page_title: Swedish government response to the COVID-19 pandemic
section_title: Strategy
hierarchical_section_title: Swedish government response to the COVID-19 pandemic / Strategy
caption_attribution_description: English: Anders Tegnell during the daily press conference outside the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
context_page_description: Sweden's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been met with international scrutiny. Unlike most countries, which strongly recommended widespread sector closures and quarantining and lockdown measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019, the government of Sweden took a more lenient approach, only pursuing strategies in regards to social distancing, bans on large gatherings, and travel restrictions.
context_section_description: According to the Swedish Public Health Agency, the Swedish strategy aimed to protect its senior and/or vulnerable citizens, and to slow down the spread of the virus, to keep the healthcare system from getting overwhelmed. They are also mandated by law to make their response based on scientific evidence. The Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has questioned the scientific basis of some of the "stricter" measures taken by other governments, including lockdowns and border closures.
   While many countries imposed nationwide lockdowns and curfews, such measures were prohibited by the Swedish constitution as it's considered to be a violation of freedom of movement, and the Swedish laws on communicable diseases (Smittskyddslagen) only allows for quarantining individuals and small areas such as buildings, not for entire geographical areas. Instead, it's mostly based around the individual responsibility. Although the government were later granted more authority for imposing restrictions on transport following a temporary amendment in April, the Swedish authorities considered lockdowns to be unnecessary, as they believed that voluntary measures could be just as effective as bans. Although many considered this to be a 'relaxed' approach, it was defended by the authorities as well as government officials, among them Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, to be more sustainable, as unlike lockdowns, it could be in place for "months, even years" as it wasn't assumed to be likely that the disease could be stopped until a vaccine was produced. Therefore, the Swedish response only included measures where an exit strategy wasn't needed.
  Unlike many European countries, including neighbouring Denmark and Norway, Sweden did not close its preschools or elementary schools as a preventive measure. This was met with criticism within Sweden. According to the Health Agency, the main reasons for not closing schools was that as a preventive measure it lacked support by research or scientific literature, and because of its negative effects on society. They argued that many parents, including healthcare professionals, would have no choice but to stay home from work to care for their children if schools were closed. There was also concern for a situation where elderly people babysit their grandchildren, as they are of bigger risk of severe symptoms in case of infection. According to the agency's estimations, closures of elementary schools and preschool could result in an absence of up to 43,000 healthcare professionals, including doctors, Nurses and nurse's assistants, equalling 10 per cent of the total workforce in the sector. Additionally, there was concern of school closures having negative consequences for disadvantaged and vulnerable children, and according to the agency yet no evidence of children playing a major role in the spread of the virus, nor of a high infection rate among children or preschool teachers, and that children who become infected showed mild symptoms. In May, Tegnell said that the decision was right, as the healthcare system would not have managed the situation the past months if Swedish authorities had chosen to close elementary schools. He later said that the decision to close secondary schools might have been unnecessary, because it possibly had little effect in slowing the spread of the disease.
  After the Danish government went against the advice of the Danish Health Authority and closed their national borders in March, Tegnell remarked that there were currently no scientific studies supporting border closures to be an effective measure against a pandemic, and that "history has proven it to be completely meaningless measure", and argued that it could, at best, delay the outbreak for one week, and also pointed out that border closures went against the recommendations from the WHO. He later said closures would be "ridiculous" in a situation where the disease had spread across all of Europe, saying that movements within the country were of more concern.
  Representatives of the Swedish government, as well as its agencies, have re
caption: State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, the architect of the Swedish strategy
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