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Last week, week 9, the spread of the infection in western Sweden decreased by 18 percent compared to the previous week. But the actual number of infected remains consistently high and has been for several weeks.
It is due to the precarious situation that the stricter regional recommendations, which previously applied until March 14, are now extended until April 1.
– We must do everything possible to prevent it from starting to increase, but we must also reduce the number of infected, says the region’s infection control doctor, Thomas Wahlberg.
The stricter recommendations are expanded with a modification, for high school students. It goes from recommending local education to a maximum of 20 percent of students, to recommending that a third of students can have it.
– It is always an evaluation of what makes us unable to go to school against the risk of infection. With all the restrictions, a balance is made about what the consequences will be, in addition to the spread of the infection. All restrictions come at a price, says Ann Söderström, VGR’s director of medical and health care.
It is still too early to say anything about the student, he says.
– This is something that we must also discuss at national level, not just in Västra Götaland, and ask ourselves how we really do it. We hope to get enough vaccine to vaccinate as much as possible and make the curves really point down. But as long as we don’t know how much vaccine we get, we can’t say much about what it will look like in May and June, he says.
110 people are in intensive care units in the region, of which 46 are covid patients.
– If we had not had covid, it would have been a normal day in VAT, you could say. But there is very high pressure right now. This spring, when we cut back much of our planned care, the pressure was generally less, not now. Now there are two people who need intensive care for reasons other than covid plus covid.
Adherence to the recommendations is overall good, says Ann Söderström, although you can tell people are tired of the virus.
– You want to start dating and doing other things. But we have a vaccine in the works and I think now it’s very important not to release it. Our restrictions are largely based on voluntariness and personal responsibility and I also believe that we can be helped in that.
This and next week, half a million doses of vaccines are expected in Sweden, Lena Hallengren promised Wednesday morning. Exactly how many of these end up in Västra Götaland, the region’s vaccine coordinator, Kristine Rygge, doesn’t know yet.
– I have not heard that it should be distributed in any other way than what I have done before, that is, according to population and more than 70.
VGR has now put a tick in phase 1 of the vaccination program and moved to phase 2.
– Basically we’ve moved on and it just feels great. When you look at the effect we have on the number of people infected in older age groups, it’s nice to see the effect of the vaccine, says Kristine Rygge.
Even in Halland, the spread of infection is high and places a great burden on the hospital. The number of hospitalized patients with covid-19 has almost doubled in two weeks and 52 people are currently being cared for, 4 of whom are in intensive care.
