The Swedish Public Health Agency has presented two new scenarios for how the infection curve of covid -19 can be developed.
Both scenarios assume that the spread of infection continues to increase for two weeks to reach its peak at the end of January.
One scenario estimates 47,000 new covid cases per day, the other 69,000 new cases per day.
With the current quarantine rules, both for infected and relatives, it could mean that hundreds of thousands of people are quarantined at the end of January.
- It is something that we look at all the time and we have contact with many actors all the time, says state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell in Aktuellt.
- If we end up in this worst case scenario, we will need to do more.
How can the quarantine rules be changed in such a scenario?
- You can look at symptoms instead, that those with symptoms can stay at home, or that you shorten quarantine rules from a week, for example, to four to five days that you have in some countries.
You can also try combining with being at home for a few days and testing yourself again.
Magnus Gisslén, chief physician and professor of infectious diseases, believes that it is close to reclassifying covid - 19.
- Omikron has changed the game plan and now it is a different situation.
If you are vaccinated, you will not become seriously ill, in most cases.
Then you also have to start thinking about whether you should soon change the strategy for how to handle this, says Gisslén and continues:
- We will come to a point when we no longer have to classify this as a socially dangerous disease and these measures are no longer needed.
I do not think that point lies so far into the future.
Something that Anders Tegnell agrees with.
- We have a tough wave right now, but when we are on the other side of this hump, it is time to start looking at whether this is really reasonable to continue to deal with as a socially dangerous disease.
The text is updated