Swedish coronavirus strategy ‘is working,’ top epidemiologist insists

A rapid decline in new critical Covid-19 cases alongside slowing death rates indicate that Sweden’s strategy for slowing the epidemic is working, the country’s top epidemiologist said on Tuesday.

Sweden has foregone a hard lockdown throughout the outbreak, a strategy that set it apart from most of Europe. State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency said a rapid slowdown in the spread of the virus indicated very strongly that Sweden had reached relatively widespread immunity.

“The epidemic is now being slowed down, in a way that I think few of us would have believed a week or so ago,” he told reporters.

Sweden’s death toll of 5,646, when compared relative to population size, has far outstripped those of its Nordic neighbors, Reuters said. However, it remains lower than in some European states that locked down, such as Britain and Spain.