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Today in Sweden: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday

The Local Sweden
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Today in Sweden: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday
A new Covid vaccination centre is set to open in Stockholm next week. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Find out what's going on in Sweden today with The Local's short roundup of the news in less than five minutes.

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Sweden moves forward with Covid vaccine pass plans

The Swedish government has submitted a proposal to extend the Covid vaccine pass scheme to restaurants, leisure and culture centres, shopping malls and venues for private events (i.e. private events held in rented premises; it won’t apply to gatherings in private homes).

Relevant authorities and organisations will now be invited to comment on the proposal before it comes into force – a process likely to take around ten days.

The proposal doesn’t automatically mandate vaccine passes – instead it will be up to individual venues to decide whether to use them, either on their own or in combination with other infectious disease control measures. But it essentially means that venues that use vaccine passes won’t be affected by Covid restrictions such as limits on visitors.

The vaccine pass rules in the proposal could be rolled out in steps and will only be activated if authorities consider that it’s necessary due to the spread of infection.

Swedish vocabulary: a vaccine pass – ett vaccinbevis

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Stockholm opens new Covid vaccination centre

Stockholm will open a new hub for Covid vaccinations at a conference centre in Älvsjö, south of the city, on the back of criticism of long queues at the region’s vaccine centres.

It is set to open next week and if it’s fully staffed it is estimated to be able to administer 10,000-15,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines a week. Here’s a link to all the vaccination centres in Stockholm.

Booking should be done by phone for those who do not have an electronic ID, or by logging into the Stockholm healthcare app Alltid Öppet.

Swedish vocabulary: to open – att öppna

New Omicron infection confirmed in western Sweden

Thirteen cases of the new Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) of the coronavirus have so far been confirmed in Sweden, according to the Public Health Agency.

The latest one was discovered in the western Västra Götaland region, the first one in that region. Regional healthcare officials said that the person in question had arrived from South Africa and had followed all the guidelines – got Covid tests on arrival and self-isolated. Test-and-tracers have found no sign of the person spreading it to others.

Covid-19 cases are in general on the rise in Västra Götaland, where more than 1,650 new infections were confirmed last week, up from a weekly 650 infections a month ago, reports the TT newswire. Other Swedish regions are also seeing a rise in infection.

Sweden is currently sequencing around 40 percent of all positive Covid tests, and all tests of returning travellers. All confirmed Omicron infections can so far be linked to international travel, but there may be other cases that haven’t been discovered.

Swedish vocabulary: thirteen – tretton

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Anonymous 2021/12/09 21:00
Rofl on all of you. No need to do anything at all. 85%vaccinations keep it low. End of story. Just be aware that the virus will keep mutating until we will have only 60+ dying. Get a vaccine once before winter if you want to. Rest, do not be surprised if your grandma makes the hoop.
  • Anonymous 2021/12/17 00:09
    and that's somehow ok___??? that only 60 plus die. Get the booster. everyone. put on your masks and let your grandma live
Anonymous 2021/12/09 14:52
And so the Medical Aparteid begins..
  • Anonymous 2021/12/09 21:02
    Yes it seems that it starts in Sweden,too.
Anonymous 2021/12/09 10:46
If you tell the 80% of the poplulation, doubly vaccinated, whom last month didn't have to get tested if they had any symptoms of what could be covid that they need to start testing again, then of course you will find more cases. But on its own that doesn't mean we are any sicker than we were last month.
  • noah.magram_422778 2021/12/09 13:57
    Laura, you can look at test positivity rates which can give you an indication of how many cases you are missing from not testing. The positivity rates were climbing before and then shot up when they stopped testing during v44 / v45. You can see it quite clearly here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FGFzEt6XwAM-PKE?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 After testing resumed the positivity rate declined a bit, but not much even though we were doing more than twice as many tests as v43 - before they stopped testing. This means that we are quite a bit "sicker" than we were last month, and that testing was stopped while infections were increasing - which was a questionable move at best.

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