When you see white, middle-class, ethnically Swedish Swedes speak in the abstract about how “it’s working,” this is one reason they can afford to be dispassionate and declare victory. The people who serve their needs are the ones dying. https://www.expressen.se/debatt/coronadoden-har-tagit-manga-av-mina-vanner/

The issues around race, background, and class aren’t represented enough here, partly because when it comes to Sweden, even normally critical journalists just accept it when Swedes state as fact that foreigners are just “bad at integrating.” It’s not questioned.

So the explanation carries over unchallenged. We foreigns just don’t understand Sweden. We just don’t try hard enough. I’m doing “migrant” on relatively easy and I’m constantly burned out from trying. Imagine the toll it takes on more visibly different people and communities.

Sweden has gotten a pass on this for so long because so many ethnically Swedish people happily leverage its benign image to control the narrative around migration and integration. That free pass has always been bad, but now it’s killing people. Please ask harder questions!

People can say “it’s working” because they can go drinking and it’s not their loved ones who are dying. Yes, shutting down won’t solve everything. But if fewer people were moving around,the bus driver or cleaner who lives with the home carer is less exposed. It’s not lack of info

It’s not lack of language, either. My Swedish stinks and I still manage to get info. In my experience, it’s other migrants, often from the suburbs, who I end up speaking Swedish with bc often they feel more comfortable w/that over English (and they aren’t dicks about my skills)

When the authorities say that the core of the strategy was to “protect the risk groups” they neglected to address that poverty is a risk factor. A lot of these people would be working even if we had a full lockdown, too. (Which is why everyone else should stay tf home!)