All this talk about Sweden seems to have influenced decision-making on Downing Street. A recent report in the Sunday Times suggested that Johnson chose not to impose a breaker block in September, after a meeting with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and three proponents of a collective immunity strategy: Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan of the University of Oxford and Anders Tegnell , the epidemiologist behind Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic. (When openDemocracy asked for details of Tegnell’s correspondence with the prime minister’s office, it was informed that any release could jeopardize government policy making.)
The ubiquity of opposing voices at Covid contributed to Boris Johnson’s well-documented tendency towards indecision. As anyone looking to influence the prime minister knows, when faced with a number of options, he will usually do nothing. The delay in imposing restrictions in England after the September meeting with Tegnell and company led to an estimated 1.3 million extra Covid infections.
The rhetoric surrounding the Swedish model – and collective immunity – paved the way for Britain to loosen restrictions faster than scientists, or even the public, wanted. We were even offered a financial incentive to do the one thing we’ve always known that spreads the virus: mixing in the home. The image of a maskless Rishi Sunak serving meals in a London Wagamama to launch the “eat out to help” initiative in August did not age well. (Research suggests that the scheme contributed directly to an increase in infections.)