Hello there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Coming up in the face of

coronavirus is Sweden's refusal to lockdown its economy making any sense. Sweden has done better than

a lot of other countries. But if they took this decision solely based on caring about the health of the Swedish population,

well, then this decision has been a terrible failure.

But are the latest clues that keeping Swedish business afloat has paid off?

We've seen a big slump in the economy, no doubt.

But all I can say is that I've never seen as large proportion of companies

report better than expected profits than this time around. Swedish lessons on Business Daily from

the BBC. So this, for me, this all started at the end of January.

There was very strong advice that all the major hubs that were at least communicating with China should prepare and urgently prepare.

And Sweden was doing absolutely nothing.

This is the Swedish phyrologist Lena Einhorn, recalling how her country's health authorities became outliers in this global pandemic, refusing to take firm steps to prepare for COVID-19,

just as other European countries were being hit hard.

They very or early on took the stance that this virus only spreads when you have symptoms, because

that's how SARS spread. But that's not how it was or how it is with COVID-19. It was sort of a

feeling of almost of desperation. I mean, how long is this going to go on? When are they

going to sort of adjust to real life and what's really happening? Lena Einhorn. Well, back in March,

just as other countries were introducing total lockdowns, the Swedish government acting on the

health advice of its

senior health expert, Anders Tegnell, said no such restrictions were necessary.

And at soothing press conferences like this one, he reassured the nation that infections could be

managed.

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