ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Swedish COVID-19 strategy and investigates how the protection of vulnerable groups was framed, represented and understood within it. By discussing how problems are represented in policy, it shows how health, illness and risk management are shaped by political and economic forces, and illustrates how health policy may lead to the reproduction of social inequities. We argue that the notion of individual responsibility in managing COVID-19 risk and some vulnerable groups’ inability to adhere to restrictions may stigmatise and marginalise those groups. In discussing Sweden’s approaches to protecting socially and biomedically vulnerable groups, we consider the consequences of these strategies, and we look at access to social protection, the role of social groups and powerful economic forces in public policy, and the negative consequences of a narrow evidence-based approach. We conclude that a more holistic policy approach, cognisant of social vulnerabilities and structural inequities, could have led to a more informed strategy for protecting vulnerable social groups.
