Could Sweden’s ‘mad experiment’ with no lockdown have been sane all along?

‘With half of humanity in lockdown, photos of Swedes socialising in bars and restaurants seemed like something from another dimension’

There have been times during this pandemic that I’ve felt as if my memory is playing tricks on me. I’m sure I remember scientists telling us that a second wave was inevitable. I could have sworn I heard experts explaining that the only way Covid-19 would disappear would be when herd immunity was achieved.

Official documents reassure me that I am not going mad. The minutes from a Sage meeting in March say: “Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress the spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak.” As far as I can tell, this is still their view. Suppressing a wintry virus during the sunniest spring on record could turn out to be no great achievement. The worst may be yet to come.

One country can look to the winter with less trepidation than most. Last week, a study suggested that 30 per cent of Swedes have built up immunity to the virus. It would help explain why Covid-19 has been fizzling out in Sweden. If a measure of herd immunity also helps them avoid the second wave, Sweden’s take-it-on-thechin approach will be vindicated.

Not going into lockdown was described as “a mad experiment” by Marcus Carlsson of Lund University in March. Dr Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute accused the government of “leading us to catastrophe”. Every model predicted an exponential rise in infections.

With half of humanity living under lockdown, photos of Swedes socialising in bars and restaurants seemed like communiqués from another dimension. Aside from a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, life carried on as normal. Children aged under 16 went to school. No one wore a mask. This, surely, was the calm before a terrible storm.

The catastrophe never arrived. As in most other European countries, Sweden saw a peak in Covid-19 deaths in the first half of April, followed by a steady decline. Shown on a graph, the pattern of mortality is indistinguishable from that of many countries that locked down. Its daily death toll rarely exceeded double figures and has been below 30 since mid-June. As in Britain, half the deaths were in care homes and two thirds of those who died were aged 80 or over.

Critics of the Swedish approach then turned to post hoc rationalisation. They cited low population density and a high rate of single-person households as the explanation for Sweden’s lucky escape. Some claimed that social distancing was a natural part of Swedish culture or that Swedes did not talk enough for virus droplets to be transmitted. It is now considered gauche to compare Sweden to any other country with a higher death rate. The goalposts have shifted. The purpose of lockdowns is now to prevent death at any cost.

And what of the costs? Sweden expects its GDP to decline by 5.3 per cent this year. But GDP is expected to fall by 9.7 per cent in Britain and by more than 10 per cent in Italy, France and Spain. Sweden has not put its children’s education on hold. It has not put its citizens under house arrest. If a vaccine goes into production by autumn, the Swedes will look reckless. But that is not going to happen – and winter is coming.