Sweden opposes global trend with less restrictive method against coronavirus

Sweden has become an exception in reacting to the coronavirus pandemic , keeping schools open and adopting fewer restrictions , while embarking on a "huge experiment", according to a health expert in the Scandinavian country.

Since the UK came into quarantine on Monday night, Sweden has been the largest European country with less limits on where people can go and what they can do.

Schools for children up to the age of 16 are in operation, many people are still going to work, and crowded trains and buses were reported this week in the capital, Stockholm.

On the other hand, the country's authorities have banned public meetings with more than 500 people, closed universities and advised workers to stay at home, if possible.

On Tuesday (24), they ordered that restaurants and bars only serve people at tables, not at the counter''

The Swedish media brought a lot of reports about thousands of people gathered at the ski resorts, which until Saturday (21) kept their nightlife up and running. The virus has now spread easily to mountain resorts in Austria and Italy.

Johan Carlson, head of Sweden's health department, defended this approach last week, saying the country "cannot take draconian measures that have a limited impact on the epidemic, but overturn society's functions."

But he admitted that the number of people who die in Sweden, 90,000 annually, "will increase significantly" if the country's health care system becomes overburdened .

There were just over 2,500 cases of Covid-19 reported in Sweden, and 44 deaths as of Wednesday afternoon (25). In Italy, the most affected country in Europe , there were 6,820 deaths.