improved.”
However, the return of political opposition does not yet seem to reflect a loss of support for the government.
A poll by Statistics Sweden, published yesterday, found that the ruling Social Democrats had the support of 33.7 per cent of voters in May, up 7.4 percentage points on the public statistics agency’s last poll, published in December.