Coronavirus: Sweden bucks pandemic trend, still refuses to recommend face masks
- Swedish public health officials argue masks were not effective enough to warrant mass use
- Country’s daily death toll peaked in April and is now down to a couple of deaths a day
Sweden attracted worldwide attention earlier this year when it famously stayed open throughout the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, and now it is holding out again, this time refusing to recommend the use of masks.
While most of the world has come to terms with covering their noses and mouths in crowded places, people in Sweden are going without, riding buses and metros, shopping for food, and going to school maskless, with only a few rare souls covering up.
Public health officials here argue that masks were not effective enough at limiting the spread of the virus to warrant mass use, insisting it is more important to respect social distancing and handwashing recommendations.
“I think it’s a little bit strange. Sweden, as a small country, they think they know better than the rest of the world. (It’s) very strange,” says Jenny Ohlsson, owner of the Froken Sot shop selling colourful fabric masks in Stockholm’s trendy Sodermalm neighbourhood.
The Scandinavian country has the world’s seventh highest death toll at 575 per million inhabitants, mainly due to its failure to protect the elderly in nursing homes in the early stages of the pandemic.