Swedish Headlines

Turbulence in Utopia

Uproar Against Corona Restrictions

By Peter Berlin

Following a pattern seen in many other developed countries, patience is running out among Swedes regarding corona-related restrictions, perceived by some people to affect their human rights. Because the rules aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus have so far been quite relaxed, protesters are only now making themselves heard.

The stricter social distancing rules introduced recently stipulate that a maximum of eight persons may congregate in public places. On Saturday, March 6, some six hundred demonstrators gathered in central Stockholm in defiance of the new rules and without having sought advance permission from the police. The organizer of the “Thousand People March”, Filip Sjöström, stated that no permission was necessary as long as demonstrators did not cause injury to other people. When asked whether spreading the virus to other people did not constitute potential injury, Sjöström denied that any such risk existed. It took the police three hours to disperse the crowd and forcibly clear some 50 particularly recalcitrant demonstrators. Six police officers were injured in the process.

Protesters in Stockholm. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency

“I Didn’t Do Anything!”

On March 3, in the small Småland town of Vetlanda, a 22-year-old asylum-seeker from Afghanistan stabbed seven men chosen at random in five different street locations. The victims are aged between 35 and 75; three of them sustained life-threatening injuries but their condition is now stable.

The asylum-seeker arrived in Sweden in 2016 and was awaiting permission to remain in the country. He has a history of mental illness and was known to the police following a previous drug-dealing incident. He was shot in the leg at the time of arrest. At his subsequent court hearing he was accused of seven counts of attempted murder. During the hearing he repeatedly shouted: “I didn’t do anything!” The man acted alone, and there does not seem to be any connection with international terrorism, but police are still investigating whether his motives were terror related. Daily New Deaths as of March 11

Daily new deaths in Sweden. Source: www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/Sweden

COVID-19 Update

On March 6 the number of people in Sweden who have died due to COVID-19 passed the 13,000 mark. Seen in an international context, Sweden currently sits in 20th position among other major economies in terms of number of deaths per one million inhabitants.

The historic evolution of daily deaths can be seen in the diagram. During the past two weeks the number of deaths has been on the increase, reversing the downward trend of previous weeks and raising the worry that a third wave may be forming. Stockholm’s healthcare chief has warned that the third wave of the coronavirus is already affecting the capital region, with the number of new cases almost having doubled over a period of three weeks.

The good news is that the number of COVID-related deaths in retirement and care homes has dropped significantly following the completion of Phase 1 vaccinations among the most vulnerable in society.