The New York Times has another story about Sweden’s response to Covid-19, pointing out that its decision not to shut down as thoroughly as Norway, Finland and Denmark has not spared it from the economic downturn of other countries even as it has suffered deaths between six and twelve times those of its neighbors. In Sweden, the overwhelming majority of deaths from Covid-19 have been among people over the age of 70. I have seen responses to criticism of Sweden that claim that the difference in mortality can be almost entirely explained by the higher density of senior care facilities in Sweden, which meant that once the virus got in, it could infect a larger number of seniors.
Swedes now generally admit that the country needs to do a better job of protecting the elderly, but the problem is not only a failure to test and provide protective gear to nursing home employees and residents. It is also the result of a more systemic failure to give all nursing home workers the rights that other employees in Sweden take for granted. A survey of senior housing residents in the Stockholm region found that a majority of those in facilities that had been struck by Covid-19 reported that at least 30% of the staff were hired on an hourly basis. Since hourly workers don’t have paid sick leave, it is not surprising that almost 20% of the workers said they had gone to work even though they had symptoms.
The difference in the U.S. is that there are even more workers who don’t have the option of taking sick leave. This is especially true of people who are now called essential workers. Our church congregation lost over 40 people not because we were holding in person service, which stopped in mid-March, but because so many of our Spanish-speaking members were essential workers, often undocumented, who could not qualify for unemployment and had to keep working in order to eat.
As many have observed, the pandemic is laying bare the contradictions of capitalism. This is especially true in the US, but it also applies even in social welfare states like Sweden.