Swedes scolded by PM Stefan Lofven for failing to keep their distance

Herd immunity experiment in real trouble as death toll stands above 6,000

People stroll in the cold but sunny weather along Standvagen quayside in Stockholm, Sweden, amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  The country's economy grew 4.9 per cent from the second quarter. AFP

Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven used a rare national address to bemoan his countrymen’s failure to stick to Covid-19 restrictions.

He warned of the growing threat the coronavirus poses amid fears the strategy used so far may not be enough to fight an increasingly deadly pandemic.

In the Sunday evening address, he said that the things Sweden does wrong now, it would suffer for later and admitted that the reality was “harsh and brutal”.

Mr Lofven, only the third Prime Minister in Sweden’s history to deliver such a national address, said that “too many people have been careless about following the recommendations” that health authorities say are key if the virus is to be reined in.

Sweden famously avoided a lockdown, relying instead on voluntary measures. But with a death rate considerably higher than elsewhere in the Nordic region, with intensive care beds rapidly filling up, authorities in the country are now recalibrating their approach.

Mr Lofven said “everyone must do more” to fight the virus. “The health and lives of people are still in danger, and the danger is increasing,” he said.

Covid-19 has already killed more than 6,000 Swedes, with total cases well above 200,000. At the same time, intensive care beds are filling up quickly, with twice as many Covid patients as of November 19 compared with the preceding fortnight.

Earlier this month, the Prime Minister took what he called the “unprecedented” step of banning public gatherings of more than eight people. From November 20, sales of alcohol were no longer permitted after 10pm. Both measures were a sign that voluntary measures are no longer enough.

The message from the Prime Minister was similarly unequivocal on Sunday night: the respite from Covid-19 during the summer and the autumn is over.

“Everything that you would like to do but that isn’t necessary, call it off, cancel, postpone,” he said.

“In spring, many people said that despite everything it made life easier that the coronavirus hit during the lightness of March and not the darkness of November.

“It is November now. People's health and lives are still in danger. And the danger is increasing.”

It is the second time this year that Mr Lofven has addressed the nation regarding coronavirus.

Previously, the only occasions a PM held a national address were in 1992, when Carl Bildt spoke about a murderer known as ‘the Laser Man’ who shot 11 people, and in 2003, when Goran Persson addressed the murder of foreign minister Anna Lindh.