It certainly isn’t total. You could safely characterise it as high, but there is a lot of unease here about the approach the authorities are taking, and the press have been vilifying the chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell in particular. It doesn’t help that he’s something of a hapless character who seems to make a habit of misquoting figures and appearing to be a week behind the news.
In the daily press briefings they have explained what they are trying to achieve is not exactly full “herd immunity” where the virus is allowed to ravage unabated through the country until over half the population achieves immunity, but rather a somewhat smaller step in that direction, by allowing some to be ill (at a manageable rate) so as to get a degree of that “herd immunity”. It’s an important distinction and the key point is the reason they are doing this is because they anticipate that after this first outbreak settles down through the summer, the virus will return in autumn and at that point, the extent to which there is “herd immunity”, or let’s say the number of people who have recovered from the virus, becomes highly significant in determining how high the peak infection rate becomes (and thus the death rate).
It’s unsurprising the Swedes are ploughing their own path and pursuing a different path to most other countries - they take pride in this kind of approach in many spheres of society. To an outsider it’s easy to say it seems the Swedes have got it wrong, but we will only know this for sure in retrospect. Do I feel safe living here through this period? Yes, but I’m staying home for the next couple of months at least and only sending the wife out for shopping. Most swedes do appear to be underestimating the threat to themselves, reassured as they are by the toothless measures in place.
As
elbows noted above, they’ve just reduced the mass gatherings limit to 50, but it doesn’t apply to schools, workplaces, stores, gyms or transportation hubs (railway, bus or coach stations). Bonkers if you ask me!
