[ad_1]
Information is received daily on the imminent approval of the Pfizer-Biontech and Moderna vaccines. Among other things, this has prompted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to promise a return to normal life before the summer.
State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell does not want to make such commitments and the government says Swedes should be prepared to live with coronary restrictions for the next year.
– of course to ensure that the vaccine Sweden has access to reaches the regions as soon as it is available, says Anders Tegnell, who believes the regions are far ahead in their planning.
– So it is still very uncertain in what quantities the vaccine comes out and during what period. The main vaccine manufacturers with whom we have signed agreements have discussed delivery times of one to two years.
At the same time, new contracts are being drawn up all the time and new vaccine suppliers are emerging.
– Our assessment, based on the information we have so far, is that it is hard to believe that we achieve such high levels of vaccination coverage in Sweden that we can return to a normal life even before summer. If we are lucky, maybe so. We think it is important to be as realistic as possible, but it is a moving target.
Are other countries too optimistic?
– If you have other information aside, I can not know – if you make an overly optimistic assessment. If you go for the vaccines that we feel pretty safe with, it will be a while after the summer before we in Sweden reach those levels.
What proportion of Swedes must be vaccinated in order to return to a normal life?
– To completely bypass all the restrictions and release the protection that we have for nursing homes and the like, then you probably have to be up to pretty high levels, maybe 60 to 70 percent. But it is difficult to say, because there is still no knowledge about it. We know that the spread of this disease is very irregular and in part difficult to explain. Therefore, we cannot apply the old models we normally use to say when a vaccination level will ward off infection in a way that makes especially the elderly and those with serious illnesses feel safe.
A total of 260,758 people have been confirmed infected. of covid-19 in Sweden, of which 17,629 since last Friday. 6,798 people have died in the covid-19 suites, 117 new deaths were reported on Tuesday. Sweden is turning darker on the infection map.
– We have a growing spread in all age groups right now. All regions have cases of VAT and also in terms of death rates, we see a continuous increase, says Anders Tegnell at Tuesday’s press conference.
According to Tegnell, Europe seems to have reached a plateau, although the development seems very different. In countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, the decline is rapid.
– Europe may have risen and surpassed this time, but then we will see how development continues.
The Public Health Agency had promised travel recommendations in connection with the Christmas holidays, with the message delayed until next week:
– Many in authority are working very hard with this at the moment, says Anders Tegnell.
– It is important for us that we come out very clearly with what is applied and it is important that we can agree with the regions that receive many visitors and have a little less resources with sampling and such. We must end in a good compromise so that these regions feel calm but that we can still celebrate Christmas in a fairly normal way.
Last week, Anders Tegnell confirmed that FHM will not land on a total Christmas travel ban.
All regions have had local general councils for several weeks, the longest in Uppsala, where the restrictions went into effect on October 20. During that time, the spread of the infection has increased everywhere, but according to Anders Tegnell, it is difficult to know what the situation has been without something in place, but it seems that “we are about to flatten the curve”.
Is it possible to tell if the councils work differently in different regions?
– We are trying to get data on this, but we have seen that the spread of the infection is very different in different regions. It is difficult to know if it is possible to connect with the general council. We are also looking at indirect factors like how much you shop and how much you travel by public transport, but we haven’t had time to collect that data yet.
