It looks like the “party” is going to end in Sweden, after having already ended in March for most European countries. Swedish authorities have announced that they will adopt more restrictive measures against the Covid-19 pandemic, in a reverse direction to that which the Nordic country was following and aimed at group immunity.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was clear this Thursday at a press conference as to the intention of the measures: “The party is over”. And he said seeing open clubs was “Disrespectful to health professionals who work day and night”. Thus, as of November 1, the country will not allow more than eight people to join together in dining spaces and will set a limit of 50 people inside night establishments. Public events can gather up to 300 people, but there are conditions: the public must be seated and the rule of one meter of physical distance must be guaranteed.
The rules will be for the entire Swedish territory, but there are regions that have adopted even more restrictive measures. The Uppsala region, which has the fourth largest Swedish city with the same name, has special rules, from last Tuesday to November 3. Citizens were “Strongly advised”, due to the increase in cases in the region, not taking public transport, avoiding physical contact with people outside the household and avoiding organizing parties. Commercial establishments also have reduced opening hours. Still, Anders Tegnell, the epidemiologist who has been guiding Sweden during the pandemic, said that these measures “are not confinement, because confinement implies closing the whole society”.
This is a change of direction in the management of the pandemic in that country. In a Europe that chose to contain and close non-essential establishments, the Swedish authorities adopted a different strategy in March. Anders Tegnell believed in May that the biggest advantage of the group immunity model was that, at the time of countries’ lack of definition, Sweden would eventually have greater group immunity and fewer cases.
From measures to immunity: explanations from the epidemiologist who leads Sweden’s response to Covid-19
The new measures seem to contradict the Swedish epidemiologist’s speech. And studies have also shown that expectations that many people have group immunity have been dashed – only 7.3% of Stockholm’s inhabitants have developed immunity to Covid-19, reveals a study by the Swedish public health authority.
I think the obvious conclusion is that the level of natural immunity […] it is not as high as we believed. And I think that what we are seeing is a consequence of the heterogeneous transmission that the disease has ”, defended Anders Tegnell to Time.
Sweden recorded 1,206 cases of the new coronavirus last Wednesday – an increase from the numbers registered in September. The country of approximately 10 million inhabitants broke a record of infections in 24 hours on June 24, registering 1,698 infections of the new coronavirus.
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