At the turn of the month, the coronary restrictions in Sweden will be lifted.

Then it will once again be free for crowded audience events and a life without pandemic restrictions.

To date, over seven million people in the country aged 16 and over have received a first vaccine dose.

And the proportion of fully vaccinated amounts to just over 6.2 million, according to the Public Health Agency's official statistics.

But in the international ranking, Sweden is behind.

According to recent figures from Our World in Data, OWD, Sweden ranks 15th among countries in Europe in terms of the number of fully vaccinated inhabitants.

In Malta and Portugal, more than 80 per cent of the inhabitants are fully vaccinated, which can be compared with 60.31 per cent of Sweden's inhabitants over the age of 18.

- Some countries are now withdrawing.

Now it is not a competition, but it is very true that there are a number of countries that have also traditionally been more hesitant about vaccinations that are climbing upwards, says Sweden's vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström to SVT News.

- We saw a very clear push this summer where countries like Portugal, Spain and France really accelerated.

All of a sudden, there was a huge demand.

We have not really seen that ride in Sweden, he says.

The delta variant hit hard

According to Bergström, there are several explanations for Sweden being left out.

Despite a generally high vaccine willingness among the inhabitants, it has recently been even stronger in other countries, he says.

This can be explained, among other things, by the introduction of vaccine passes, hard lockdowns and a desire to be able to live normally again, according to Bergström.

- Many countries have suffered significantly worse shutdowns than we have done.

You also have the delta variant which has hit very hard against certain countries such as Spain, Portugal and France.

And then in some countries you have the tourism industry that you depend on.

For those reasons, it was a boost for those countries, says Richard Bergström.

"Created a dynamic"

According to SVT's European correspondent Christoffer Wendick, there are other explanations than the tourism industry when it comes to the vaccine willingness in countries such as Portugal and Spain.

- If you look at Portugal, which started very weakly when the vaccine arrived this spring, but which is now a European leader, it largely depends on the person who leads the entire vaccination campaign.

He is perceived as a very credible person by the Portuguese, says Christoffer Wendick.

In neighboring Spain, one of the explanations, according to Wendick, is that confidence in health care is very high.

- There is also no strong group that is opposed to vaccines, as we see in Germany, France and Italy.

That group is relatively small in Spain, he says.