Norway has fared better during the corona pandemic with 265 deaths compared with 5,851 in Sweden.

According to Frode Forland, head of infection control in Norway, the explanation is the rapid closure of society in March.

A rapid closure meant fewer infections in the community, and thus reduced the risk that the coronavirus would reach the elderly and risk groups, according to Forland.

"Too early to compare"

But according to state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, it is too early to compare Norway and Sweden.

- We still insist that this is a very complex situation and there are many reasons why it differs so much between Sweden and Norway.

Anders Tegnell does not want to review the Norwegian efforts against covid-19.

- I do not think I should in any way review the Norwegian initiatives, but based on the assessment of the Swedish initiatives, we can be clear that we do not believe that a shutdown would have affected the spread of infection in nursing homes, says Anders Tegnell.

"Comparable to Holland"

Yesterday you said that Sweden's high death toll in relation to, for example, Norway could be due to how hard the flu has hit the countries in previous years.

It rejects many experts including Fore Forland, do you stick to what you said?

- This was from an article that was published recently where they pointed out 15 different reasons why Sweden's death toll looks higher than in some other countries.

- They are very comparable to, for example, Holland, which seems to have a pandemic that is very similar to ours, which does not resemble the Norwegian development.

There were also major shutdowns, so I really think we should wait before we do major evaluations and comparisons with different countries.

And if this article was wrong, it should be discussed with the article authors.

"Better conditions"

Anders Tegnell also gives his forecast for the autumn and does not believe that the increase will be equivalent to the one that occurred earlier in the spring.

- No, we have so much better conditions to cope with an increase, we have testing on site, we have a healthcare system that works well, we have the opportunity to trace infections, he says.