Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson has denied on Tuesday that the government has taken more lax measures against the coronavirus than other countries for economic reasons and has defended that all decisions have been made following medical criteria.
“We have not taken economic reasons into account when deciding on the Swedish strategy” vis-à-vis COVID-19, Andersson said, in an interview in which he assured that the criteria that the experts considered could be more effective have been applied “to long-term, “reports Bloomberg.
The Nordic country, with more than 4,500 deaths, has one of the highest death rates in the world, well above those of its neighbors. Contrary to the strategy followed in the rest of Europe, Sweden did not adopt confinement measures and kept hospitality establishments or schools open, among other activities.
Last week, the epidemiologist coordinating the work in Sweden, Anders Tegnell, acknowledged in an interview that, if he went back, he would opt for an answer that “would be halfway between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world did” . However, on Sunday Prime Minister Stefan Lofven insisted that “the strategy was correct.”
