WHO says Sweden’s coronavirus strategy could be ‘a future model’ post lockdowns
The World Health Organisation WHO has highlighted Sweden’s strategy in fighting Covid-19 as representing a possible ‘future model’ for countries to follow in adapting society to the virus after coming out of lockdown.
Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, asked about Sweden’s strategy of shunning lockdowns and allowing most schools and businesses to remain open, told a virtual news conference on Wednesday: “If we are to reach a ‘new normal’, in many ways Sweden represents a future model.”
“What it has done differently is that it really, really has trusted its own communities to implement that physical distancing,” he said, adding that Sweden had put in place a “very strong public health policy”.
Click on the link to hear what he said in full.
Related stories from around the North:
Arctic: Roundup of COVID-19 responses around the Arctic, Eye on the Arctic
Canada: How did we get here? A timeline of COVID-19 in northwestern Canada, CBC News
Finland: First Covid-19 death reported in southwestern Finnish Lapland, Yle News
Greenland: COVID-19: Arctic science expedition postpones flight campaign after trainee tests positive for virus, Eye on the Arctic
Norway: Norwegian Arctic wilderness tourism hit particularly hard by coronavirus, The Independent Barents Observer
Russia: Risking death for Arctic gas? Northern Russia construction site becomes COVID-19 hotbed, The Independent Barents Observer
Sweden: Nordic COVID-19 lockdowns will have same end results as Sweden, says former state epidemiologist, Radio Sweden
United States: COVID-19 pandemic raises hard questions about health disparities, says Int’l Inuit org, Eye on the Arctic
