♪♪♪ female announcer: when it comes to coronavirus, sweden does it differently. no mandatory lockdowns here. the high risk strategy centers on not doing very much at all. the goal, to minimize social and economic damage. it's controversial, but sweden's chief epidemiologist says it works. male: i think the swedish approach is at least as scientific as any country's approach.

announcer: but swedes are still dying. the virus has already killed 5,000 from a population of just 10 million. for a few days in june, sweden had one of the world's highest per capita death rates. male: i don't know what to think or what to feel. the only thing i feel right now is, of course, sorrow and sadness. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: in sweden, they sing the praises of an unlikely hero. [singing in foreign language]

announcer: anders tegnell, mild mannered chief epidemiologist, creator and driver of the national covid strategy. his regular briefings have brought in national fame and huge popularity. ♪♪♪ announcer: stockholm tattoo artist sachet testes is a big tegnell fan. sachet testes: he's kind of like the typical swede. that's probably why we like him because we can see our father and mother in his beautiful eyes. announcer: client, gustav agablad provides the canvass. gustav agablad: i want it because i think he has done a really good job in this crisis that we are experiencing. when i watch the news and he's standing there, i feel that we are in good hands. announcer: both agree anders tegnell radiates a kind of dad-like swedish cool.

gustav: he has a big dick calmness over him. he's very competent and not braggy about it. i mean, before this crisis, he was like nobody for the swedish people. now, he's a rock star. announcer: opinion polls confirm it's a sentiment shared by many swedes. most don't want a tattoo, but appreciate the tegnell approach. gustav: i want to have the free will on my own, and i really put a high price on that. to have the choice of going to the store when i want, to have the choice to work. announcer: but there's not much empathy here for the collateral damage of the swedish model, the growing numbers of corona casualties. gustav: bad luck, i guess. sorry, that sounds harsh, but i mean, i would rather have it like we have had it in sweden than having it like in poland, or in china or in lombardy in italy

where they have closed down societies almost. ♪♪♪ announcer: another day, another press conference. anders tegnell heads off to the crisis briefing center. strong local support for his radical pandemic plan doesn't translate internationally. as the death toll mounts, the stakes are getting higher. anders tegnell has recently received death threats, so now bodyguards go with him. he takes all of this in his stride. male: is there a fair amount of pressure in your daily life these days? anders tegnell: no, not that bad. male: you're one of sweden's most famous men. anders: this will pass.

male: but isn't there a certain something you like about celebrity? anders: not at all. i prefer to do my work. announcer: and his job is to stay relentlessly on message: combat covid, but keep the country running. anders: we managed to keep society fairly opened and our schools opened at least, while at the same time delivering good health service to everybody who needs that. announcer: this is not his first high pressure assignment. tegnell cut his epidemiological teeth during a deadly ebola outbreak in the democratic republic of congo in the mid-'90s. now, he has to explain to an increasingly skeptical world why, despite the growing death toll, he thinks his strategy still works. male: do you think in retrospect now that trying to stop the disease immediately would have been a wiser solution

than--or do you still believe that this long-term strategy is the way to go? anders: i mean, we basically still think that this is the right strategy for sweden that we're doing. this is a bit like having an ocean liner and try to steal it with a lag of three or four weeks. so, i think we are too early to both say that sweden was right or anybody else was right. announcer: it's a tough message to sell. sweden we have a much larger population than its neighbors, but its casualty rate has been extraordinary. unlike sweden, the other nordic countries enforced mandatory lockdowns. today, the swedes have twice as many confirmed cases as denmark, norway, and finland combined. and the fatality rate is even worse, five times as many deaths. despite this infection rate, only 7% of sweden's population has developed covid antibodies, well short of the so-called

herd immunity rate of at least 70%. that's where so many people are infected, the virus is theoretically controlled. some swedish public health experts say herd immunity was always at the heart of the national strategy, but anders tegnell denies this was ever his goal. male: and the follow up question, do you feel that sweden has become something of a sort of global punch bag and, you know, taken on by people that, you know, believe in herd immunity or believe in not having a lock down, and therefore you know that your strategy has become rather misunderstood? anders: yeah, maybe sometimes i feel like a personal punch bag, but that's okay, i can live with that. announcer: spring in stockholm. the freedoms of the pre-covid world never really

went away here. the tegnell plan relies on a national culture of individual responsibility, calling on swedes to voluntarily work from home and maintain social distancing. [children squealing] the couple mina and matthias, ensuring they and their three children stay safe means following the rules. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: but compliance now seems to be melting away with the approach of summer. [speaking in foreign language]

announcer: mina, who works as assistant director of an aged care facility, has just recovered from covid. to protect patients and staff, mina self-isolated at home when she had symptoms. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: from matthias, confirming a covid diagnosis

would've been difficult. until recently, sweden did very little community covid testing. with a nationwide shortage of kits, testing was mainly reserved for the very sick or those in high-risk occupations such as mina. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: much of sweden has stayed open for business during the pandemic. the gdp's projected to fall by 7%. that's not as bad as the uk or italy, but really no better than its nordic neighbors who did lock down. yet, mina believes the economy would've taken a bigger hit

without the swedish model. [speaking in foreign language] [singing in foreign language] announcer: many of sweden's pandemic hotspots are located in the genteel surrounds of stockholm's aged care facilities. the government did impose lockdowns on old people's homes, but now concedes the order came too late and casualties have been high. of more than 5,000 deaths nationally, 88% are over 70 years of age, many of them

in retirement villages. team leader romana wild admits it's been tough for residents and staff. [singing in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [singing in foreign language] announcer: there are 350 residents here. some have got sick and died, but no one really knows if it's due to covid because of a nationwide lack of comprehensive testing. [speaking in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language] announcer: after two months of lockdown, restrictions are being cautiously eased. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: this is the first time anika elfstrom has seen her mother lulie since march. [speaking in foreign language]

♪♪♪ announcer: anders tegnell now concedes that too many have died in aged care facilities, but insist the broader strategy is still on track. anders: the failings were--is the high death toll among the people in the long-term care facilities. and that, of course, is a big failure that we really wish we could've done something about. we are doing a lot of things now, and we see that the number of cases in those facilities all slowing falling. so, we believe that even that can be rectified and our strategy will be even more sustainable.

announcer: sweden's ethnic minorities have also been hit hard. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: mary gury's father joseph died of coronavirus the day before his 64th birthday. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: fit and active, joseph was goalkeeper on the national soccer team of his native syria before he immigrated to sweden in 1990 with his wife and three children. when the pandemic struck, he was carefully following the recommendations issued by anders tegnell and his team.

announcer: just days later, the government recommended that the maximum number for a gathering be reduced from 500 to 50, but it was too late for joseph. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: mary's family lives in stockholm's

northern suburbs. this predominantly migrant area is one of the worst hit in sweden, with infection rates up to three times higher than the rest of the stockholm region. from home to hospital to grave, a disproportionate number of victims are foreign-born, mainly somali, iraqi, and syrian. [speaking in foreign language] ♪♪♪ announcer: over the past decade, there's been a dramatic shift in sweden's demographic. a quarter of the population now has a migrant background. nuri kino: and here coming up on the right,

it's quite new syriac orthodox church. announcer: writer and activist nuri kino has focused on the pandemic's effects on his own community of christian assyrians. he blames the health authorities for misunderstanding the different social structures of migrant communities and for failing to effectively warn of the dangers. nuri: the information that came to immigrant districts or areas was delayed, confusing, and even in wrong languages. people live close to each other, and some of them have also their parents and their grandparents in their homes. we socialize differently. the culture is different to the swedish ethnocultural when it comes to social life. it's also another of the reasons why we were more affected by the

coronavirus, unfortunately. announcer: in stark contrast to confident bustling downtown stockholm, the streets in nuri's old neighborhood are now eerily quiet. nuri: so, this is ganeta, where i grew up. and if i come here, i always meet relatives and friends, children of friends. usually, there's a lot more people out their balconies. people have become aware of the situation and are more cautious because everyone here more or less know someone that has passed away. announcer: nuri's aunt recently died from the virus. nuri: that's my aunt's apartment there, the middle one, and now she's gone.

i spent so much time there, i have so many memories from that balcony. nuri: youssef. [speaking in foreign language] announcer: he watches out for older, vulnerable family members. nuri: so, this is my cousin, my oldest cousin, so he's more like an uncle. and that's my--his wife, also actually my second cousin, and she's--yeah, they're like my uncle and my aunt. [speaking in foreign language] nuri: we're very scared. [speaking in foreign language] nuri: we're, you know, in the risk groups, both of us. and we're scared that if we would get infected, we would probably not survive, we wouldn't make it.

announcer: anders tegnell admits immigrant communities should've been better protected, but says government policies are not entirely to blame for the high death toll. anders: i think one thing is that the deceased came into those communities very early on when very few people had an awareness of what was happening. and i think that's part of the reason. the other part of the reason is, of course, they are living with generations together, living fairly cramped. there is definitely a socioeconomic aspect to this disease, which can be shown in many countries. announcer: as the death toll rises, anger is growing in sweden's scientific community. twenty-two leading doctors, virologists, and researchers called for the swedish model to be replaced by the "go hard go early" pandemic responses of

other nordic countries. one of the dissidents is infectious diseases expert dr. stefan hanson. stefan hanson: i woke up in the night because i was thinking, "this is terrible, people are dying, and we are letting the infection spread." from the very start, they didn't want to--they didn't believe it was going to become an epidemic in sweden at all. so, they didn't take any measures to be prepared for an epidemic. the attitude is taking things too lightly and not causing panic. and then they also had in the back of their mind, "okay, we are going to create herd immunity, so we don't mind too much if young people are infected." the problem is that i don't see any science. there's no scientific background to this strategy.

announcer: in a migrant neighborhood, stefan hanson's team sets up shop. his clinic offers an immediate test for covid-19 antibodies, confirming they've already caught the virus. stefan: today, we are checking antibodies in a suburb of stockholm where we know there have been quite a lot of cases of corona infection. so, the people here are almost all the immigrants. this is particularly a somali area. announcer: for months, the government did very little community testing, so stefan hanson collaborates with a local university that donated these kits. stefan: swedish testing is very much behind schedule. we're actually doing this to get our own opinion and to move things, to get an idea of what is going on here.

announcer: in the eagerness to get tested, social distancing is forgotten. positive results are common. stefan: okay. [speaking in foreign language] stefan: so, the last gentleman, the somali man, he had it--he had symptoms three months ago, and he has got weak positivity. with testing automatically comes contact tracing because according to the law, it is obligatory to follow up. this has not taken place to a large extent because after stockholm saw that there was too much spread in society and they couldn't cope, they gave it up.

we are just trying to do this to be able to show that what the government and the regions are doing is not sufficient. they have to do more. announcer: there are just 24 test kits. eventually, the team has to turn people away. stefan: 3 positives today out of 24, so some 8%, 9%. we could test everybody here for sure. we could test the whole day. the government is doing nothing. they're just standing there doing nothing. ♪♪♪ announcer: all appears comfortable and relaxed in the stockholm spring sunshine. with the pandemic subsiding in the rest of scandinavia, travel restrictions are now being lifted.

but the borders with sweden remain closed due to the high ongoing infection rate here. none of this cramps the style of the class of 2020. ♪♪♪ female: whoo! announcer: it's party time, complete with traditional graduation caps. ♪♪♪ [whistle blaring] [speaking in foreign language] female: whoo! ♪♪♪ announcer: they're full of youthful confidence in the future. covid restrictions have scaled back celebrations, but life goes on thanks to anders tegnell. [singing in foreign language]

announcer: behind closed doors, the other sweden is gripped by fear and grief. community activist nuri kino has moved in with his elderly mother to support her in isolation. nuri: this is the church that i belong to, that i'm a member or my family, we are members at this church. all in all, we lost 22 people there. two deacons, relatives of mine, friends, friends' parents, just devastating. announcer: the livestream of the sunday service provides some comfort, but also emphasizes the absence of family and friends. [speaking in foreign language]

announcer: this is one community losing faith with their adopted homeland. nuri: the only thing i know is that it didn't work for the elderly and it didn't work for immigrant groups. it didn't work for foreign-born and their children and grandchildren. it's just so sad. i hope that we will learn from this. [singing in foreign language] [singing in foreign language]

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samantha hawley: it's only a jump across the water from great britain to northern ireland, but in some ways it's like traveling back in time. after more than 20 years of relative peace, tensions have broken out again. violence not seen for decades is back on the streets. northern ireland should be celebrating its centenary as part of the united kingdom, but people are angry.