Fredrik Sandberg; TT / EPA
Sweden during the pandemic
With more and less successful examples, there are several lessons to take from the countries that have rowed against the tide and have not imposed restrictions.
In March 2020, a new virus, COVID-19, swept the world, leading to the imposition of drastic measures in countries around the globe. Confinement has become the emergency response to contain the spread of the disease, radically changing the lives of billions of people.
Empty streets and the imposition of severe restrictions, such as the prohibition of circulation without essential motives, became the daily life. However, while most countries opted for strict confinements, others, such as Sweden, Taiwan and Uruguay, took alternative approaches, without the imposition of rigid restrictions. Five years later, what balance can be made of this bold strategy?
Sweden without excessive mortality
In Sweden, the strategy adopted was not to impose a national confinement. The government entrusted to the population’s voluntary behaviorwith measures such as restrictions on large agglomerations and the recommendation of social distancing.
Meanwhile, neighboring countries like Norway and Denmark closed schools and imposed strict measures. Comparative studies on excessive mortality between the Nordic countries, such as Inguborg Forthun, indicated that although Sweden has recorded peaks of deaths at the beginning of the pandemic, the excessive mortality was comparable that of countries that confined, such as Norway, Finland and Denmark, in 2021 and 2022. The lack of confinement in Sweden was also associated with relatively low economic costs
“The four countries have a comparable number of excessive deaths when taking into account the fact that the population size is different“, Forthun observes.
Despite initial criticism of the Swedish approach, with accusations of negligence, especially with regard to home deaths, some studies suggest that strategies without confinement, such as voluntary social distancing, have achieved effects similar to those of confinement.
Up to 188 thousand dead in Tanzania
Under the leadership of President John Magufuli, who dismissed scientific measures, rejected the vaccines And it promoted alternatives such as the use of traditional herbs, the country suffered from a significant number of officially not official deaths.
Official data suggest that about 840 people have died of Covid-19 in Tanzania since the beginning of the pandemic. But Fadhili Mtani, professor of history at Morogoro Muslim University, says the government has not made accurate statistics available. An international collaboration designed to estimate the global number of excessive deaths during the first two years of the pandemic, estimated the total number of deaths in Tanzania in something between 102 thousand and 188 thousand.
Mtani argues that Tanzania should have decreed a confinementalthough without imposing excessive restrictions on the circulation of workers. “Most people are poor. To deny their circulation is to deny their existence, ”explains Mtani.
New Zealand vs Iceland
There are surprising comparisons to be made. Let’s look at the case of Iceland and New Zealand, for example.
Both are RICH INSULAR NATIONS With relatively small populations, but while New Zealand introduced a harsh confinement on March 25, 2020, Iceland never imposed the measure.
“They [a Islândia] They had more mitigation strategy, ”says Leah Grout, a specialized public health research data analyst at the University of Health Sciences in Southern California, USA.
Grout was the main author of a research article on strategies and contrasting results from Covid-19 in these two countries.
Iceland introduced a Testing and Tracking Programin which infections and contacts between people were monitored so that individuals – not entire populations – were asked to fulfill quarantine for a while.
This measure was also used in many countries that applied confinements when they were suspended. Iceland had some restrictions on social meetings, and closed its borders For some travelers, for a brief period.
“New Zealand had one of the lower mortality rates From the world with your approach, ”says Grout. “Iceland also did very well.” In addition, economic impacts in both countries were limited, he adds.
Japanese confined without being obliged
Similarly, Japan was able to maintain mortality by Covid-19 in a relatively low level at the beginning of the pandemic.
In the summer of 2022, 36 200 deaths had been registered due to the disease in the country. Today, this number reaches 130 thousand. But what happened in this interval? The omicron variant.
Although it has not adopted a mandatory confinement, studies indicate that the Japanese population changed its behaviors voluntarilysignificantly reducing circulation.
Some researchers argue that Japan’s approach has proven to be the right in general.
“Even without the lockdownthe suppression of epidemic curves has been widely successful, ”says Hiroshi Nishiura, professor at the University of Kyoto Postgraduate School in Japan.
The non-sustainable model of Uruguay
Uruguay was praised at the time for apparently being able to keep Covid-19 under control, although it never decreed a strict confinement.
The government applied Some forms of social distancingincluding the closure of some gyms, and the country’s borders were also closed to certain travelers, for example.
But the ports remained open, and there was no order to stay at home that affected the entire population.
However, studies have pointed out that, after a promising start, the country faced a significant increase in covid-19 deaths in 2021 and 2022 due to the spread of the virus, suggesting that the Initial strategy was not sufficient to keep control in the long run.
Tight control of contacts in Taiwan
The lessons for the future
Although these case studies from various countries show that it was clearly possible to face Covid-19 pandemic without resorting to confinement, the final results seem to depend on the attributes of specific countries, their populations and their health systems.
In addition to immediate health impacts, pandemic has also left important legacies in areas such as education and economy. THE school closing It negatively affected the millions of children around the world, with a decline in mathematics scores and other performance indicators. In the economy, many countries faced deep recessionswith the impact to be more severe in countries with less resilient health systems.
Increased domestic violence during confinement was another painful social consequence. There are still numerous reports of how the pandemic has had a long -term impact on our mental health and ability to socialize.
In the economy, many countries faced deep recessionswith the impact to be more severe in countries with less resilient health systems.
Experts suggest that in the future governments must have clear and communicated plans in advance to ensure that if new pandemics occur, the answers are more coordinated and understood by the public
