With five more fatalities on Thursday, Sweden’s Covid death toll has hit 6,002. The country is facing a “serious situation” due to a spike in infections, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said as he himself went into isolation.
Lofven announced that he’ll be working from home because a person from his social circle was in contact with someone who had been diagnosed with the coronavirus.
“It’s the only responsible thing to do in this situation,” the PM wrote on Facebook, adding that he and his wife will get tested as soon as possible, despite having no symptoms.
Sweden’s coronavirus case numbers were “going in the wrong direction quickly,” he pointed out, referring to the recent rise in infections across the country.
More people are infected. More people are dying. It is a serious situation.
Lofven called upon the public to listen to the recommendations from both the government and local authorities, practice hygiene, work from home if possible and stay indoors if showing symptoms.
“Together we’ll make sure that Sweden will pass this test,” he wrote.
The number of deaths from coronavirus in Sweden, which has a population of 10.3 million people, is several times higher than in other Nordic nations, but lower than in the UK or Spain.
The country also registered 4,034 new cases of the disease on Thursday, which was one of the highest figures for a 24-hour period there since the start of the pandemic. To date, 141,764 Swedes have been diagnosed with Covid-19.
“There is a continued increase in the number of cases in all regions [of Sweden] except one,” Karin Tegmark Wisell from the Swedish Health Agency said, adding that the percentage of positive tests had recently grown from 5.6 to 9.7 percent. There was also “a fairly significant increase” in the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care, she pointed out.
Sweden was one of the few countries to refrain from harsh national lockdown measures during the first wave of Covid-19 in spring, and still relies on non-coercive measures to curb its spread.
The stricter recommendations, which among other things advise people to avoid crowded indoor spaces and limit physical contact outside their households, have been expanded to two more of Sweden’s 21 healthcare districts on Thursday, meaning that they now cover more than a half of the country.
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