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Sweden’s failed COVID strategy leaves the country deeply divided

The Swedish model became a symbol for anti-lockdown and no-mask movements across the world. But it is no longer a source of consensus at home

Sweden’s failed COVID strategy leaves the country deeply divided
Sweden continues to battle the new, more contagious COVID-19 strain, February 2021 | Wei Xuechao/PA. All rights reserved.
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Sweden, a bastion of welfare and one of the countries that scores highest on pretty much anything to do with the wellbeing of its inhabitants, seems to have woken up to a serious identity crisis.

The choice to adopt and follow a COVID-19 strategy unlike any other in Europe has recently led to an extreme polarization in an otherwise rather homogenous public debate.

Statistics prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the other Scandinavian countries, which enforced much stricter policies, have suffered considerably fewer losses.