Sweden's government has tried a risky coronavirus strategy. It could backfire.


Where government restrictions are lax, residents adopt social distancing measures voluntarily to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Sweden, the trust between much of the country’s population and a public health system disinclined to advise for long-term shutdowns at the national level has left residents and businesses to enact social distancing and sheltering measures more gradually. In the long-term, there appears to be a relationship between Sweden’s relatively higher caseload and voluntary containment policies when compared to its neighbors.

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