“Smooth” Sweden makes corona twist: “We should have done more” | Abroad

Sweden had a different approach than many other countries in Europe. This kept all schools, catering establishments and shops open. However, people had to keep 1.5 meters apart on the street. People older than 70 years and people in the risk group were asked to do social distancing.

The lax approach to controlling the virus has received both praise and outrage. In any case, the strategy has had a negative effect on the number of deaths in the country.

The death toll in Sweden has now risen to more than 4,400. The number of infections is close to 40,000. About half of the dead lived in a care home. Sweden is in the top five countries with the highest number of deaths against the population.

High mortality

With 43 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, Sweden’s death rate is among the highest worldwide and far above that of neighboring Denmark and Norway, which imposed much stricter corona measures at the onset of the pandemic.

Now Tegnell has publicly admitted for the first time that the strategy leads to too many deaths. Given the height of mortality, he acknowledges that the country should have opted for a stricter approach. “We still don’t know exactly which measures are effective to flatten the contamination curve,” said Tegnell. “Many other countries have taken a large package of measures at once. We have tackled it in smaller steps. Now that we are going to relax measures, we can learn by monitoring what works and what doesn’t. ”

Sweden will start research before the summer on how to tackle the corona virus in the country. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven announced this in an interview with the newspaper Aftonbladet on Monday.

“We need to look broadly and see how the approach has worked at national, regional and local level,” said Lofven. “The commission will be appointed before the summer.”

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