Overview

In this article, the authors seek to explain the difference between Sweden's official policy on the Covid-19 pandemic and the theories of the society of risk and governance. The approach focuses on the governance of the pandemic and the resulting exercise of power. The policy followed, based on the full autonomy of public health specialists, is based on the responsibility of citizens and an individual logic. While in the 2009 avian flu pandemic (H1N1) Sweden acted entirely on the precautionary principle, especially in the process of mass vaccination of the population, in the COVID-19 pandemic, for the very reason that there was no vaccine, health policy abandoned any precautionary perspective.

Does not the difference in public policy in Sweden, emphasising an ethic of individualisation, reinforce the weight of structural inequalities? Using the concept of intersectional vulnerability Katarina Nygren and Anna Olofsson show how mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic is overrepresented in immigrant and refugee groups and older people.