Today Parliament reconvenes. Thank goodness for that but, and there is a big but, it’s in virtual form. MPs are to get together remotely and are told to stay at home. It is the best we can do under the circumstances. We shall have to see how it works out.
I telephoned my old Army buddy Michael Hazlewood yesterday. He lives in Sweden, 40 minutes or so from Stockholm. I asked him how things were going there; mindful that Sweden is in what some might call as lockdown- very light.
Michael said that things were much as normal with sensible precautions. He told me that he and Carina, his wife, still visit friends but they are careful. Swedes customarily greet one another with a hug. They don’t do that for the moment and they sit a wee bit apart. Cheshire Regiment readers of this post will know Michael’s lifelong passion is throwing a javelin and, despite being far too old for it (!), he still goes frequently to the local athletics track and hurls his spear – and, for that matter the discus and shot! He told me that he just keeps away from people when at the track. It seems life in Sweden is not too severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
That is because Sweden has not followed other European countries in so far as it has not been draconian in the way it has directed its citizens. True gatherings of more than 50 people are banned and sports events as well as cinemas are closed but children are still going to school and restaurants are still open with some social distancing rules applied. People can also linger in parks – provided they maintain that 2-metre gap. Workers can also go to work. The Swedish economy is not in standstill.
The Swedish Government has followed the medical/scientific advice of Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s State Epidemiologist. He proposed the Lockdown-very light approach and the Government accepted it.
But many in Sweden are now questioning that decision. As of last Monday Sweden, had lost 1,540 people to Coronavirus whereas equivalent figures in Nordic neighbours was as follows; Norway 165, Finland 94 and Denmark 355 deaths. Put in a more understandable way, for each one million of population the Nordic countries had death rates as follows: Sweden 154, Norway 31, Finland 17 and Denmark 61 per million. Norway, Finland and Denmark are in strict lockdown and Sweden is not. Sweden has got it wrong? The facts speak for themselves – or do they?
Now look at other European countries further South. Per million of population we in the UK have a death rate of 241, then France 294, Germany 55, Italy 392, Spain 425 and worst of all Belgium with 495 people dead from COVID-19. Like us the other European countries I mentioned are also in strict lockdown too. The German figure really does buck the trend too. So, things may not be as they seem and the facts may not speak for themselves.
I think the leaders of every European country have based their Coronavirus policies on medical science. We all understand why they did that because they had no choice. How could they disagree with their country’s top experts in the epidemiological field?
However, it does seem there are quite a few differing experts as well as sciences around. In the UK the Government took great heed of the suggested way ahead emanating from specialist modelling out of Imperial College, London but Oxford University specialists have been putting out a different scenario based on their own, somewhat different modelling. As I know, from my military days, results from modelling are hugely dependent on the assumptions fed into them.
Our own Government was shocked by Professor Ferguson’s Imperial College paper of 16 March which warned that unless we went rapidly into lockdown the population could be decimated. The result was a U-turn; away from the lockdown-very light being adopted in Sweden to the severe conditions we have today.
Sweden’s approach posits that we will have coronavirus amongst us forever and we need to build immunity to it. Tegnell suggests that Sweden’s rather higher death rate compared with its neighbours will, in the long run, be less than others because his own country’s men and women will be hardened against coronavirus quicker. The Swedish approach seems to be to take it on the chin in the hope that it will be largely over thereafter and immunity would come faster. On Norwegian television a week or so ago Tegnell stated that about 10-30 per cent of Stockholm’s population may already have had COVID-19 and been unaware of it. He maintains that by mid-May the Capital of Sweden could have considerable protection from Coronavirus – what some call herd immunity.
I gather that approach was close to our own Government’s position until the Imperial College paper of 16 March put the frights under it. That is no criticism. If I was in the Government, I would have made exactly the same decision on a change of approach.
Of course, the Government must opt for safety and follow what it perceives to be the finest professional medical judgement in the country. We chose one option, Lockdown - along with every other European country. Sweden selected another option, Lockdown-very light. Each countries’ individual decision was based on what it felt to be the best medical science it had available.
In truth though, we are unlikely to know, until the virus has run its course, what option would have been the right one.