Covid-19 is scrambling Scandinavian stereotypes

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IN THE TELEVISION series “The Bridge”, a Danish and a Swedish detective must collaborate when a body is found on the Oresund bridge between the two countries. The series was an international hit, but few foreign viewers recognised that the cops embody Danish and Swedish stereotypes of each other. The wisecracking, chain-smoking Copenhagen detective hews to the Swedish view of Danes as jolly, messy and unreliable. His counterpart in Malmo seems to have Asperger’s syndrome; the joke is that to Danes, her obsessive literalism and emotion-free sex life simply look like an acute case of Swedishness.

Covid-19 has scrambled these stereotypes. Denmark implemented a meticulous lockdown. Sweden has taken a uniquely laid-back approach, keeping schools and restaurants open. Its infection and death rates are now far above its neighbours’. As a result, when Denmark, Norway and Finland opened their borders to each others’ tourists on June 15th, they kept them closed to Swedes. Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann...