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Sweden is one of the few European countries that never resorted to mandatory quarantine to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. They currently have more than 26,000 confirmed cases of contagion and a balance of more than 3,200 deaths.
The figures are much lower than those of countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Italy, which decreed strict confinements..
Sweden has come in for criticism for failing to order mandatory confinement, however Johan Giesecke, the country’s top epidemiologist and who helped design the strategy to deal with the pandemic, says that rigid quarantines do not work.
As he told ‘Infobae’, “the coronavirus spreads like a fire and no matter what you do, everyone will get it.”
(Also read: Investigating Treatments and Vaccines to Fight Coronavirus.)
Under the advice of Giesecke, member of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Risks (STAG-IH) of the World Health Organization, The Swedish nation has resorted to a number of different strategies to deal with the new coronavirus. A “soft confinement” was defined, in which citizen trust prevails.
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Unlike universities, everything is open and the only ‘hard’ demands are: there cannot be more than 50 people gathered and in places of concurrence there must be a minimum of 2 meters of distance between people.
In an interview with the web portal ‘Infobae’, Giesecke said that the comparison of the results of the countries’ strategies can only be done in one year. He also said that the measures to stop the pandemic do not change the final result, because “everyone is going to get the virus, until there is a vaccine.”
(Also read: Science Answers to 10 Common Questions About Covid-19).
The expert added that many investigations are lacking in this regard and that, for example, “nobody knows whether closing schools will have any effect. The same with closing borders, or with not allowing people to be outdoors. ”
He also stressed that it has been proven that the infection spreads very little when outdoors and the risk is much lower.
Giesecke says that measures to stop the pandemic do not change the end result because everyone will get the virus until there is a vaccine
Giesecke affirms that politicians must show strength and action and it is for this reason that they have taken such strict measures, however, he says, The only scientifically proven thing that works is to wash your hands a lot and maintain an adequate social distance.
The strategy to be carried out, according to the expert, is to allow young people to be outside and mix, while those over 50 or 60 years old and with pre-existing medical conditions should stay indoors.. This is because “the so-called ‘herd immunity’ needs to be generated (…) Thus, immunity can be obtained fairly quickly in the country.”
(Also read: Campaign raises € 7.4 billion for covid-19 vaccine).
To explain ‘herd immunity’ Giesecke says that “The virus is trying to infect the population. If enough people are immunized around someone with the virus, then the virus cannot infect. “
Finally, the epidemiologist assures that countries must begin to gradually lift their quarantines and evaluate the data on infections and deaths. This is because “people will rise up and rebel if it goes on for so long.”
Johan Giesecke, Swedish epidemiologist.
“There is no Western democracy that can compare to China and can maintain quarantine forever. Governments will have to let people out, and when they do, there will be more people infected and there will be more people dead. ”
(Also read: How are cities of the future being invented in the Nordic countries?).
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