Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Sweden’s No Lockdown Policy: How That Changed The Outcome

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Nikhita Gautam

Article Title

Sweden’s No Lockdown Policy: How That Changed The Outcome

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Global Views 360

Publication Date

July 1, 2020

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Anders Tegnell during the daily press conference outside the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden

Anders Tegnell during the daily press conference outside the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden  |  Source: Frankie Fouganthin   via Wikimedia

Sweden has gone against conventional wisdom in its response to the COVID-19 situation. While the neighbouring countries like Denmark, Finland and Norway imposed strict lockdown on the places and services frequented by the public, Sweden has chosen to not do so at all during the initial phases when COVID-19 started taking the shape of a worldwide pandemic. The public places like Cafes, restaurants, gyms, malls, playgrounds, ski slopes and some of the schools were kept open all across Sweden.

The country’s fight against the threat of pandemic was handled exclusively by the Public Health Authority, with no political interference. They believed that a lockdown only serves to delay the virus, which is not necessary since the health services are equipped to deal with the cases. They also made it clear that achieving herd immunity is also not their aim. The public authorities in Sweden instead relied on the public's sense of responsibility, and appealed to them to do frequent hand washing, observe social distancing and keep people over 70 years old from going out.

The state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, made multiple statements about the state’s unusual approach, such as 1) “Once you get into a lockdown, it’s difficult to get out of it,”, “How do you reopen?  When?” 2) “There is no evidence whatsoever that doing more at this stage would make

any difference. It’s far better to introduce stringent measures at very specific intervals, and keep them running for as little time as possible” , 3) " As long as the healthcare system reasonably can cope with and give good care to the ones that need care, it's not clear that having the cases later in time is better”.

The assumption of public responsibility did not work for Sweden and there were people out on the streets, in cafes, restaurants and playgrounds. Not wearing a mask was the social norm instead of the reverse. The models for charting the virus spread given by the concerned authorities also turned out to be faulty forcing them to rescind it. Over 2000 Swedish researchers and doctors signed a petition which claimed that there was not enough testing,tracking or isolation in the country. They believed that the authority has clearly not planned their response and that the authority’s claim for herd immunity has very little scientific basis, even though the government has repeatedly claimed that herd immunity is not what they were aiming for.

Sweden’s lax approach to the combating of coronavirus forced its neighbouring Scandinavian countries to close the border for the Swedish citizens. Some of the Swedish officials were worried for the possible harm to the long term relations between Sweden and its neighbours.  Also, the plan of letting life go on as usual to avoid the economic recession occurring due to a lockdown also failed as it didn’t shield  the country from economic slowdown.

Here comes the question; was the lockdown successful or not? There are some comparisons that have been drawn which indicate more deaths per 100,000 people than in nearby countries with homogenous population, even though it is significantly lesser than some of the European countries. While the infections rates are double that of Denmark, the death rates in comparison are much higher. This difference has been attributed to the fact that approximately half of these deaths have occurred in old care homes despite the stated priority of the officials to protect the elderly. This has been in part to the volunteer program, which replaced symptomatic old age home cares with new volunteers, hence increasing exposure. Another factor is the lack of protective equipment in such homes, along with laws preventing administration of medical procedures without the presence of doctors. There were reports of people threatened with lawsuits for banning visitors.

All of this led to Mr.Tegnell claiming that the ideal policy would have been something between what Sweden adopted and what the other countries did, in the light of what they know now. However this claim of Mr.Tegnell will be put to test when the second wave comes, later in time.

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February 4, 2021 5:12 PM

Vaccine Nationalism: The Ethical Conundrum in the age of Global Pandemic

O People! Make way for the latest horrendous development of the infamous year 2020. We have straight out of the oven, the freshest item on the menu of ethical conundrums “Vaccine Nationalism”.

It seems like the cure is as dangerous as people dying of the COVID-19. Currently, according to the WHO, six vaccines have reached phase 3 trials, while 25 vaccines are in the clinical evaluation phase and 139 in pre-clinical evaluation.

COVID-19 Vaccine Nationalism | Marian Kamensky via Cartoon Movement

When the pandemic hit different parts of the world, the first response of the humans was to attack supermarkets and hoard loads of groceries (yes, toilet papers too). Vaccine Nationalism is just analogous to hoarding toilet papers, except, it’s just a phenomenon that occurs when rich countries pay for vaccines in advance and hoard them. Don’t worry politicians are not doing what they did not promise: remember ‘America first?’ and ‘India first?’

A global initiative by WHO – ACT (Access to COVID-19 Tools) Accelerator- aims at a cumulative process of R&D, manufacturing, regulatory, purchasing and procurement needed to fight against COVID-19. Unfortunately, the USA, Russia, India, and China did not receive the initiative with much-needed enthusiasm. The WHO also came up with another program called COVAX facility, that aims to provide 2 billion doses of vaccine by the end of the next year for middle and low-income countries.

Source: Brandon Reynolds via BusinessDay

The US compared its operation ‘Warp speed’ to the oxygen masks dropping during the flights. Russia tried to jump ahead, attempting to create a Sputnik moment. Russian President announced Russia curated the first COVID-19 vaccine called Sputnik V. The vaccines are still under trials and need much more necessary testing to work. Safe to say, Russia’s plan backfired earning them international scorn.

Vaccine nationalism will lead to global dysfunction. Rich countries will benefit as they can bid for the vaccine at high prices. Such high prices will lead to a disaster for the low-income countries, adding to their already deficient health care. These desperate countries will have no choice but to buy vaccines driving their economies in an even worse condition. Additionally, a single country having a vaccine will not help the problem in any way at all. Some nations have already gambled their chances of acquiring vaccines by speaking against other countries.

The unethical practice of Vaccine Nationalism is not at all unexpected. A bid against humanity is not entirely new. Similar responses were noted in 2009 when the world H1N1 flu crisis hit. Australia came up with a vaccine and sold 6,00,00 doses to the USA, blocking the exports to other countries. Once the effect of flu started diminishing, rich countries donated the vaccines to low-income nations. A similar situation happened in 2014 when the EBOLA crisis hit.

Politics aside, scientists are staying out of it and trying to work together for greater good. Instead of publishing research papers they are working collaboratively throughout the world. We must not forget that finding a cure or a significant role can earn a lot of scientists, assets, reputation, and promotions. Some lure away and are suspicious of sharing their work as well.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Portrait | Source: Wikimedia

When the search for a vaccine against such deadly disease mutates into a naked display of Vaccine Nationalism, Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s view on nationalism becomes an antidote. He believed in an idea of nationalism without borders. Tagore once described in a letter to his friend AM Bose that “the value of patriotism can never be greater than the value of humanity.”

It is a human tendency to compete and nature supports the fittest. How fit is it though to use strong nations’ ability to bully other unequipped nations? How generous is it to help others when they don’t even need help anymore? How ethical and moral is to block vaccine procurement for other countries for monetary and economic benefits?

These are some of the questions lost in the drumbeats of Vaccine Nationalism which is echoing across the continents. It's high time that concerned citizens should demand answers from their respective government to come clean on the real motive behind the call for developing a vaccine for global pandemic in a silo, when it actually needs global cooperation.

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