A summary of the latest news on Tuesday
Sweden’s Covid benefits are paid to millions of people
Social insurance payments increased sharply during the pandemic, reports the news agency TT. To encourage people to stay at home if they had covid symptoms, Sweden allowed workers to apply for compensation between 11 March 2020 and 30 September 2021 for their first sick leave day, which is normally unpaid in Sweden.
That benefit was paid to more than 2.1 million people, about 40 percent of the working population – a total of more than SEK 6.3 billion for the first 8 million sick days, according to recent statistics from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency.
Swedish vocabulary: first day of sick leave – karens
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Wrong person deported to Iraq
When the Swedish Prison and Probation Service went to the Swedish Migration Agency’s center in Märsta in June to deport a person to Iraq, they instead put the wrong person on the flight to Baghdad, Sweden’s public broadcaster reports SVT. The fault was only discovered after the flight had landed and Iraqi border police had been contacted.
The Swedish Prison and Probation Service submitted an incident report and said that the person’s identity had not been properly confirmed. However, it found that because there had been no clear official instructions for performing ID checks, the individual employee was not guilty.
The report concludes that officials must be able to perform correct ID checks, using, for example, photo documentation.
Swedish vocabulary: fel – wrong
Sweden Democrats suffer from Covid vaccine
A Member of Parliament for the Sweden Democrats against immigration compared the Covid-19 vaccine for children to “poisoning” in a Facebook post, reports the radio broadcaster Swedish Radio P4 Sörmland. MP himself, Roger Richtoff, told the radio that he had “seasoned” his argument to start a debate.
The Sweden Democrat’s deputy group leader in parliament, Mattias Bäckström Johansson, told Dagens Nyheter in an email that the party supports the Public Health Agency’s guidelines – which currently recommend the Covid vaccine for people over 12 to protect yourself and others from illness and death. He called Richtoff’s choice of words “polarizing, unnecessary and stupid.”
Swedish vocabulary: word choice – choice of words
Kanye West discovered at McDonald’s in Sweden
The American rapper Kanye West – who recently changed his name to Ye – has been discovered at a McDonald’s restaurant in the city of Trollhättan, about an hour north of Gothenburg. Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet published photos of West and a group of people ordering a Caramel Frappé, a Chicken Tasty & Co, hot wings, a chocolate milkshake and six dipping sauces (grill, if you’re wondering).
Aftonbladet reports that West may be in Sweden for a potential business collaboration.
Believe it or not, this is not the first time the rapper and entrepreneur has appeared in a small to medium-sized Swedish town off the beaten track. In 2016, he was seen visiting the furniture chain Ikea’s head office in Älmhult in the countryside in southern Sweden.
Swedish vocabulary: one hour – one hour