Sweden tells staff to work from home for the rest of the year to make life safer for those going into the office a day after revealing it is seeing a ‘very positive’ drop in new covid cases
- Officials want workers who can work at home to stay at home as more people use public transport
- The country recorded 318 new cases today and 56 deaths last week
- It has taken a different tack to other European countries, opting to not lockdown
Sweden has today told their workers to work from home for the rest of the year to manage crowding on public transport after revealing it is seeing a ‘very positive’ drop in new covid cases yesterday.
The recommendation, which is directed at those ‘who have the possibility to work from home,’ will remain in place until the New Year and is designed to make things easier for those who need to physically go to work.
It comes after the country’s top epidemioloigst announced yesterday that Sweden was witnessing a ‘very positive’ downward trend, with the lockdown free country recording 318 new cases today and serious cases in need of intensive care falling.
Cases in Sweden continue to drop as infection rates fall
Death rates in the country are similarly down
But the country has had 80,100 total cases of coronavirus, and one of the highest per capita death tolls in the world – well above Denmark, Norway and Finland which have each seen fewer than 1,000 deaths.
Public Health Agency noted that ‘if our contacts go up again there is a considerable risk of a new spread during the autumn’.
Sweden has been an outlier in its coronavirus response. It has kept schools for under-16s open and has not closed cafes, bars, restaurants and most businesses. Masks have been recommended only for healthcare personnel.
Its approach has been based on an attempt to gain herd immunity, but the World Health Organization has warned against pinning hopes on an immune response after contracting the virus.
Nevertheless, Sweden now has a similar infection rate to the UK with a handful of people are now being admitted to intensive care per week, down from as many as 45 per day at the height of the crisis.
Sweden’s top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has celebrated the number of falling cases but officials have said staff must still remain at home to avoid numbers rising again
Deaths have also fallen, with 56 fatalities announced in the last week compared to 101 in the previous seven days.
Swedish officials have promised to launch an investigation into the country’s coronavirus response.
The commission has a broad mandate to look at how the virus arrived in Sweden, how it spread, the government’s response, and the effect on equality.
The commission will report on elderly care at the end of November, although its final conclusions are not due until 2022, ahead of a national election.
The UK Foreign Office continues to advise against non-essential travel to Sweden, but has lifted that warning for the other Scandinavian countries.