The question of whether mouth protection should be mandatory or not in, for example, public transport is one of the most debated in Sweden.

The number of countries recommending or requiring citizens to wear mouth guards has increased from ten countries in mid-March to 130 countries now. It claims the organization # masks4all, which consists of researchers, infection control experts and entrepreneurs around the world.

"Introduced as a complement"

Among the countries that have introduced varying requirements are France, the United Kingdom and Italy, while our neighboring countries Norway and Finland have no requirements. The Swedish Public Health Agency also adheres to its line.

- The countries that have done it have above all done it as a complement to a lot of other measures. It has been concluded that in certain situations it is not possible to keep your distance because you have such a narrow public transport. Then they wanted to supplement with mouth guards. In Sweden, we do not have that situation, but we still believe that we can keep our distance, says state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.

In some areas, however, there are requirements, for example, mouth guards are mandatory on most flights. The EU's infection control authority ECDC has now introduced the recommendation that mouth guards should also be used in rail traffic.

But both the government and the Swedish train companies say that they comply with the Swedish Public Health Agency's recommendations.

SJ follows the recommendations

The Swedish train operator MTRX offers free mouth protection to its passengers, but SJ makes no demands.

- We continue to follow the Public Health Agency's recommendations. On the trains where we have seat reservations, the probability is quite high that you can keep your distance, but we can never guarantee that. We will never be able to do that, says Tobbe Lundell, press manager at SJ.

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser. We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support

Hear SJ's press manager, Tobbe Lundell, explain why SJ does not require mouth guards on trains. Photo: SVT.

- If the Swedish Public Health Agency changes its instructions, we will of course act. We are prepared for that.