• Pandemic Coronavirus: Breaking News
  • Interview. "In Sweden they told me: 'In Spain you die for living many in small flats'"

Sweden, which has attracted worldwide attention for its less stringent strategy against the coronavirus, faces an almost record number of new cases of covid-19 in the European Union (EU), but authorities say the epidemic is going slope.

Among the 27 EU member countries, Sweden stood out in the last two weeks for reaching the unwanted second place, behind Luxembourg, in the list of new cases registered per million inhabitants, according to data compiled by the agency France Presse .

Today, Sweden has a rate of new infections six times higher than the EU average , and close to that of the Balkans, the most active European focus today.

According to official estimates, almost one inhabitant of Stockholm out of five carries antibodies , a ratio higher than that of other countries, despite the fact that Sweden has always denied seeking collective immunity.

For the Public Health Agency, which directs the country's highly controversial strategy, this increase in new cases is due, above all, to the increase in the number of tests carried out.

"If you increase the number of tests, you will find more cases," epidemiologist Anders Wallensten told AFP, in a statement similar to another of Donald Trump in the United States, which was widely criticized.

But, unlike the American case, Sueca has arguments to affirm that the epidemic is not taking place in her territory. In the first place, because deaths and hospitalizations decrease ; and secondly, because the proportion of positive cases among those examined was also decreasing (from 12% in June to 6% in mid-July).

Without masks

Unlike what happened in most European countries, Sweden never confined its population and has preferred to keep schools for children under 16 open, as well as cafes and bars and restaurants.

The mask, practically invisible for months on the streets of Stockholm, was not mandatory practically in any public place.

The authorities, who banned concentrations of more than 50 people and visits to nursing homes, launched an appeal for responsibility: safety distance, strict application of hygiene rules, isolation in case of symptoms. It was not until the beginning of June that tests were started on a massive scale.

As of May 31, the country had registered 31,160 cases. As of July 15, that number had almost doubled, reaching 76,492. At the same time, the number of deaths only grew by 20%, reaching 5,572, a figure considerably higher than the balance of other Nordic countries.

Faced with this explosion of new cases, the World Health Organization ranked Sweden among the countries with "strong resurgence" of covid-19 cases in late June, a decision that the Swedish authorities criticized.

Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, the face of the Swedish strategy, then referred to a "complete misinterpretation" of the data.

The Public Health Agency has defended several times that this increase is essentially made up of mild cases, which would have previously gone unnoticed , since the tests were initially reserved for the most serious cases.

For Karin Tegmark Wisell, another person in charge of the Public Health Agency, a reduction in serious cases would be the result of a better adaptation by society to protect vulnerable people from the virus.

"People have learned to identify with the disease, to keep their distance and also to better protect at-risk groups," he told AFP.

Lack of tests

Despite strong doubts and that many countries have decided to close their doors to Swedish visitors, the Nordic country continues to defend its approach to a crisis that is predicted to be long, stressing that the brutal confinements ordered elsewhere cannot be maintained. long term.

According to Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, Sweden's mistake was perhaps not so much its policy of non-confinement as its slowness in intensifying tests.

"What is truly heartbreaking for Sweden is that it did not combine this ambitious policy with mass testing," he said, noting that the number of deaths in Sweden today is still above the European average.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Sweden
  • Coronavirus

Interview "In Sweden they told me: 'In Spain you die for living many in small flats'"

British tourists will be able to travel to Spain without quarantine on their return from July 6

InvestigationA leak from the world's largest transfusion company uncovers 36,000 mishaps in 40 countries

See links of interest

  • News
  • Programming
  • Translator
  • Calendar
  • Horoscope
  • Classification
  • League calendar
  • Films
  • Themes
  • Eibar - Real Valladolid
  • Real Madrid - Villarreal, live
  • Athletic Club - Leganés
  • Barcelona - Osasuna
  • Celta de Vigo - Levante