The refusal of Sweden’s Social Democrat/Green government to impose lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus has won widespread praise in international media. But with a population of just 10 million, Sweden’s death toll is more than three times the combined fatalities in Denmark, Finland, and Norway, which together have more than 16 million inhabitants. Of the more than 3,300 deaths reported to date, half have been care home residents; another quarter received care at home. The virus has run rampant in care homes above all due to inadequate protective equipment and the precarious nature of care-sector jobs. As a consequence of privatisation policies supported by the entire political establishment in Sweden since the 1990s, private providers have made vast sums out of elderly care, while staff lack job protection and adequate equipment. Reports have emerged of care workers with symptoms continuing to work for fear of losing their jobs and their income.
Strong evidence suggests that the authorities are refusing anyone over the age of 80 intensive care treatment in the Stockholm region, home to about half of all Sweden’s cases. According to German public broadcaster NDR, less than 1 percent of all coronavirus patients aged 80 or over—just 50 from over 5,200 received intensive care treatment. By contrast, the same figure for patients in that age group in Germany was 12 percent, according to an analysis based on a smaller group of patients conducted by the Robert Koch Institute.