STOCKHOLM — The Swedish government will lift most Covid restrictions next week, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden announced on Thursday. The move adds Sweden to the growing list of European nations, including Denmark and Norway, that are scrapping pandemic protocols even though new cases continue to soar in Europe.
Starting on Feb. 9, there will be no limit on how many people can gather at restaurants, sports stadiums, and other events, according to Lena Hallengren, the minister of health and social affairs. People will no longer be required to work from home. And travel restrictions on visitors from other Nordic countries will be relaxed.
“The pandemic is not over, but we are headed into a new phase,” Ms. Andersson said at a news conference on Thursday.
She pointed to research suggesting that while record numbers of people in Sweden are testing positive for the Omicron variant, they are straining hospitals less than earlier coronavirus surges did.
The Swedish Public Health Authority reported that the average number of new coronavirus cases reported daily in Sweden peaked in late January and, while still high, is now declining. As of Thursday, Sweden, a country of about 10.3 million people, has reported a total of more than 2.2 million confirmed cases, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and more than 16,000 coronavirus-related deaths. More than 73 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated so far.
Ms. Anderson said that the country will continue to recommend that people take special precautions in certain situations — for example, that unvaccinated people avoid indoor events.
A number of Sweden’s neighbors and fellow European Union members have announced easing of their pandemic rules in the last week. Nightclubs in Denmark are reopening, and the government said it no longer considered Covid a “socially critical disease.” Norway is dropping its testing requirements for arriving travelers who are fully vaccinated. And Finland has said it would end all of its remaining restrictions this month.
Though Europe is still reporting large numbers of new cases, a top World Health Organization official in the region said on Thursday that the Omicron surge was giving the region an opportunity to bring virus transmission under control and reach an “enduring peace” with the coronavirus.
So many people will now have some level of immunity, either from vaccination or from surviving an infection, that the region may be moving into a “period of higher protection,” which should be seen as a “cease-fire” and “a plausible endgame” in the pandemic, the official, Dr. Hans Kluge, told reporters at a virtual news conference. Scientists have cautioned that the protection from a previous infection may wane over time, and may not apply as well to future versions of the virus.
Dr. Kluge is the regional director for the W.H.O.’s Europe region, which takes in all of Europe, plus Israel and all of the former Soviet Union, including the Central Asian republics — more than 50 countries in all.
Hospitalizations are still rising in the region, mainly in countries where vaccination rates among the more vulnerable parts of the population are relatively low, he said, while the number of Covid-related intensive care hospitalizations and deaths in the region has started to plateau.
Dr. Kluge’s comments were more upbeat than recent remarks by other W.H.O. officials, who have voiced alarm at the prospect of countries using Omicron’s relatively lower severity as a reason to scrap pandemic protocols.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general, said this week that it was “premature” for any country to declare victory over a virus that “continues to evolve before our very eyes.”
Dr. Kluge cautioned against thinking the pandemic was finished, saying that achieving sustained relief from the coronavirus would depend heavily on countries vaccinating and boosting their populations, promoting responsible behavior and protecting the most vulnerable.
