Good Covid-19 news from Italy and Sweden

The lifting of Covid-19 lockdowns around the world was never going to be easy. But as infections are flaring up from Spain to Australia, it’s worth noting that two of the hardest-hit countries at the pandemic’s peak — Italy and Sweden — are keeping the virus’s spread under control.
Daily confirmed cases in both nations are now averaging at around 200 each, well below their respective peaks, with no rebound in sight and no strain on hospitals. By contrast, the daily case count in Spain rose past 2,000 last week and France’s surpassed 1,000. This is by no means a second wave, but it’s worth asking what Italy and Sweden might be doing differently to manage the virus.
These countries once stood out for the wrong reasons. Italy was the first European country hit by a Covid-19 surge and the first to
impose a draconian lockdown. Sweden took a more liberal and controversial approach — at odds even with other Nordic countries — that kept schools open and broadly stuck to recommendations on social distancing and self-isolation rather than forced quarantine.
While Italy’s lockdown arguably saved lives, it came late. Sweden’s, meanwhile, never came at all. On a per-capita basis, Italy’s death toll of more than 35,154 comes to about 600 per 1 million people, as does Sweden’s 5,743.
Still, in the current post-peak phase, with Italy gradually reopening its economy and Sweden maintaining its policy, both countries seem to have found their stride in living with the virus.
In Italy, top-down, public-health management of life after lockdown seems to be winning the day. As in other countries, social-distancing rules require people to keep one metre (3.3 feet) apart and to wear face masks in public indoor spaces or on public transit, but there’s a particularly high level of enforcement and rigour.
Taking a train or going into an office building in Italy involves having your temperature checked. Going out to dinner means giving the restaurant your full contact details to ensure a potential infection transmission can be traced. Special forms must be filled in for access to tourist hot spots like Sardinia, Sicily and Puglia. In the northern region of Lombardy, the country’s original epicenter, masks have even been required outdoors. Breaking Covid-19 quarantine is a crime nationwide, with possible sanctions including fines or jail time. The effectiveness of these rules is a testament to people’s willingness and ability to follow them, says Rosanna Tarricone, associate professor in healthcare management at Bocconi University.
Memories of the harrowing scenes as hospitals were overloaded with Covid-19 patients are also a motivator. There’s a feeling of collective responsibility mixed in with fear. If the lesson from Italy is that bureaucracy, enforcement and obedience are key to controlling Covid-19 outbreaks, Sweden appears contradictory at first glance. After much hesitation and questioning of its hands-off approach, especially after a grim death toll in nursing homes and a continued rise in infections in June, the country has stuck to it.

—Bloomberg