Sweden announces an end to Covid restrictions and joins other European countries
STOCKHOLM – The Swedish government will lift most covid restrictions next week, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced on Thursday. The move adds Sweden to the growing list of European nations, including Denmark and Norway, which are scrapping pandemic protocols even as new cases continue to soar in Europe.
From February 9, there will be no limit to how many people can gather at restaurants, sports arenas and other events, according to Lena Hallengren, Minister of Health and Social Affairs. People will no longer have to work from home. And travel restrictions for visitors from other Nordic countries will be eased.
“The pandemic is not over, but we are entering a new phase,” Andersson said at a press conference on Thursday.
She pointed to research that indicates that even though a record number of people in Sweden test positive for the Omicron variant, they make less effort in hospitals than previous coronavirus surges did.
The Swedish Public Health Agency reported that the average number of new coronavirus cases reported daily in Sweden peaked at the end of January and, although still high, is now declining. As of Thursday, Sweden, a country of about 10.3 million people, has reported a total of more than 2.2 million confirmed cases, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and more than 16,000 coronavirus-related deaths. More than 73 percent of the population has so far been fully vaccinated.
Ms Anderson said the country will continue to recommend people to take special precautions in certain situations – such as unvaccinated people avoiding indoor events.
A number of Sweden’s neighbors and EU members have announced easing of their pandemic rules in the past week. Nightclubs in Denmark reopen, and the government said they no longer regarded Covid as a “socially critical illness. ” Norway abolishes its test requirements for arriving travelers who are fully vaccinated. And Finland has said it would end all its remaining restrictions this month.
Although Europe is still reporting a large number of new cases, a top official from the World Health Organization in the region said on Thursday that the Omicron increase gave the region an opportunity to get the virus transmission under control and achieve a “lasting peace” with the corona virus.
So many people will now have a certain level of immunity, either from vaccination or from surviving an infection, that the region may enter a “period of higher protection”, which should be seen as a “ceasefire” and “a reasonable endgame” “In the pandemic, the official, Dr. Hans Kluge, told reporters at a virtual press conference. Researchers have warned that the protection from a previous infection may diminish over time and may not apply as well to future versions of the virus.
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Dr. Kluge is the regional director of the WHO’s Europe Region, which includes the whole of Europe, plus Israel and the entire former Soviet Union, including the Central Asian republics – more than 50 countries in total.
Hospital admissions are still increasing in the region, mainly in countries where the vaccination rate among the more vulnerable sections of the population is relatively low, he said, while the number of Covid-related intensive care hospital admissions and deaths in the region has begun to decline.
Dr. Kluge’s comments were more positive than recent comments from other WHO officials, who have expressed concern about the possibility of countries using Omicron’s relatively lower severity as a reason to scrap pandemic protocols.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general, said this week that it was “too early” for any country to declare victory over a virus that “continues to evolve before our eyes.”
Dr. Kluge warned against believing that the pandemic was over and said that in order to achieve lasting relief from the coronavirus, it would largely be due to countries vaccinating and increasing their population, promoting responsible behavior and protecting the most vulnerable.