Har pandemin tagit knäcken på svensk tillit och sammanhållning i samhället? Det verkar inte så, enligt två nya studier.

Ur abstract till studien "Impact of COVID-19 on Neighborhood Social Support and Social Interactions in Umeå Municipality, Sweden" av Liv Zetterberg m fl:

We asked whether neighbors talk to, care for, and help each other, before and during the Covid crisis. Individuals rated their health as poor or good. We compared people’s self-rated health and their perceptions about their neighborhoods between those who lived in high or low/medium social capital neighborhoods. Before the pandemic, participants in high social capital neighborhoods reported more active neighborhood interaction and support. During the crisis, social interaction and support increased in all neighborhoods, but more in high social capital neighborhoods. Overall, people seemed to help and care for each other more during than before the crisis.

En annan studie (som jag nämnt tidigare) är "How the coronavirus crisis affects citizen trust in institutions and in unknown others: Evidence from ‘the Swedish experiment’" av Peter Esaiasson m fl (2020) gjord med hjälp av medborgarpanelen:

We find support for the view that the corona crisis led to higher levels of institutional and interpersonal trust. Moreover, reactions were largely homogeneous across those groups that could potentially relate distantly to government authorities.

Uppdatering: Jämfört med Danmark tycks dock svensk tillit till regering och folkhälsomyndigheter vara med ideologiskt polariserad, visar Johannes Lindvall och Julie Hassing Nielsen i studien "Trust in government in Sweden and Denmark during the COVID-19 epidemic":

Using three original representative surveys conducted in Sweden and Denmark between late March and late June, 2020, this article answers these questions. It finds that Danes consistently trusted their government and health authorities more than the Swedes did. While Swedish trust was politicized and shaped by ideology from the onset of the pandemic, this only later became the case in Denmark.