Thread by @chrxstxphx

As the Swedish strategy is often referenced internationally but rarely properly scrutinized, let’s have a look at the work and conclusions so far from the government-appointed Corona commission. 🧵 1/8

Two reports have been published so far and the third and final one will be published in a month on Feb 25. What did we learn from the first two? 2/8

The first report from Dec 2020 concluded that elderly care was unprepared to handle a pandemic and that “[t]he strategy did not protect the elderly” due to high prevalence of the virus from “late and sometimes insufficient decisions and measures”. government.se/legal-document… 3/8

The second report from October last year was more critical and found that the handling of the pandemic was “marked by a slowness of response” and that initial measures were “insufficient to stop or even substantially limit the spread of the virus in the country” 4/8

It also concluded that measures were mostly voluntary rather than more intrusive and that Sweden’s pandemic preparedness and existing legislation were inadequate. Disease prevention organization was fragmented and made it difficult to trace responsibility. 5/8

Health care was able to scale up by “extreme pressure on staff and of cancelled and postponed care”. Lastly it found there has been a “problematic lack of data” making pandemic monitoring and post hoc evaluation difficult. 6/8

coronakommissionen.com/wp-content/upl…

The final report will be about accountability—who knew what, when and how decisions were taken. A poignant fact here is there recently have been a bit of ruckus around the government seemingly were avoiding turning over meeting minutes to the commission. 7/8

With the conclusions so far, the commission will likely fault the government and public health agency, but any legal repercussions are unlikely. Nevertheless, it’s an important publication that can hopefully contribute to institutional improvements. 8/8