STOCKHOLM -- When the coronavirus swept into Scandinavian countries, Norway and Denmark scrambled to place extensive restrictions on their borders to stem the outbreak. Sweden, their neighbor, took a decidedly different path.
While Denmark and Norway closed their borders, restaurants and ski slopes and told all students to stay home this month, Sweden shut only its high schools and colleges, kept its preschools, grade schools, pubs, restaurants and borders open -- and put no limits on the slopes.
In fact, Sweden has stayed open for business while other nations beyond Scandinavia have attacked the outbreak with various measures ambitious in scope and reach. Sweden's approach has raised questions about whether it's gambling with a pandemic, covid-19, that has no cure or vaccine, or if its tactic will be seen as a savvy strategy to fight a scourge that has laid waste to millions of jobs and prompted global lockdowns unprecedented in peacetime.
By Saturday, Norway, population 5.3 million, had more than 3,980 coronavirus cases and 22 deaths; Denmark, population 5.6 million, reported 2,360 cases and 65 deaths; Sweden, with 10.12 million people, recorded more than 3,440 cases and 105 deaths.
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A recent headline in the Danish newspaper Politiken encapsulates the question ricocheting around Europe, "Doesn't Sweden take the corona crisis seriously?"
There is no evidence that Swedes are underplaying the enormity of the disease rampaging across the globe. The country's leader and health officials have stressed hand-washing, social-distancing and protecting people older than 70 by limiting contact with them.
But peer into any cafe in the capital, Stockholm, and groups of two or more people can be seen casually dining and enjoying cappuccinos. Playgrounds are full of running, screaming children. Restaurants, gyms, malls and ski slopes have thinned out but are still in use.
The state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, said Sweden's strategy is based on science and boiled down to this: "We are trying to slow the spread enough so that we can deal with the patients coming in."
Sweden's approach appeals to the public's self-restraint and sense of responsibility, Tegnell said.
"That's the way we work in Sweden. Our whole system for communicable disease control is based on voluntary action. The immunization system is completely voluntary, and there is 98% coverage," he said.
"You give them the option to do what is best in their lives," he added. "That works very well, according to our experience."
Sweden's method flies in the face of most other nations' stricter strategies.
Still, while Sweden may appear to be an outlier in Scandinavia and in much of the wider world, it is too soon to say whether its approach will yield the same results as that of other countries.
And Swedish authorities could still take stronger action as coronavirus hospitalizations rise.
In explaining Sweden's current strategy, experts point to other underlying factors: The country has high levels of trust, says historian Lars Tragardh, and a strict law in the constitution prohibits the government from meddling in the affairs of the administrative authorities, such as the public-health agency.
"Therefore, you don't need to micromanage or control behavior at a detailed level through prohibitions or threat of sanctions or fines or imprisonment," Tragardh said. "That is how Sweden stands apart, even from Denmark and Norway."
The government has deferred to the agency's recommendations to fight the virus, which had infected almost 650,000 people and killed more than 30,000 worldwide by Saturday. If the health agency were to say that closing borders and shutting down all of society was the best way to go, the government would most likely listen.
Tragardh said Swedes' level of trust was manifested in other ways: Not only do citizens have confidence in public institutions and governmental agencies and vice versa, but there is high social trust among citizens as well.
Sweden initially banned gatherings of 500.
Early in the outbreak, some event organizers suggested they would try to get around the crowd limit by allowing precisely 499 ticket holders into their venues. (That stopped when cases of covid-19 were confirmed among staff members.)
Tegnell, the state epidemiologist, said that is why bans don't work: "People find ways around the rules."
He also said he did not believe Sweden was a maverick and did not understand neighbors' strategy.
"Closing borders at this stage of the pandemic, when almost all countries have cases, to me does not really make sense," he said.
"This is not a disease that is going to go away in the short term or long term. We are not in the containment phase. We are in the mitigation phase."
A majority of Swedes, 52%, support the measures to contain the virus, according to a survey conducted by the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and published Tuesday.
But 14% said that too little consideration was being given to public health in order to benefit the economy.
A Section on 03/29/2020