Coronavirus Sweden lifted its interest rate restriction, restaurants opened their doors right after midnight – “It feels really good,” says the cafe operator

Stockholm

Today is lucky day. Head of the patisserie restaurant in Stockholm’s Södermalm Elisabeth Adelman literally glows while sitting at his cafe table.

Adelman paints a sign, which he soon attaches to the cafe window.

The sign reads: Welcome back.

Earlier in the morning, Adelman had thrown away a sign stating that there were safety restrictions and that only five customers at a time were allowed to shop at the patisserie. At the same time, he brought 12 extra chairs to the cafe.

“It feels really good,” Adelman says.

On Wednesday, Sweden lifted virtually all of its interest rate restrictions and moved to a new era. Before Wednesday, for example, restaurants had to close at 11 p.m., but since the restrictions were lifted at midnight, many restaurants reopened their doors at 12:01 p.m.

On Tuesday, the government also said it would suggest that within two months, covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus would no longer be considered a dangerous disease in society.

Adelman thought the decision to lift the restrictions now was the right one. However, the pandemic is not over yet, he continues. Therefore, there is still a jar of handbags in the hallway of the café.

Tuesday More than 18,000 coronary infections were recorded in Sweden. At the end of January, more than 53,000 were recorded on record day. In reality, there are now many more infections, as most of them are no longer tested. However, the number of patients requiring intensive care has leveled off because vaccine coverage is high enough, and the omicron variant that is now available causes mild disease for the most part.

Sweden has been seen as a special case in the treatment of a pandemic. A country that trusted in the force of the recommendations and kept its society more open than others.

The world was amazed at the Swedish strategy. The Svenska Institutet, the authority monitoring Sweden’s image, calculated that in the first two months of the pandemic, 300,000 articles about Sweden were published in foreign media. The country has never been in the same interest before.

More than 16,000 deaths related to the coronavirus have been reported in Sweden. The figure for Finland is about 2,000.

Indeed, Swedish policymakers were criticized for handling the pandemic by the government’s interest rate commission, which said Sweden had not prepared for the pandemic, and delayed measures that should have been taken in Sweden. The Corona Commission will issue its final report on the treatment of the pandemic in two weeks.

Do you want to vaccine, come to the boys to take the vaccine, a man hiding behind sunglasses and a dark face mask screams at the young men walking on Sborgdermalm’s Medborgasplatsen.

That’s what the young men were coming to do. The man offering the vaccines is Jan Anderssona pensioner who has worked for about a month at a pop-up vaccination point where vaccination can be obtained without an appointment.

The point has been very popular, Andersson says.

“The queue has reached across the market all the way down the street.”

In Sweden, about 84% of people over 12 years of age have received two doses of the vaccine. More than half of adults have received three doses.

Jan Andersson thinks that is not enough. He would not have lifted the restrictions yet.

“The pandemic is not over. Now people think it can be normal and young people are partying in nightclubs, but you should still be careful. ”

Andersson believes the restrictions still need to be brought back.

“If the need for intensive care increases. Sure, now the disease is mild for the most part, but there may be new variants that cause a more serious disease, ”he says.

The young men settle in the vaccine queue. Jan Andersson will continue his work.

“Do you have vaccines? That’s what you get. ”