STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s centre-left government failed in several aspects of its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country’s parliament constitutional committee said on Thursday.
The committee said poor testing, insufficient protection of the elderly and a lack of clear responsibility were among the areas where the government had failed. The committee did not weigh in on Sweden’s controversial no-lockdown strategy.
“The government has failed in its handling of the pandemic, and that is serious,” MP Karin Enstrom of the opposition right-wing Moderates told a hearing.
Sweden has been an outlier in the fight against the pandemic and has opted against lockdowns, instead relying on mostly voluntary measures. The death toll has been higher than in other Nordic countries but lower than in most European countries that opted for lockdowns.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson; editing by Niklas Pollard)
