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Swedish border towns hit hard by no lockdown policy

Small towns on Sweden's border to Norway have taken an economic hit because of the country’s controversial decision not to go into lockdown, the Financial Times reports.

Published: 20 June 2020 10:10 CEST

Swedish border towns hit hard by no lockdown policy

Nordy shopping centre. Photo: Adam Ihse / TT

Towns such as Charlottenberg, which sits on the Swedish side of the border to Norway, have seen their retail sectors ravaged by the corona crisis due to Norwegians no longer popping over the border to stock up on cheap goods.

One shop owner in the town told the FT he had lost 90 percent of his business since mid-March when the border was closed.

“A lot of shops around here will go bankrupt. We’ve lost lots of good employees, who have moved to jobs in schools, hospitals. I think it will get back to normal, but it will take some time — maybe a year or even two years,” the shop owner said.

At the Nordby centre – Sweden’s largest shopping mall – revenues have dropped by 95 percent. It is situated minutes from the border to Norway and is in easy driving distance from Oslo.

While the Norwegian government re-opened its border with the rest of the Nordic region this week it chose to keep the border to Sweden closed due to the country’s high Covid-19 infection rate.

That means that Norwegians who used to cross the border to get a deal on goods that have significantly less VAT on them still can’t do so.

Shops on the Norwegian side of the border meanwhile have benefited from the crisis, with some reporting an uptick in sales of around 70 percent. Some in Norway say this is a positive, as it means people can't get around high taxes on products which have negative impacts on public health such as tobacco and alcohol.

But Norway’s strategy has been criticized by local politicians on the Swedish side of the border who point out that their towns have low infection rates.

Member comments

Anonymous - 21 June 2020 at 08:12 CEST

1. This was caused by Norway, not Sweden.
2. What kind of a “business” is to sell products to foreigners who come from a more expensive country?

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Covid-19: European summer holidays threatened by rise of subvariants

Several Western European nations have recently recorded their highest daily case numbers in months, due in part to Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5.

The increase in cases has spurred calls for increased vigilance across a continent that has relaxed most if not all coronavirus restrictions.

The first resurgence came in May in Portugal, where BA.5 propelled a wave that hit almost 30,000 cases a day at the beginning of June. That wave has since started to subside, however.

READ ALSO: KEY POINTS: German Health Ministry lays out autumn Covid plan

Italy recorded more than 62,700 cases on Tuesday, nearly doubling the number from the previous week, the health ministry said.

Germany meanwhile reported more than 122,000 cases on Tuesday.

France recorded over 95,000 cases on Tuesday, its highest daily number since late April, representing a 45-percent increase in just a week.

Austria this Wednesday recorded more than 10,000 for the first time since April.

READ ALSO: Italy’s transport mask rule extended to September as Covid rate rises

Cases have also surged in Britain, where there has been a seven-fold increase in Omicron reinfection, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The ONS blamed the rise on the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, but also said Covid fell to the sixth most common cause of death in May, accounting for 3.3 percent of all deaths in England and Wales.

BA.5 ‘taking over’

Mircea Sofonea, an epidemiologist at the University of Montpellier, said Covid’s European summer wave could be explained by two factors.

READ ALSO: 11,000 new cases: Will Austria reintroduce restrictions as infection numbers rise?

One is declining immunity, because “the protection conferred by an infection or a vaccine dose decreases in time,” he told AFP.

The other came down to the new subvariants BA.4 and particularly BA.5, which are spreading more quickly because they appear to be both more contagious and better able to escape immunity.

Olivier Schwartz, head of the virus and immunity unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said BA.5 was “taking over” because it is 10 percent more contagious than BA.2.

“We are faced with a continuous evolution of the virus, which encounters people who already have antibodies — because they have been previously infected or vaccinated — and then must find a selective advantage to be able to sneak in,” he said.

READ ALSO: Tourists: What to do if you test positive for Covid in France

But are the new subvariants more severe?

“Based on limited data, there is no evidence of BA.4 and BA.5 being associated with increased infection severity compared to the circulating variants BA.1 and BA.2,” the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said last week.

But rising cases can result in increasing hospitalisations and deaths, the ECDC warned.

Could masks be making a comeback over summer? (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)

Alain Fischer, who coordinates France’s pandemic vaccine strategy, warned that the country’s hospitalisations had begun to rise, which would likely lead to more intensive care admissions and eventually more deaths.

However, in Germany, virologist Klaus Stohr told the ZDF channel that “nothing dramatic will happen in the intensive care units in hospitals”.

Return of the mask?

The ECDC called on European countries to “remain vigilant” by maintaining testing and surveillance systems.

“It is expected that additional booster doses will be needed for those groups most at risk of severe disease, in anticipation of future waves,” it added.

Faced with rising cases, last week Italy’s government chose to extend a requirement to wear medical grade FFP2 masks on public transport until September 30.

“I want to continue to recommend protecting yourself by getting a second booster shot,” said Italy’s Health Minister Roberto Speranza, who recently tested positive for Covid.

READ ALSO: Spain to offer fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose to ‘entire population’

Fischer said France had “clearly insufficient vaccination rates” and that a second booster shot was needed.

Germany’s government is waiting on expert advice on June 30 to decide whether to reimpose mandatory mask-wearing rules indoors.

The chairman of the World Medical Association, German doctor Frank Ulrich Montgomery, has recommended a “toolbox” against the Covid wave that includes mask-wearing, vaccination and limiting the number of contacts.

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