Sweden’s COVID chief suggests guidelines could be relaxed for Christmas

The scientist in charge of ­Sweden’s coronavirus strategy has suggested over-70s could be able to spend Christmas with friends or families.

New Yorker Anissa Barbato looks over the city as she takes pictures from the 100th floor (345m) of the Edge, the highest outdoor sky deck in the western hemisphere, as it reopened to the public after a COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year. Picture: AFP

The scientist in charge of ­Sweden’s coronavirus strategy has suggested the over-70s could be able to spend Christmas with their friends or families as the country prepares to relax its guidelines for vulnerable groups.

As infection rates rise across much of Europe, chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said that he hoped Christmas would be “a ­little more normal” than expected for pensioners if the situation ­remained under control.

Sweden also indicated it could soften its longstanding scepticism of masks, which the authorities believe could help older people and those with underlying medical conditions to socialise more safely and “decrease their isolation”.

The country’s distinctive approach to COVID-19 — eschewing a lockdown in favour of advice to work from home where possible, maintain physical distance and self-isolate at the first sign of illness — remains the subject of much debate.

While there have so far been 5820 COVID-19 deaths, nearly five times as many as in the other four Nordic countries put together, the infection rate has been relatively low since early July, falling to about 150 new cases a day over the past week, for a total tally of 84,532.

State epidemiologists are hopeful of achieving something close to herd immunity, when so many people have become infected that there is limited scope for the virus to spread.

On Tuesday Dr Tegnell’s public health agency said its light-touch approach would stay in place until the end of the year but could be tweaked on a local scale in the event of further outbreaks. The agency also signalled that it was open to recommending the use of masks in some crowded public spaces such as buses or trains. It had dismissed the policy as ineffectual and liable to promote a false sense of security.  Dr Tegnell said he was so satisfied with the situation that he was considering withdrawing the guidance for people over 70 to avoid social contact.

In another sign that the Swedish model is no longer universally regarded as a dangerous outlier, Dr Tegnell’s mentor has been ­appointed to an influential post at the World Health Organisation. Johan Giesecke, who was Sweden’s chief epidemiologist from 1995 to 2005 and has helped to plan the country’s coronavirus ­response, will serve as the deputy chairman of the WHO’s infectious diseases advisory panel.

Professor Giesecke said that the panel had begun to counsel against lockdowns in poor countries. “In these cases lockdowns cause more problems than they solve,” he told Swedish radio.

Germany has also ruled out a second national lockdown. Health Minister Jens Spahn conceded it had been wrong to order hairdressers and non-essential ­retailers to shut in spring. “That won’t happen again,” he said. “We have learnt a few lessons over the past few months.”

The Times