While in Belgium there is talk of a second wave and the corona measures have been tightened up again, the number of new infections and deaths in Sweden continues to decline. However, the country received a lot of criticism during the first wave, because of the ‘liberal’ approach compared to other countries. “In many ways, the voluntary measures we have taken in Sweden are just as effective as full lockdowns in other countries”, says the Swedish epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
Almost all of Europe took far-reaching measures when the corona pandemic broke out. However, Sweden never went into ‘lockdown’. They opted for a loose approach, whereby the economy and society just kept running. Most of the measures were ‘voluntary’. So they appealed to the sense of responsibility of the population. There was a lot of criticism of the country from the rest of Europe. For example, the neighboring countries closed the borders with Sweden.
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Sweden, which never had lockdown, sees COVID-19 cases plummet as rest of Europe suffers spike https://t.co/MIBOxRdPr5
— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) July 31, 2020
Sweden is now doing better in just about all indicators
While a second wave is spoken of in many European countries, including Belgium, the corona curve in Sweden continues to show a downward trend for just about all indicators. For example, the number of new infections per 100,000 people in Sweden has decreased by 46 percent in the past two weeks, compared to the previous 14 days. In Belgium, that figure increased by 150 percent.
The number of deaths per 100,000 persons is 56.4 in Sweden. In Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom – countries that all experienced extensive lockdown – these figures are 60.88, 58.16 and 69.6 respectively. In Belgium, the mortality rate is no less than 86.19 per 100,000 people.
In terms of the number of deaths in relation to the total number of cases, Sweden is doing much better than our country. The figure in Sweden is 7.1 percent. That is almost double that of the United Kingdom (15.1 percent), Belgium and Italy (14.2 percent) and France (13.4 percent).
“Our measures were as effective as the full lockdowns”
“We have much less movement in society. We have compared how much we travel in Scandinavian countries, and the decrease in the number of trips is the same in Sweden as in neighboring countries. In many ways, the voluntary measures we have taken in Sweden are just as effective as full lockdowns in other countries. ”, says the Swedish epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
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