Sweden acted too slowly as pandemic swept country, commission finds

STOCKHOLM: Sweden's response to the spread of coronavirus was too slow and preparations to handle a pandemic were insufficient, a commission investigating the country's response to COVID-19 said on Friday.

Sweden's early strategy, shunning lockdowns and measures such as face masks and only gradually tightening curbs, made the country an outlier in the first year of the pandemic when many countries across Europe chose to implement tougher restrictions.

The commission said it would address Sweden's no-lockdown strategy in its final report, but that its preliminary findings showed that measures were introduced late both in relation to the country's Nordic neighbours and the spread of the virus in Sweden during the spring of 2020.