I think it shouldn't be understated the significance of this. It is extremely rare for a constitutional monarch to so publicly undermine the democratically elected government. The Danish Queen and Norwegian King made speeches this Spring, where they were very careful to not undermine the government's strategy, but rather emphasis the significance of the pandemic.

Additionally, in Sweden, it is has become pretty recognisable by all that the Swedish approach has failed, but no one is willing to take the blame. The King effectively cuts through all this, and says the blame lies squarely with Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.

In political terms, I wonder how long Löfven's government will last.

It does not surprise me that this approach has failed.

Folks don't mask up and, also, do not keep the distance as required. Visit a supermarket, metro or restaurants (yes, restaurants are open!) and you won't see anyone using masks or distancing.

Anecdotally my wifes work place only started WFH recommendations once 6 people got infected. On industries such as software almost everyone I know has been WFH since February but many folks insist in going to the office.

On the beginning of the pandemic retirement homes were badly hit which would lead you to think the government would learn something. It did not happen and lots of places are being reinfected.

Recent news headlines to keep in mind:

-Gov is thinking in requesting private practice nurses to help with the load on public hospitals

-Talk of neighboring countries "sharing the burden"

-Elder care not well equipped to deal with this wave

-ICU occupancy reaching 99% in Stockholm

It may be unpopular, but strict lockdowns are untenable in the long term. Living locked down is no life at all, it's just survival.

And I'd rather take my chances if the alternative is perpetual stay at home orders (I'm from Argentina, we spent 9 months in strict lockdown).

At this point, even if the government asks for another lockdown, people are not going to listen.

Everyone completely lost the point of lockdowns, which is to simply severely limit the spread of the disease until health care system is reorganized to face the challenge. If your hospitals can accept patients and nobody is left outside to die on their own, because there's no capacity in country, then by no means you can say that you failed.

It's absolute insanity to throw your country in the pit of perpetual isolation in order to "save everyone." You can't save everyone even if you home-jail 100% of the population. The virus will not magically disappear no matter what you do, especially when it's do contagious.

This guy is being a populist just like anyone else nowadays. Say and do whatever nets you more upvotes.

According to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Sweden is the 24th country for deaths per million.

They're better off than some countries with strict lockdowns like France, Italy etc

I saw a picture of people in a subway car in Stockholm earlier this month and 90% were maskless. The no-lockdown approach shows a fundamental lack of seriousness that filters down to everyone. In the United States we see this phenomenon just as clearly in Republican-led states.

Not only is it probably too early to judge any country's response properly, I wonder how far his expertise, or even just his reasoning, enables him to make a judgement worth listening to.

It's worth keeping in mind that the BBC likes to play the journalistic game of "holding the government to account", which really means they will support a kind of response (lockdowns) tacitly while criticising the government for any piece of bad news (because they didn't lockdown / didn't lockdown fast enough / hard enough) while also engaging in the kind of general doom-mongering that does nothing to inform or educate. Like much of a UK media that shares its outlook, there's been nigh on 6 months of articles looking for any sign that Sweden's largely voluntary strategy will or has failed, as Spiked noted[0]… oh, 6 months ago in May, so it seems it's been longer than 6 months.

For a far more balanced view of Sweden's response, I recommend this article[1] in the Spectator. I suspect I'll have to wait another 6 months until the sun is back out for another of its ilk.

[0] https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/28/why-they-hate-swede...

[1] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-sweden

I don't see how the Swedish king's opinion on this has any more weight than asking a random person on the street.

I just want to highlight the fact that our beloved King made this comment after Mats Melin, leader of the corona commission[1], said that we have failed protecting our elderly which was top priority [2]. The reason for this according to Mats, is because institutional and structural flaws in our geriatric care system. These flaws made it impossible to prepare and manage the pandemic. In addition to these flaws, Mats also says that counter measures set in place during the year was either too late or too little. Furthermore, Mats says very clearly and explicitly that the responsibility of the institutional and structural flaws in our geriatric care is shared between the government, administrative authorities (gov. agencies), counties and private sector. Even so, the current government (and previous governments) has been well aware of the flaws and the utmost responsibility lies with them.

I believe more could have been done, but solely blaming our prime minister is just irrational. For example, the local government in the three biggest regions, Skåne Stockholm and Västra Götaland, made the decision to cut down on the items in their pandemic storage area[3]. Guess what happened when nurses and doctors were asking for more supplies.

There are of course other instances where politicians prioritized money over health, which had a negative impact on people's lives, which covid-19 only made worse.

Also, it's my opinion that people in Sweden have largely ignored the restrictions. I base this on the fact that walking to the store to buy food, I'm the only one wearing a mask and trying to keep a distance. Friends and colleagues report the same. The fact that IKEA (where I live) was packed with people suggest that people don't care.

[1] https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2020/06/mats-meli...

[2] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/coronakommissionen-missly...

[3] https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&arti...

Sweden turns out quite strange of a country for the 21st century, reminds me of the USSR in late 80s:

- The situation is bad, real bad, but no one publicly acknowledges that;

- The government, instead of taking unpopular and painful but needed steps to try and handle the problem, makes itself "don't see any problem, our people are happy";

- By all European standards the policy is a mistake, but no one in office steps forward and says so, they rather play to the tune of "we can't see any problem, public opinion of the government is quite high". Kinda of asking to play louder the band on the Titanic.

- Swedes keep on "trusting the government to do what they do as they know better", while it is unclear on what their trust is based.

- To outsiders, this attitude of all sides involved sort of means "we accepted 'the devil take the hindmost' philosophy as we want to keep our daily happy about routine unchanged, so be it". Again, as I said - typical thinking of USSR of 80s. It didn't end well.

Why there is no lockdown in Sweden? One of the reasons is how legislation works in Sweden:

"Sweden cannot legally declare a full state of emergency to deal with corona, says an expert in constitutional law - and right now Sweden can't declare a lockdown and confine people to their homes either, as has been done in Britain, France, Spain and other countries.

Tormod Otter Johansen is a researcher in public law at Gothenburg University, he says, however, that legislation introducing the possibility of wider lockdowns could be introduced very quickly, as the government has shown over the past few weeks with other legislation to deal with the effect of the coronavirus."

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7454661

So, it is possible to change the legislation to enable the goverment to call for lockdowns, but it needs some more steps than in other countries.

The current main criticism, thou, relates to eldery care: "Corona commission criticises government over elderly care" https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1625475

The current recomendations can be found here: https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disaster...

"Influencer says"...

I don't get the criticism of the guidance being "voluntary". The bigger question is more in compliance, no?

That is, if they have compliance rates that are comparable to the countries that do have legal recourse, do we have reason to think legal recourse would have gotten them better compliance?