Covid Economics

Coronavirus has effected every nation in the world, and it is impossible to escape the economic effects it has on a nation. However, different nations have been approaching the virus using a multitude of very different strategies. To shine a light on some of these varying strategies I looked at the town of Lund in Sweden and it’s unique approach to enforcing social distancing. But has this approach been successful for Sweden?

Lund:

The Swedish city of Lund deterred crowds from celebrating the traditional Scandinavian celebration of Walpurgis Night, on the 30th of April this year, by dumping chicken manure all over it’s central park, preventing the usual crowd of 30,000 people from attending. The Chairman of the local council’s environmental committee stated “Lund could very well become an epicentre for the spread of the coronavirus on the last night in April, I think it was a good initiative. We get the opportunity to fertilise the lawns, and at the same time it will stink and so it may not be so nice to sit and drink beer in the park”

Lund houses one of Sweden’s biggest universities and many the city’s 125,000 inhabitants are students who annually gather in the park in the afternoon and evening for picnics before the Walpurgis party gets underway. Sweden has banned planned gatherings of more than 50, but asked, rather than ordered, people to observe physical distancing, avoid non-essential travel, work from home and stay indoors if they are elderly or ill. Shops, restaurants and gyms have remained open.

Has Sweden’s Policy and Strategy On Coronavirus Worked?

It would definitely be hard to claim that Sweden’s loose policies surrounding the virus have been more successful than others. More than 5,500 people have died out of a population of 10 million, one of the worst death rate to population size ratios in Europe and far worse than its’ nordic neighbours, who imposed far stricter restrictions such as lockdowns. Recently Swedens figures have began to improve but even the state epidemiologist has stated “too any have died”.

Other predicted benefits of Sweden’s policy such as herd immunity (although it was not their primary focus) have failed to come to fruition as just 6% of the population are said to have antibodies, although the true figure could prove to be much higher, as the statistic has been shown to be challenging to measure. Time will likely tell if a second wave comes later this year as temperatures drop.

It is safe to say Sweden has not been as effective as they could have been with their strategy.