What’s Really Going On In Sweden During The Corona Crisis
By: Sara Kiani
Tags: Life, Culture, Philosophy, Covid 19, Leadership

Sweden’s strategy is essentially a change process and it lets individualistic preferences and beliefs shape habits

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

I’m witnessing a cultural shift in Sweden that is taking place alongside a pre-pandemic reality. I see people living life on very different levels of what I best can describe as semi-quarantine, at most. Some do all of their shopping and communication online to avoid physical proximity as much as possible, others go about life as usual with only a minor tweak to their handwashing habits. As usual, when it comes to people, you can imagine the endless variations in between.

Swedens corona strategy has been widely and highly criticized in the media. While still being portrayed as risky and unconcerned, it just differs a lot from the rest of the world because of The Swedish Public Health Agency’s rather agile approach to the strategy (always making appropriate decisions based on current knowledge).

For instance, the strategy has proven and highlighted a flawed (to say the least) health care system for the elderly. A recent report by the Health and Social Care Inspectorate, a governmental agency responsible for the supervision of healthcare and social care in Sweden, says that 70 percent of Covid-19 deaths in elderly care homes are mainly concentrated on 40 of Swedens 290 municipalities.

A recent article by The New York Times European correspondent Peter S. Goodman was quickly challenged by Swedish journalist Emanuel Karlsten who pointed out multiple errors in the New York Times article about Swedens corona strategy. No matter what the stats say about Swedens strategy, it’s been based on the following beliefs:

The people of Sweden act sensibly and responsibly during the crisis, i.e. minimize risk for themselves and others. Lockdown is essentially unsustainable in the long run.

Looking in from the inside, I’d dare to say that these values seem to be shared by the majority of people. Yet, it’s open to individual interpretations. Those who stand in lines to cash registers in stores keep distance, as instructed by the signs on public floors. “Traditionalists” still reach out for a handshake, while others don’t even invite people over anymore but settle for outdoor social activities. Myself included — in all three examples, but not simultaneously. In the pre-pandemic time, you’d easily be deviating from social norms, whereas now all variants are justifiable and acceptable.

Physical distancing in Sweden used to be common, but now it’s common sense. Which ironically doesn’t necessarily make any difference in social norms at all.

I’m an employee of a global corporation, but I haven’t been to the office since March. Global management quickly established a new policy after corona hit Sweden, requiring every group manager in the organization to control physical attendance throughout the workweek in order to prevent overcrowded office spaces. Remote work was traditionally and unofficially frowned upon, but now it’s become a legitimate option that can keep many businesses afloat and allows for the mutual responsibility of preventing the virus from spreading. Those who prefer, or perhaps need the social interaction that the office provides, are basically free to work there whenever. Those who prefer not to, perhaps out of fear or practical reasons (like myself) are free to work from home.

As a well-established company with history and legacy systems, we were already on the verge of a cross-over to remote work thanks to recent digitalization efforts. Even though the main IT infrastructure was in place to enable remote work, the pandemic pushed us over the edge and hastened a one or two-year digital transformation overnight, much thanks to the 95 percent of the adult population in Sweden that already has home Internet service.

The safety of people unable to work remotely has been relying on the solidarity of others. A couple of months back, the management of my daughter’s kindergarten acted upon the public healthcare guidelines by establishing new rules for caretakers to follow. Aside from calling on clean hands and personal belongings before the kids would enter the classroom, they also prohibited crowded hallways as a way to limit the physical proximity. That enabled at least some protection for the staff and children. There’s even no longer a need for explaining the importance of hand hygiene to my daughter every single time. Corona has become a well-used word in children’s vocabulary.