FILE PHOTO: State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Swedish Public Health Agency speaks to journalists after a press conference on the situation of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 23 2020. Magnus Andersson / TT News Agency / via REUTERS.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s top epidemiologist said on Tuesday that a rapid decline in new critical cases of COVID-19 coupled with slowing death rates indicated that Sweden’s strategy to slow the epidemic, which has been largely questioned abroad, it was working.
Sweden has avoided a hard blockade throughout the outbreak, a strategy that sets it apart from most of Europe.
Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the public health agency said a rapid slowdown in the spread of the virus strongly indicated that Sweden had achieved relatively widespread immunity.
“The epidemic is now slowing down, in a way that I think few of us would have believed a week or so ago,” he said at a news conference.
The daily death rates for COVID-19, as well as the number of those infected in intensive care, have gradually slowed since April, with seven new deaths and no new ICU admissions reported by the health agency.
“It really is another sign that the Swedish strategy is working,” Tegnell said. It is possible to stop contagion quickly with the measures that we are taking in Sweden ”.
The slowdown in Sweden coincided with that of several countries that have credited it with blockades. “We have managed to do it with substantially less invasive measures,” he said.
Sweden’s death toll of 5,646, compared to population size, has far exceeded that of its Nordic neighbors, although it is still lower than that of some European countries that closed, such as Britain and Spain.
Report by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Angus MacSwan
.
