George Monbiot in The Guardian
Amid the smog of lies and contradictions, there is one question we should never stop asking: why has the government of the United Kingdom so spectacularly failed to defend people’s lives? Why has “this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection”, as Shakespeare described our islands, succumbed to a greater extent than any other European nation to a foreseeable and containable pandemic?
Part of the answer is that the government knowingly and deliberately stood down crucial parts of its emergency response system. Another part is that, when it did at last seek to mobilise the system, crucial bits of the machine immediately fell off. There is a consistent reason for the multiple, systemic failures the pandemic has exposed: the intrusion of corporate power into public policy. Privatisation, commercialisation, outsourcing and offshoring have severely compromised the UK’s ability to respond to a crisis.
Take, for example, the lethal failures to provide protective clothing, masks and other equipment (PPE) to health workers. A report by the campaigning group We Own It seeks to explain why so many doctors, nurses and other hospital workers have died unnecessarily of Covid-19. It describes a system built around the needs not of health workers or patients, but of corporations and commercial contracts: a system that could scarcely be better designed for failure.
Four layers of commercial contractors, each rich with opportunities for profit-making, stand between doctors and nurses and the equipment they need. These layers are then fragmented into 11 tottering, uncoordinated supply chains, creating an almost perfect formula for chaos. Among the many weak links in these chains are consultancy companies like Deloitte, whose farcical attempts to procure emergency supplies of PPE have been fiercely criticised by both manufacturers and health workers.
At the end of the chains are manufacturing companies, some of which have mysteriously been granted monopolies on the supply of essential equipment. These private monopolies have either failed to meet their contracts, or provided defective gear to the entire NHS, like the 15m protective goggles and the planeload of useless surgical gowns that had to be recalled.
Instead of stockpiling supplies, as emergency preparedness demands, companies in these chains have been using just-in-time production systems, whose purpose is to cut their costs by minimising stocks. Their minimised systems could not be scaled up fast enough to meet the shortfall. Where there should be a smooth, coordinated, accountable programme, there’s opacity, byzantine complexity and total chaos. So much for the efficiencies of privatisation.
The pandemic has also exposed the privatised care system as catastrophically unfit and ill-prepared. In 1993, 95% of care at home was provided publicly by local authorities. Now, almost all of it – and almost all residential care – is provided by private companies. Even before the pandemic, the system was falling apart, as many care companies, unable to balance the needs of their patients with the demands of their shareholders, collapsed, often with disastrous consequences.
Now we discover just how dangerous their commercial imperatives have become, as the drive to make care profitable has created a fragmented, incoherent system, answerable sometimes to offshore owners, that fails to meet basic standards, and employs harassed workers on zero-hour contracts. If there is one thing we have learnt from this pandemic, it’s the need for a publicly owned, publicly run National Care Service – the care equivalent of the NHS.
It could all become much worse, due to another effect of corporate power. A report by the Corporate Europe Observatory shows how law firms are exploring the possibility of suing governments for the measures they have taken to stop the pandemic. Many trade treaties contain a provision called “investor state dispute settlement”. This enables corporations to sue governments in opaque offshore tribunals, for any policies that might affect their “future anticipated profits”.
So when governments, in response to coronavirus, have imposed travel restrictions, or requisitioned hotels, or instructed companies to produce medical equipment or limit the price of drugs, the companies could sue them for the loss of the money they might otherwise have made. When the UK government commandeers private hospitals or the Spanish government prevents evictions by landlords, and stops water and electricity companies from cutting off destitute customers, they could be open to international legal challenge. These measures, which override democracy, have already hampered attempts by many governments, particularly of poorer nations, to protect their people from disasters. They urgently need to be rescinded.
The effectiveness of our health system is also threatened by the trade treaty the UK government hopes to sign with the US. The Conservatives promised in their manifesto that “the NHS is not on the table” in the trade talks. But they have already broken their accompanying promise, “we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”. Earlier this month, they voted that measure out of the agriculture bill. US companies are aggressively demanding access to the NHS. The talks will be extremely complex and incomprehensible to almost everyone. There will be plenty of opportunities to give them what they want while fooling voters.
Boris Johnson’s central mission, overseen by Dominic Cummings, is to break down all barriers between government and the power of money. It is to allow private interests to intrude into the very heart of government, while marginalising the civil service. This helps to explain why Johnson is so reluctant to let Cummings go. The disasters of the past few weeks hint at the likely results.
Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Monday, 25 May 2020
Sunday, 24 May 2020
Most ingredients are in place for a property crash later this year
Rising unemployment is toxic for the property market and low interest rates may not be enough writes Larry Elliott in The Guardian
Spring is usually the time when the property market comes out of hibernation. Photograph: lucemac/GuardianWitness
This weekend marks the start of a truncated summer house buying season, the moment the residential property market comes out of hibernation.
Normally this happens at Easter but, for obvious reasons, that has not been possible in 2020. Estate agents have been shuttered along with almost every other business, waiting impatiently for the lifting of the lockdown. This bank holiday weekend, with fine weather forecast, provides a chance to make up for lost time.
Well, perhaps. Britain’s love affair with rising house prices borders on the pathological so a mini boom can’t entirely be ruled out. The government did its best last week to give the market a boost by extending its mortgage holiday for the financially distressed for a further three months. That means those having trouble keeping up with their home loans won’t have to make a repayment until at least September.
That said, the notion that this is going to be a year of high turnover and rising house prices is wide of the mark. All the ingredients, bar one, is in place for a crash later in the year.
Let’s start with the obvious: the economy has been poleaxed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The official jobless figures – showing a rise to 2.1 million in claimant count unemployment – provide only a hint of the damage that has been caused to the labour market by the lockdown. A truer picture comes from the number of jobs furloughed under the Treasury’s wage subsidy scheme, which stands at 8m and counting.
Not every one of those furloughed workers is going to end up jobless, but some of them will. The number will depend, crucially, on how long it takes for the economy to return to something like normal. The slower the process the more businesses will close permanently.
Rishi Sunak announced earlier this month that the furloughing scheme will be kept going until the end of October, but from the start of August employers will be asked to foot part of the wage bill themselves. At present, the government is paying 80% of wages up to a monthly maximum of £2,500, an expensive commitment that helps explain why the state borrowed almost as much in April (£62bn) as in the whole of the last financial year.
The chancellor will announce in the next few days how big a contribution employers will need to make, but at a minimum they can expect to pay 20% of an employee’s wages. This will be the moment of truth for many businesses.
Rising unemployment is toxic for the property market. If people struggle to find another job quickly after losing their job they fall into mortgage arrears and eventually have their homes repossessed. That happened in the early 1990s and is one reason why a mortgage holiday has been introduced this time.
Hansen Lu, property economist at Capital Economics, has shown how a moratorium on home loan payments saves someone paying 2.5% on a £200,000 mortgage £5,400 over a six-month period. That’s quite a financial cushion because although the lender eventually has to be paid back, it means subsequent mortgage payments go up by about £30 a month.
Again, everything depends on the state of the labour market this autumn. The mortgage holiday will end at the same time as the furlough scheme, and already there will be many households who will be wondering how they will manage at that point.
Buying a house is the single biggest financial commitment most of us ever make. When people are deciding whether to buy or not, they think hard about whether they are going to be able to keep up the monthly payments. It is not just being unemployed that matters; it is the threat of unemployment. Surveys suggest, hardly surprisingly, that consumers are extremely wary of committing to big-ticket items.
Only one thing is missing from a perfect storm: sharply rising interest rates. A doubling of official interest rates was the trigger for recession and record home repossessions in the early 1990s, but there is not the slightest prospect of that happening this time. The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 0.1% and is debating whether to take them negative.
There are economists – the monetarist Tim Congdon, for example – who believe that the vast quantities of money the Bank is chucking at the economy will eventually lead to much higher inflation. In those circumstances Threadneedle Street would have a choice: raise interest rates aggressively to hit the government’s 2% inflation target and guarantee deep recession in the process; or go easy. If it chooses the first option the housing market will collapse because many owner occupiers can only service the debts they have had to to incur to afford expensive real estate if interest rates remain at historically low levels.
So here’s how things stack up. On the one hand, the economy has collapsed and is recovering only falteringly; unemployment, whether real or hidden by the furlough, is rocketing; incomes are being squeezed; consumer confidence is at a low ebb; and the ratio of house prices to earnings is high. On the other hand, interest rates are low and will stay low for some time. In the jargon of the economics profession, there are more downside than upside risks.
But let me personalise things a bit. A relative for whom I hold power of attorney is about to have his house put on the market to fund his care home fees. My intention is to take the first halfway decent offer that’s received, because my sense is that prices are heading lower. In the past I haven’t heeded my own advice and lived to regret it. Not this time, though.
This weekend marks the start of a truncated summer house buying season, the moment the residential property market comes out of hibernation.
Normally this happens at Easter but, for obvious reasons, that has not been possible in 2020. Estate agents have been shuttered along with almost every other business, waiting impatiently for the lifting of the lockdown. This bank holiday weekend, with fine weather forecast, provides a chance to make up for lost time.
Well, perhaps. Britain’s love affair with rising house prices borders on the pathological so a mini boom can’t entirely be ruled out. The government did its best last week to give the market a boost by extending its mortgage holiday for the financially distressed for a further three months. That means those having trouble keeping up with their home loans won’t have to make a repayment until at least September.
That said, the notion that this is going to be a year of high turnover and rising house prices is wide of the mark. All the ingredients, bar one, is in place for a crash later in the year.
Let’s start with the obvious: the economy has been poleaxed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The official jobless figures – showing a rise to 2.1 million in claimant count unemployment – provide only a hint of the damage that has been caused to the labour market by the lockdown. A truer picture comes from the number of jobs furloughed under the Treasury’s wage subsidy scheme, which stands at 8m and counting.
Not every one of those furloughed workers is going to end up jobless, but some of them will. The number will depend, crucially, on how long it takes for the economy to return to something like normal. The slower the process the more businesses will close permanently.
Rishi Sunak announced earlier this month that the furloughing scheme will be kept going until the end of October, but from the start of August employers will be asked to foot part of the wage bill themselves. At present, the government is paying 80% of wages up to a monthly maximum of £2,500, an expensive commitment that helps explain why the state borrowed almost as much in April (£62bn) as in the whole of the last financial year.
The chancellor will announce in the next few days how big a contribution employers will need to make, but at a minimum they can expect to pay 20% of an employee’s wages. This will be the moment of truth for many businesses.
Rising unemployment is toxic for the property market. If people struggle to find another job quickly after losing their job they fall into mortgage arrears and eventually have their homes repossessed. That happened in the early 1990s and is one reason why a mortgage holiday has been introduced this time.
Hansen Lu, property economist at Capital Economics, has shown how a moratorium on home loan payments saves someone paying 2.5% on a £200,000 mortgage £5,400 over a six-month period. That’s quite a financial cushion because although the lender eventually has to be paid back, it means subsequent mortgage payments go up by about £30 a month.
Again, everything depends on the state of the labour market this autumn. The mortgage holiday will end at the same time as the furlough scheme, and already there will be many households who will be wondering how they will manage at that point.
Buying a house is the single biggest financial commitment most of us ever make. When people are deciding whether to buy or not, they think hard about whether they are going to be able to keep up the monthly payments. It is not just being unemployed that matters; it is the threat of unemployment. Surveys suggest, hardly surprisingly, that consumers are extremely wary of committing to big-ticket items.
Only one thing is missing from a perfect storm: sharply rising interest rates. A doubling of official interest rates was the trigger for recession and record home repossessions in the early 1990s, but there is not the slightest prospect of that happening this time. The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 0.1% and is debating whether to take them negative.
There are economists – the monetarist Tim Congdon, for example – who believe that the vast quantities of money the Bank is chucking at the economy will eventually lead to much higher inflation. In those circumstances Threadneedle Street would have a choice: raise interest rates aggressively to hit the government’s 2% inflation target and guarantee deep recession in the process; or go easy. If it chooses the first option the housing market will collapse because many owner occupiers can only service the debts they have had to to incur to afford expensive real estate if interest rates remain at historically low levels.
So here’s how things stack up. On the one hand, the economy has collapsed and is recovering only falteringly; unemployment, whether real or hidden by the furlough, is rocketing; incomes are being squeezed; consumer confidence is at a low ebb; and the ratio of house prices to earnings is high. On the other hand, interest rates are low and will stay low for some time. In the jargon of the economics profession, there are more downside than upside risks.
But let me personalise things a bit. A relative for whom I hold power of attorney is about to have his house put on the market to fund his care home fees. My intention is to take the first halfway decent offer that’s received, because my sense is that prices are heading lower. In the past I haven’t heeded my own advice and lived to regret it. Not this time, though.
Saturday, 23 May 2020
Reopening the economy will divide societies
Tim Harford in The FT
It is the end of the beginning: lockdowns after the first wave of coronavirus are being tentatively lifted. It is not a step we are taking with any great confidence of success. Rather, we’re easing the lockdowns because we can’t bear to wait any longer.
That will mean some difficult decisions ahead, in particular about how we look out for each other in a world where our experiences and the risks we face are dramatically diverging.
It is clear enough that the virus could easily rebound: a systematic study conducted by the Office for National Statistics suggested that 100,000 to 200,000 people in England alone were still infected with the virus in early May. The lockdown has merely bought us time.
One hope is that we can now contain the virus through widespread testing, contact tracing and the supported isolation of infected people. One cogent plan for this comes from the Safra Center at Harvard University.
But the UK seems in no position to implement anything like this plan. Boris Johnson, the prime minister, has promised a contact-tracing system by June 1 that will be “world-beating” — an obnoxious synonym for “excellent”. I do not believe him, particularly since his government has repeatedly misrepresented its record on testing.
The Safra Center plan calls for 2 per cent to 6 per cent of the population being tested every day. In the UK, that would be 1.3m to 4m people daily; we are currently testing well under 100,000 a day.
For now, then, we are stuck trying to maximise the benefits of reopening while minimising the risk. That suggests drawing bright lines between those who should unlock and those who should not.
We have long accepted that a supermarket is more of a priority than a restaurant, but other dividing lines would be uncomfortable. Would we be happy for London to reopen while Manchester stays closed, or vice versa? There is a powerful moral case that we should all be going through the same sacrifices at the same time, but if we seek to save the greatest number of lives while destroying the fewest livelihoods, we may have to start drawing distinctions that make us squirm.
The most obvious such distinction would be to ease the lockdown only for the young.
In the five weeks from late March to the start of May, nearly 29,000 people over the age of 65 died from Covid-19 in England and Wales. Only 375 people aged under 45 died in the same period. Late boomers and Gen-Xers like me, aged 45-64, are in the middle: nearly 3,500 of us died.
Could we countenance a plan to allow the under-40s back into pubs and restaurants, while the rest of us stick to Zoom and Ocado? Then if signs of herd immunity emerged, we could send in the reserves — the 40-somethings like me.
Is this really a good idea? I am genuinely unsure. Perhaps the practical objection is insuperable: it might be impossible to protect vulnerable people while allowing the virus to run riot in the young. But I suspect the real objection is not practical, but moral. Something about sending half the population out while the other half stays indoors feels unfair. That is true even if it is not entirely clear which side of the age divide is worse off — the ones enduring boredom and isolation inside, or the ones facing the virus.
And what of people who find themselves able to drink in public one day, then banned from their own 40th birthday party the next? Clear distinctions on a spreadsheet or graph start to seem absurd in everyday life. And it could be much worse. Ethnic minorities are at greater risk; are we to advocate whites-only restaurants and whites-only public transport on the grounds that it is not safe for those with dark skin? The idea is self-evidently repugnant.
Yet the virus does not care about our moral intuitions. It picks us off unevenly, and an effective response must recognise that. We are going to have to develop a language of social solidarity even as our individual experiences diverge.
Even during the lockdown, many people have continued to experience the freedoms and anxieties of going to work as normal. The very nature of the lockdown means it is easy to forget that other people are leading very different lives. One doctor friend of mine, on a video call a fortnight ago, asked: “So . . . have the rest of you really just been at home, seeing only your families, for the last six weeks?” Yes. We really have.
We must develop new ethical codes. “Stay at home, protect the NHS” was a start, but over the coming months we must look for principles that offer the same moral force but far more practical subtlety. “Grandparents: stay home so that your grandchildren can go back to school.” “Home workers are heroes too,” because they reduce density in the big cities.
We are all in this together. And yet increasingly, we are all in this separately. That is a challenge we have yet fully to confront.
It is the end of the beginning: lockdowns after the first wave of coronavirus are being tentatively lifted. It is not a step we are taking with any great confidence of success. Rather, we’re easing the lockdowns because we can’t bear to wait any longer.
That will mean some difficult decisions ahead, in particular about how we look out for each other in a world where our experiences and the risks we face are dramatically diverging.
It is clear enough that the virus could easily rebound: a systematic study conducted by the Office for National Statistics suggested that 100,000 to 200,000 people in England alone were still infected with the virus in early May. The lockdown has merely bought us time.
One hope is that we can now contain the virus through widespread testing, contact tracing and the supported isolation of infected people. One cogent plan for this comes from the Safra Center at Harvard University.
But the UK seems in no position to implement anything like this plan. Boris Johnson, the prime minister, has promised a contact-tracing system by June 1 that will be “world-beating” — an obnoxious synonym for “excellent”. I do not believe him, particularly since his government has repeatedly misrepresented its record on testing.
The Safra Center plan calls for 2 per cent to 6 per cent of the population being tested every day. In the UK, that would be 1.3m to 4m people daily; we are currently testing well under 100,000 a day.
For now, then, we are stuck trying to maximise the benefits of reopening while minimising the risk. That suggests drawing bright lines between those who should unlock and those who should not.
We have long accepted that a supermarket is more of a priority than a restaurant, but other dividing lines would be uncomfortable. Would we be happy for London to reopen while Manchester stays closed, or vice versa? There is a powerful moral case that we should all be going through the same sacrifices at the same time, but if we seek to save the greatest number of lives while destroying the fewest livelihoods, we may have to start drawing distinctions that make us squirm.
The most obvious such distinction would be to ease the lockdown only for the young.
In the five weeks from late March to the start of May, nearly 29,000 people over the age of 65 died from Covid-19 in England and Wales. Only 375 people aged under 45 died in the same period. Late boomers and Gen-Xers like me, aged 45-64, are in the middle: nearly 3,500 of us died.
Could we countenance a plan to allow the under-40s back into pubs and restaurants, while the rest of us stick to Zoom and Ocado? Then if signs of herd immunity emerged, we could send in the reserves — the 40-somethings like me.
Is this really a good idea? I am genuinely unsure. Perhaps the practical objection is insuperable: it might be impossible to protect vulnerable people while allowing the virus to run riot in the young. But I suspect the real objection is not practical, but moral. Something about sending half the population out while the other half stays indoors feels unfair. That is true even if it is not entirely clear which side of the age divide is worse off — the ones enduring boredom and isolation inside, or the ones facing the virus.
And what of people who find themselves able to drink in public one day, then banned from their own 40th birthday party the next? Clear distinctions on a spreadsheet or graph start to seem absurd in everyday life. And it could be much worse. Ethnic minorities are at greater risk; are we to advocate whites-only restaurants and whites-only public transport on the grounds that it is not safe for those with dark skin? The idea is self-evidently repugnant.
Yet the virus does not care about our moral intuitions. It picks us off unevenly, and an effective response must recognise that. We are going to have to develop a language of social solidarity even as our individual experiences diverge.
Even during the lockdown, many people have continued to experience the freedoms and anxieties of going to work as normal. The very nature of the lockdown means it is easy to forget that other people are leading very different lives. One doctor friend of mine, on a video call a fortnight ago, asked: “So . . . have the rest of you really just been at home, seeing only your families, for the last six weeks?” Yes. We really have.
We must develop new ethical codes. “Stay at home, protect the NHS” was a start, but over the coming months we must look for principles that offer the same moral force but far more practical subtlety. “Grandparents: stay home so that your grandchildren can go back to school.” “Home workers are heroes too,” because they reduce density in the big cities.
We are all in this together. And yet increasingly, we are all in this separately. That is a challenge we have yet fully to confront.
Why Sweden is unlikely to make a U-turn on its controversial Covid-19 strategy
For a foreigner living here, the country’s approach to handling the crisis is worrying, but it is partly explained by its history writes Tae Hoon Kim in The Guardian
Just 7.3% of Stockholm had Covid-19 antibodies by end of April, study shows
Whereas this might explain the lack of opposition, it is far from exhaustive. For example, Norway, Denmark and Finland are also known as high-trust societies. But all three have imposed far more restrictive measures, ranging from lockdowns to declaring a national emergency.
Second, the fact that some of the people most affected by the high death rate are from the poorest immigrant groups, such as the Somali community, whose voice is not always well represented in the media, goes against this image of a universally trusting and transparent society.
Perhaps another explanation is that Sweden has a very different way of perceiving the current crisis. Instead of seeing it as a national emergency or a fight against an “invisible enemy”, there seems to be a tendency to regard coronavirus just as a serious public health problem. It is viewed as something that requires the careful observance of rules set out by health experts, rather than an existential problem that calls for the state to suspend civil liberties for the sake of national security. Indeed, whenever a non-scientific expert such as me criticises the Swedish strategy, the response has often been that I am not an expert.
This is where Sweden is unique, something that may be attributable to its history. The country has not experienced a national emergency or crisis for more than 100 years. Since around the Swedish general strike of 1909, it has not seen any profound social conflicts, for example the miners’ strike in Britain, or a civil war, as in Spain or Finland. Any foreigner who has lived in Sweden will know how conflict-adverse Swedish people seem to be. Furthermore, Sweden has not engaged in any armed disputes since the 1810s. This is in contrast to Denmark and Norway, which were occupied by Germany in the second world war, and Finland, invaded by the USSR in the same period. A rallying cry of unity in the face of national adversity isn’t part of the collective cultural fabric in Sweden.
This lack of experience with handling national crises goes some way to explaining why there is a technocratic and dispassionate outlook to Covid-19, as opposed to a sense of urgency. It is also why the public health agency in Sweden seems to have few qualms about “herd immunity”. Whereas other countries see it as a dangerous national experiment, Swedish health officials regard it more as a type of medical prescription. It might not be 100% effective and some deaths might occur, as in any medical situation. But in the long run, it could work in mitigating the negative effects of the virus, without mass social disruption.
It is for this reason that the denial by the Swedish government and health officials that it is actually pursuing “herd immunity” seem so halfhearted, a rebuttal to critical foreign press rather than its citizens. For a foreigner living in Sweden like me, it is not entirely reassuring. How long Sweden will continue with this policy is difficult to ascertain. But as long as Covid-19 is seen in this light, and it looks as if it will, a U-turn seems unlikely.
People enjoy a warm spring day in Ralambshovsparken park, Stockholm, 8 May. Photograph: IBL/REX/Shutterstock
Sweden has received considerable media scrutiny in recent days. According to figures published on Tuesday, it now has the highest coronavirus-per-capita death rate in the world, with an average of 6.08 deaths per million inhabitants a day on a rolling seven-day average between 13 and 20 May. As of 22 May, Sweden has had 32,172 confirmed cases and 3,871 deaths. These figures are lower than those of Italy or the UK. But they are higher than those of Portugal and Greece, two countries with a similar size of population to Sweden. The figures are also much higher than Sweden’s Nordic neighbours, with Denmark at 11,182 cases and 561 deaths, Norway at 8,309 and 235, and Finland at 6,537 and 306.
International observers and critics within Sweden blame these depressing figures on its controversial Covid-19 strategy. Unlike the rest of Europe, or what is often cited as the exemplar nation of South Korea, Sweden has not imposed any lockdowns nor carried out mass testing. Its policy has been to slow the spread of the virus by exhorting its citizens to practise voluntary social distancing.
Some restrictions have been enforced, such as a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, and a stipulation that drinks can only be served on seated tables as opposed to bars. Everyday life in Sweden is not the same as before. There are fewer people in shopping centres and public transport. Working from home has become the new normal for those who can. But people continue to socialise outdoors freely, while primary schools, hairdressers and shopping centres remain open.
But despite the high number of deaths, about 70% of Swedes support their government’s approach. In fact, there has not been much public debate or organised opposition to the strategy. The deaths have indeed shocked many Swedes, especially the disproportionately high number of deaths among those over 70 in care homes and those from working-class, immigrant backgrounds. The debates, however, seem to be taking a more socioeconomic angle. In other words, the reasons for these deaths are being blamed on structural, economic, and social deficiencies – but not on the strategy itself.
Why is this so? One explanation that has been aired frequently points to the high degree of trust between government agencies and citizens. The argument is that the level of government transparency and the state’s service-mindedness has created an environment where the people trust their government and experts.
Sweden has received considerable media scrutiny in recent days. According to figures published on Tuesday, it now has the highest coronavirus-per-capita death rate in the world, with an average of 6.08 deaths per million inhabitants a day on a rolling seven-day average between 13 and 20 May. As of 22 May, Sweden has had 32,172 confirmed cases and 3,871 deaths. These figures are lower than those of Italy or the UK. But they are higher than those of Portugal and Greece, two countries with a similar size of population to Sweden. The figures are also much higher than Sweden’s Nordic neighbours, with Denmark at 11,182 cases and 561 deaths, Norway at 8,309 and 235, and Finland at 6,537 and 306.
International observers and critics within Sweden blame these depressing figures on its controversial Covid-19 strategy. Unlike the rest of Europe, or what is often cited as the exemplar nation of South Korea, Sweden has not imposed any lockdowns nor carried out mass testing. Its policy has been to slow the spread of the virus by exhorting its citizens to practise voluntary social distancing.
Some restrictions have been enforced, such as a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, and a stipulation that drinks can only be served on seated tables as opposed to bars. Everyday life in Sweden is not the same as before. There are fewer people in shopping centres and public transport. Working from home has become the new normal for those who can. But people continue to socialise outdoors freely, while primary schools, hairdressers and shopping centres remain open.
But despite the high number of deaths, about 70% of Swedes support their government’s approach. In fact, there has not been much public debate or organised opposition to the strategy. The deaths have indeed shocked many Swedes, especially the disproportionately high number of deaths among those over 70 in care homes and those from working-class, immigrant backgrounds. The debates, however, seem to be taking a more socioeconomic angle. In other words, the reasons for these deaths are being blamed on structural, economic, and social deficiencies – but not on the strategy itself.
Why is this so? One explanation that has been aired frequently points to the high degree of trust between government agencies and citizens. The argument is that the level of government transparency and the state’s service-mindedness has created an environment where the people trust their government and experts.
Just 7.3% of Stockholm had Covid-19 antibodies by end of April, study shows
Whereas this might explain the lack of opposition, it is far from exhaustive. For example, Norway, Denmark and Finland are also known as high-trust societies. But all three have imposed far more restrictive measures, ranging from lockdowns to declaring a national emergency.
Second, the fact that some of the people most affected by the high death rate are from the poorest immigrant groups, such as the Somali community, whose voice is not always well represented in the media, goes against this image of a universally trusting and transparent society.
Perhaps another explanation is that Sweden has a very different way of perceiving the current crisis. Instead of seeing it as a national emergency or a fight against an “invisible enemy”, there seems to be a tendency to regard coronavirus just as a serious public health problem. It is viewed as something that requires the careful observance of rules set out by health experts, rather than an existential problem that calls for the state to suspend civil liberties for the sake of national security. Indeed, whenever a non-scientific expert such as me criticises the Swedish strategy, the response has often been that I am not an expert.
This is where Sweden is unique, something that may be attributable to its history. The country has not experienced a national emergency or crisis for more than 100 years. Since around the Swedish general strike of 1909, it has not seen any profound social conflicts, for example the miners’ strike in Britain, or a civil war, as in Spain or Finland. Any foreigner who has lived in Sweden will know how conflict-adverse Swedish people seem to be. Furthermore, Sweden has not engaged in any armed disputes since the 1810s. This is in contrast to Denmark and Norway, which were occupied by Germany in the second world war, and Finland, invaded by the USSR in the same period. A rallying cry of unity in the face of national adversity isn’t part of the collective cultural fabric in Sweden.
This lack of experience with handling national crises goes some way to explaining why there is a technocratic and dispassionate outlook to Covid-19, as opposed to a sense of urgency. It is also why the public health agency in Sweden seems to have few qualms about “herd immunity”. Whereas other countries see it as a dangerous national experiment, Swedish health officials regard it more as a type of medical prescription. It might not be 100% effective and some deaths might occur, as in any medical situation. But in the long run, it could work in mitigating the negative effects of the virus, without mass social disruption.
It is for this reason that the denial by the Swedish government and health officials that it is actually pursuing “herd immunity” seem so halfhearted, a rebuttal to critical foreign press rather than its citizens. For a foreigner living in Sweden like me, it is not entirely reassuring. How long Sweden will continue with this policy is difficult to ascertain. But as long as Covid-19 is seen in this light, and it looks as if it will, a U-turn seems unlikely.
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