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At Thursday’s press conference with the Swedish Public Health Agency, the prognosis from the National Board of Health and Welfare was grim: 20 out of 21 regions have reported an expected deterioration of the situation. Of the 675 places with VAT available in the country, all but 148 are occupied. In Stockholm, places are 99 percent full.
“This is a worrying situation for Sweden,” summed up Karin Tegmark Wisell from the Public Health Agency.
The following day, one of the country’s regions, Västmanland, sent out a press release alerting them to the serious situation.
The alarm: “We can’t go on like this”
The sender is Cherin Kamil, Operations Manager for the Infection Clinic in Västerås.
“We can’t go on like this. We still do not see a slowdown in the number of patients who come to us. We must help stop the spread of the infection, otherwise many more people are at risk of becoming ill with covid-19.“, She writes.
In a telephone conversation, he recounts how an increasingly pressured health system is now pinning its hopes on the vaccine.
– The great brake to stop the covid is the vaccine. That is why it is important that we begin to vaccinate quickly and then carry it out effectively. I welcome this vaccine and I think it is amazing that researchers around the world have developed a vaccine in such a short time. It also appears to be very effective.
Several doubt
But the figures show that there are doubts among Swedes about the vaccine. A survey by Kantar Sifo in early December showed that more than 50 percent are concerned about side effects. At that time, 1,400 people were interviewed. Novus conducted a similar poll in late November, which showed that one in four people say no to a vaccine.
Cherin Kamil believes that health care needs to improve to inform and educate people about the vaccine:
– So they can make an informed decision. There is a perception that: ´I am young and healthy´, so perhaps it is better that I get covid than that I get vaccinated. But even young and previously healthy people can get seriously ill from COVID, and we are constantly getting information that some people, even after a mild COVID infection, suffer from long-term symptoms.
Kamil believes he has a responsibility to get vaccinated. In his press release, he writes:
“Taking responsibility and getting vaccinated when the vaccine is widely offered in the county is saving lives. When we get vaccinated, we can return to the social life that we all lack. I look forward to a spring and a summer in which we can meet our loved ones in a normal way.”.
The call to the Swedish people
Expressen has previously reported that Vaccine Coordinator Richard Bergström has announced that five million Swedes can be vaccinated before June 1. That would mean herd immunity has been achieved, according to math professor Tom Britton.
Farshid Jalalvand is a researcher in clinical microbiology at Lund University. You have previously talked about vaccines and the anxiety that people feel. He believes that if too many people don’t want to get vaccinated, it may take several years before our lives change from what it seems now.
– It may lead to restrictions for another three or four years, until we achieve herd immunity, but we have lost several human lives along the way, he said then.
Cherin Kamil, at the infection clinic in Västerås, finally has an appeal for all doubters:
Take the vaccine as soon as it is offered and treat it as a gift. It will get us out of this nightmare. We have given up a lot during the year and want to get back to the life we had before the pandemic.
