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The head of the health service in Sweden’s capital Stockholm has appealed to the government for help as the city’s hospitals fill with coronavirus patients amid a new wave of infections.
Bjorn Eriksson, health care director for the Stockholm region, said on Wednesday that intensive care units in the region were nearly full of coronavirus patients and asked the government to send additional nurses and hospital staff to deal with the number of patients with the virus, as reported Reuters.
“We need help,” he told a news conference, noting that 83 patients were in intensive care beds. “That more or less corresponds to all the intensive care beds we normally have.”
“No confinement”
Sweden was the only country to pursue a “no containment” strategy at the start of the pandemic, relying instead on a more relaxed approach that relied on voluntary measures of social distancing.
However, the country has since recorded 7,200 COVID-19-related deaths as of Dec. 8, according to the World Health Organization, meaning it has one of the highest per capita death rates in the world.
Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist who is credited with being the architect of Swedish politics, had predicted earlier this year that Sweden would be spared a second wave of coronavirus due to high levels of immunity in the general population, but admitted last month the country was experiencing a further increase in cases.
Tegnell has been heavily criticized for a policy that has coincided with a much higher death rate than neighboring countries.
Sweden has begun to gradually redirect its lax stance in recent weeks as the government struggles to halt an alarming rise in the number of coronavirus infections.
Restrictions
In November, the government banned the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. and banned public gatherings of more than 8 people. Last week, Stefan Lofven, the prime minister, said secondary schools would close for the remainder of the term.
In August, Tegnell criticized countries like the UK and Norway for reintroducing blockade measures, saying it would be “really bad for confidence” to do so.
“Lifting and closing things is really bad for confidence and will also have a lot more negative effects than holding some kind of level of measures all the time,” he told The Observer newspaper. “Opening and closing schools, for example, would be disastrous.”
