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Swedish football fan at Euro 2020
Photo: Alexander Demianchuk / ITAR-TASS / IMAGO
Sweden's special way in the fight against corona has caused a lot of attention internationally.
In a study, researchers have now investigated how the different corona strategies in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland have affected the spread of the virus within the respective country and across national borders.
One of their results: "In the first year of the pandemic, Sweden was a net exporter of the Sars-CoV-2 virus to our Nordic neighboring countries." John Pettersson from the University of Uppsala told the Swedish TV broadcaster SVT on Tuesday.
Sweden had a higher number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.
The World Health Organization (WHO) lists the following incidences accumulated over the pandemic:
Sweden: 11,450 coronavirus cases and 146 Covid-19 related deaths per 100,000 people,
Denmark: 7333 cases and 48 deaths per 100,000 people,
Norway: 4,276 cases and 18 deaths per 100,000 people
Finland: 3,099 cases and 22 deaths per 100,000 people,
Iceland: 4,385 cases and 9 deaths per 100,000 people.
The countries are a good example of geographically, politically and socially similar states, whose Corona measures differ significantly, writes the team in the journal "Eurosurveillance".
It created a kind of genetic family tree based on around 71,000 virus genome sequences.
This shows how the viruses spread within and across national borders.
Accordingly, Sars-CoV-2 reached the countries between January and the end of February 2020, a measurable transmission within the countries took place in Sweden from the beginning of February, in the other countries from the beginning of March.
In Sweden there were longer uninterrupted chains of infection afterwards, which suggests that the virus could spread more freely there.
In addition, it turned out that chains of infection originating in Sweden crossed national borders in several hundred cases, mostly in the direction of Finland.
The virus was also introduced into the other countries from Denmark, but to a lesser extent than from Sweden.
"Our results suggest that Sweden's containment strategy had an impact on the epidemiological situation in the country and in the entire Nordic region," the study says.
One must, however, take into account that Sweden - like Denmark - is a transit country.
wbr / dpa
