Sweden has been a lightning rod since the start of the Covid pandemic. Opponents of the lockdown and mask mandate pointed to its more-relaxed approach and relatively modest mortality rate as evidence that the drastic measures were not only overkill but also counterproductive. Meanwhile, critics of Sweden’s approach said it is a country of only 10 million people in a relatively isolated corner of Europe, and that its fellow Nordic countries have done a better job of protecting their citizens.
Sweden has almost twice the population of each of its three nearest neighbours, and 28 times that of Iceland. It has a much higher number of foreign-born residents relative to its population than Denmark and Finland, and somewhat more than Norway and Iceland, which may be a factor in the effectiveness of public-health efforts. Iceland, which stands out here in a positive sense, has the advantage of being an island.
So I tried a different screen, comparing Sweden with other countries around the world with populations between 6 million and 90 million and high incomes (my cutoff is 2021’s purchasing-power-adjusted GDP per capita of $50,000. was estimated by the International Monetary Fund).
Sweden’s relative performance is actually better off the charts, given that it has been more aggressive in attributing deaths to Covid than most countries. According to estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Sweden’s reported covid deaths account for about 90% more deaths (ie above normal levels) during the pandemic. It is 78% for France, 68% for Germany and 58% for the Netherlands. Denmark, Finland and Norway also have lower reported-to-more-death ratios than Sweden, but not enough to come close to bridging the death-rate gap.
So Sweden has had moderate success in fighting Covid. Given how much more successful its Nordic neighbors have been, and the fact that it has entered 2020 with such inherent advantages as a very healthy population and the world’s highest proportion of people who (1) Live alone and can (2) work from home, which should be seen as a disappointment. But Sweden’s approach to some forced closures of schools and businesses and too much reliance on personal responsibility has worked better than the UK’s care amid a strict lockdown and people paying to eat in restaurants, or a cacophony of different policies. State and local governments in the US.
It is not that life is going on as normal in Sweden. During the pandemic, Swedes have cut back on activities outside the home, even more so than Danes – though less so than Americans, except last winter and early spring.
In general, Nordic countries other than Sweden have resorted to lockdowns but kept them short, then pushed for a quick return to semi-normality when cases declined. In Sweden, public-health officials tried to avoid that kind of stop-start approach, instead favoring recommendations for the long haul. By last winter, however, they had imposed enough restrictions on gatherings that Sweden’s Covid policies were assessed by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker for more or less average harshness for Europe.
Sweden’s economic performance has also been more or less average. Its GDP declined at an annualized real pace of 0.1%, which is better than most of Europe, but worse than Denmark and Finland (and worse than the annual 0.6% gain for the US, which I listed in my chart). not included because Eurostat does not calculate US GDP in constant euros as is the case for non-euro-using Denmark, Norway and Sweden).
In terms of jobs, at least by my chosen measure of change in working-age employment-population ratio, Sweden is near the bottom of the pack among wealthier countries, along with Canada and the US.
The differences here have as much to do with government employment policies as with the underlying economic force. Some wealthy countries have gone to great lengths to curb unemployment by paying employers to keep them on staff, while others – notably the US – have directed most aid to individuals rather than fight layoffs. Sweden had employment subsidies for people with full-time jobs, but not for low-wage contract and self-employed workers who have been hit hard by the pandemic.
In short, Sweden stood out for its public-health policies early in the pandemic, but not so much since last fall. Overall, the country does not appear particularly noteworthy for its success or failure or its economic performance in tackling the Covid pandemic over the past year and a half. Maybe it’s time to retire his status as a pandemic lightning rod.
Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business and the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”
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