Do you know the myth of how ostriches put their head in the sand to hide from danger, despite their entire body still in view of potential predators?
I’m starting to think that the same logic of “if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” applies to the Swedish government, because they just declared the pandemic to be over… despite hundreds still dying from the virus.
Removed Restrictions and Stopped Testing
On Wednesday (9 Feb), Sweden recorded another 114 people who died while infected by COVID-19. On the same day, the Swedish government removed almost all of its few restrictions and stopped testing for COVID-19.
The rationale? COVID-19 is no longer classified as a danger to society, with Omicron and vaccines decreasing the number of severe cases and deaths.
Swedish Minister of Health, Lena Hallengren, told the Dagen Nyheter that “[The pandemic] is not over, but as we know it in terms of quick changes and restrictions it is.”
This means that bars and restaurants will be allowed to stay open after 11pm, with no limits on the number of guests imposed.
Attendance limits and vaccine passes for larger indoor venues are also no longer imposed. Everything will basically look like how it was before COVID-19 started.
Although this sounds great, there are some pretty big trade-offs at play here.
“The Disease Is Still A Huge Strain On Society”
One of the most loyal critics of Sweden’s no-lockdown policy, Umea University’s Virology Professor Fredrik Elgh, told Reuters that “We should have a little more patience, wait at least a couple more weeks.”
He emphasized that COVID-19 is “still a huge strain on society”, and said that Sweden is wealthy enough to continue testing.
However, Sweden’s Health Agency said that large-scale testing was too expensive to justify the benefits it brings. Sweden spent about 24 billion crowns since the start of the pandemic on testing, and had spent 500 million crowns per week on testing since the start of 2022.
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But just because you stop testing doesn’t mean that people aren’t getting the virus anymore. Swedish hospitals are still feeling the strain, with around 2,200 COVID-19 patients hospitalised. With the stopping of free testing, who knows how many more COVID-19 cases there are roaming the streets of Sweden?
Since the start of the pandemic, there have already been 16,182 people who have died due to or while infected by COVID-19 in Sweden. While the number of deaths per capita is lower than most European countries, it is significantly higher than their Nordic neighbours.
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