The university said it would pay for the settlements through a combination of insurance, risk financing and capital bond proceeds.

"I want to make sure we start to put feet on the ground now. And I want to see resources targeted to this epidemic now," the state's Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Wednesday.

The 27-hospital system spread out across Wisconsin and Illinois allegedly leveraged its market power to force self-insured employers into contracts that prevented them from steering patients to lower-cost competitors.

For most of the pandemic, Sweden stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response. It never went into lockdown or closed businesses, largely relying instead on individual responsibility.