Sweden, which has drawn attention with its less stringent COVID-19 strategy, will lift the ban on visits to retirement homes, largely affected by the virus at the start of the epidemic, announced on Tuesday. government.
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The measure was one of the few bans decided by the Scandinavian country, including the ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, still in force.
The ban on visits to retirement homes will be lifted on October 1, Minister of Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren announced at a press conference, amid a decline in the epidemic since June.
“We are in a pandemic which is still in progress” but “I now want everyone to take their responsibilities”, she said.
Of the roughly 3,400 deaths recorded between January and May, nearly half were in facilities for the elderly. The minister recognized at the end of April “a failure for the whole of society”.
The heavy toll in retirement homes has been controversial and many have pointed to the working conditions of staff, often unskilled workers, hired on precarious contracts. Employees who therefore do not receive their salary if they stay at home for mild symptoms as the instructions would like.
The government announced in May that it wanted to recruit up to 10,000 additional people to improve care for the elderly.
Unlike most European countries, Sweden has never confined its population, and called on everyone to be responsible: physical distancing, strict application of hygiene rules, isolation in case of symptoms. Wearing a mask is neither compulsory nor recommended.
The Nordic country has to date recorded 87,345 cases of COVID-19 on its soil, including 5,851 fatalities, one of the highest tolls in the world compared to its population.
But data for Sweden has been down sharply since June, when much of Europe has faced a surge in new cases in recent weeks.