Now, let me explain to all of you why the Swedish government is not closing down society and quarantining people/closing of areas.
This is a little known fact outside Sweden, and it rarely comes up in the debate.
Neither the Swedish government nor the Swedish parliament has the authority to do that.
The Swedish constitution guarantees all citizens the right to free movement in peacetime, no exceptions but one, people with a dangerous contagious disease can be forcefully quarantined according to the contagious disease act. But that only applies to specific individuals.
And there is no such thing as marshal law in Sweden, not allowed by the constitution.
So, no matter how much people or other countries bitch about Swedens way of handling the crisis, nothing is going to change.
You can change the constitution, but that reacquires two parliament votes with one general election in between.
We might se a change in the wording in the constitution from just "wartime" to "war and pandemics" or something like that, but no such change has been suggested yet.
I rarely post here, but as a fellow Swede I felt I just had to respond.
First of all, I'm happy you are feeling better and I hope you make a full recovery soon.
The Swedish situation has little to do with its laws, but rather as a result of the recommendations by the Government in general, and by the FHM (The Swedish Public Health Authority) in particular, or should I rather say the lack of thereof.
Take our neighbouring countries Norway and Finland as an example. We share similar laws and we have similar traditions, ways of living etc. They have 232 respectively 297 death, compared to Sweden's 3674 death as of today. The difference is their governments has acted much more forcefully and managed to protect their elders.
The lack of testing of workers in hospital and nursing/elderly homes has made the virus spread uncontrollably among our most vulnerable people.
Myself is utterly disgusted how Swedish authorities has handled this pandemic so far.
