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Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Wednesday defended his country’s controversial “soft” COVID-19 strategy, in which Sweden never totally shut down, but admitted the country could have done some things better.Unlike its European neighbors and much of the rest of the world, Sweden relied on its citizens’ sense of civic duty.  Authorities advised people to practice social distancing, but schools, bars and restaurants have been kept open the entire time. Only gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned.The strategy resulted in one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world.At a news briefing, Swedish Public Health Agency epidemiologist Anders Tegnell acknowledged that there would always be “aspects where we could have handled this situation even better than we do today, now, as we learn more and more things.”But he said Swedish authorities still thought theirs was the right strategy. Tegnell said it has worked very well in terms of containing the spread of the disease to a level that the Swedish health care system could handle. It has made it possible to keep schools open, which he said was very important for their society.He acknowledged the “unfortunate” death toll, which he said was mainly in long-term care facilities.  In a Swedish radio interview earlier in the day, Tegnell admitted the death toll had made him reconsider his approach to the pandemic.According to the national health agency, the nation of 10.2 million people has seen 4,542 deaths linked to COVID-19, far more than its neighboring Nordic countries and one of the world’s highest per capita death rates.Denmark has had 580 coronavirus deaths, Finland 320 and Norway 237, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
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Sweden’s chief epidemiologist on Wednesday defended his country’s controversial coronavirus strategy, which avoided a lockdown but resulted in one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world.
Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency denied that “the Swedish strategy was wrong and should be changed. That’s not the case.”  
“We still believe that our strategy is good, but there is always room for improvement. … You can always get better at this job,” Tegnell told a news conference in Stockholm.  
Sweden has stood out among European nations and the world for the way it has handled the pandemic, not shutting down the country or the economy like other nations but relying on citizens’ sense of civic duty. Swedish authorities have advised people to practice social distancing, but schools, bars and restaurants have been kept open the entire time. Only gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned.
Tegnell’s statement to reporters came after more contrite comments earlier in the day to Swedish radio in which he said “I think there is potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden, quite clearly.”  
Asked if the country’s high death toll has made him reconsider his unique approach to the pandemic, Tegnell told Swedish radio “yes, absolutely.”
According to the national health agency, Sweden, a nation of 10.2 million people, has seen 4,542 deaths linked to COVID-19, which is far more than its Nordic neighbors and one of the highest per capita death rates in the world. Denmark has had 580 coronavirus deaths, Finland has seen 320 and Norway has had 237, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
“If we were to encounter the same disease again, knowing precisely what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done,” Tegnell, considered the architect of the unique Swedish pandemic approach, told SR.
Still, authorities in Sweden, including Tegnell, have been criticized — and some have apologized — for failing to protect the country’s elderly and nursing home residents.  
But Tegnell said Wednesday it was still unclear what the country should have done differently. He also said other nations are unable to tell exactly what measures affected the outcomes of their outbreaks because they threw everything at the crisis at once.
“Maybe we know that now, when you start easing the measures, we could get some kind of lesson about what else, besides what we did, you could do without a total shutdown,” Tegnell said in the radio interview.
At the news conference, Tegnell made it clear that his previous statement “was an admission that we always can become better. I’m sure my colleagues all over the world would say the same thing. There are always aspects which we could have handled this situation even better than we do today, now, as we learn more and more things,” he told The Associated Press.
“Sometimes I feel like a personal punchbag, but that’s OK. I can live with that,” Tegnell added.  
Sweden’s COVID-19 infection rate of 43.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants is lower than Spain’s (58.1) and Italy’s (55.4), but is higher than reported rates in the United States (32.1) and Brazil (14.3), according to Johns Hopkins University.  
Last week, the country’s former state epidemiologist, Annika Linde, said in retrospect she believes an early lockdown could have saved lives in Sweden. Political pressure has also forced the Swedish government to speed up an investigation into the handling of the pandemic.
Ordinary Swedes are not sure what to think.
“I’m not walking around thinking that we have a real disaster here in Sweden,” Jan Arpi, a 58-year-old sales executive, told The Associated Press. “I think we have it more or less under control, but we have to be even more careful now after we learned how the virus is spread, especially among elderly people.”  
Tegnell’s pandemic tactics made Sweden a bit of a local pariah in the Nordics and didn’t spare the Swedish economy.  
Sweden’s economy, which relies heavily on exports, is expected to shrink 7% in 2020 and the finance minister says the Scandinavian country is headed for “a very deep economic crisis.”  
More than 76,000 people have been made redundant since the outbreak began and unemployment, which now stands at 7.9%, is expected to climb higher.
On the travel front, neighboring Norway and Denmark said they were dropping mutual border controls but would keep Sweden out of a Nordic “travel bubble.”  
The Danes said they will reopen the border next month to residents of Germany, Norway and Iceland as the country eased its coronavirus lockdown. But Denmark, which has a bridge that goes directly into Sweden, has postponed a decision reopening to Swedish visitors until after the summer. 
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Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport sprang back to life Wednesday as Italy opened regional and international borders in the final phase of easing its long coronavirus lockdown, but it was still an open question how other nations would accept Italian visitors.
Families and loved ones separated by the global pandemic could finally reunite but normalcy was a long way off.
Italy is the first European country to fully open its international borders, dropping the 14-day quarantine requirement for visitors. But most European nations see Italy’s move — which aims to boost its collapsed yet critical tourism industry — as premature. Many of them are moving to open only on June 15 — and some even much later than that.WATCH: Sabina Castelfranco’s video report Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File Embed” />Copy Download AudioWho gets to go where in Europe this summer is shaping up to be determined by where you live, what passport you carry and how hard hit your region has been during the pandemic.
At Rome’s international airport, Andrea Monti embraced his girlfriend, Katherina Scherf, in an emotional reunion as she arrived from Duesseldorf, Germany.  
“We haven’t seen each other since before the pandemic,” Monti said.  
Still, the airport remained lightly used even though Italy’s national holiday on Tuesday normally kicks off the summer domestic tourism season. It was scheduled to handle several thousand passengers on Wednesday, compared to 110,00 passengers on the same day last year.  
Italy also resumed high-speed train service between regions for the first time since the lockdown in early March, checking departing passengers’ temperatures as they accessed the tracks.  
Europe-wide, rules on cross-border travel were a patchwork of regulations if not a complete mishmash.  
Germany said Wednesday that it plans to lift a travel warning for European countries from June 15 but it may still advise against travel in some cases, for example to Britain if quarantine rules there remain.
Germany issued a warning against all nonessential foreign travel in March. The aim is to change that for Germany’s 26 European Union partners, other countries outside the EU that are part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen travel area, and Britain.
Austria said it is ending border checks with all its neighbors except for Italy, due to lingering concerns about coronavirus infections there, particularly hard-hit Lombardy. Italy’s neighbor, France, also is looking at opening its borders on June 15 — although French citizens who cross over in the meantime are no longer subject to quarantines upon their return.  
The British government was confirming plans Wednesday to impose a 14-day quarantine for people arriving in the country starting next week, despite pleas from the travel industry to drop the idea and criticism from others that the move comes way to late to tamp down the country’s coronavirus outbreak.
Britain has seen nearly 39,500 deaths linked to the virus, the highest death toll in Europe and second-highest in the world after the United States. Europe overall has seen 175,000 deaths in the pandemic.
Britain is also talking to other countries about setting up “air bridges” that would allow certain countries or regions to be exempted from quarantine rules. British tourists make up a large portion of visitors to Spain and Portugal.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva told the BBC that diplomats from the U.K. and Portugal ” will work together in order to guarantee that British tourists coming to Portugal would not be subjected on their return to England to any kind of quarantine.”
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The German government announced Wednesday it will lift its COVID-related travel warning for European countries on June 15 but that it will still advise against travel to some areas where quarantine rules remain in effect.Following a Cabinet meeting in Berlin, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters that the warning would be replaced with more conventional travel advice so long as the countries concerned no longer have entry bans or large-scale confinement.Maas said he knows the decision will be good news to many people but cautioned the decision is not an invitation to travel. “We want to make this clear in the travel warnings, which may also include that travel is strongly discouraged, for instance to Britain, so long as there is still an obligatory 14-day quarantine for everyone arriving there.”He noted warnings will stay in effect for Norway and Spain, where entry restrictions are expected to last longer, but that other countries now fulfill the conditions.Germany issued a warning against all nonessential foreign travel in March. Maas warned, “The pandemic is far from over, and we must together prevent a resumption of tourism leading to a second wave – not only in Germany, but also elsewhere.”Maas said that Germany may reimpose travel warnings for countries where there are more than 50 infections per 100,000 inhabitants over seven days.He stressed again that Germany will not repeat the large-scale repatriation program that it launched to bring tourists home in March.
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French police fired tear gas early on Wednesday to disperse protesters marking the 2016 death of a black man in a police operation that some have likened to the death of George Floyd in the United States. Reuters reporters saw police use tear gas after some of the protesters started fires and set up barricades around the Avenue de Clichy in northern Paris, which was littered with rubbish and broken glass. Thousands of people assembled earlier for a demonstration in memory of Adama Traore, a 24-year-old black Frenchman who died in a 2016 police operation. The protesters were defying a police ban imposed because of the risk of disorder and the danger of spreading the novel coronavirus. The demonstration had drawn attention on social media of people supporting the “Black Lives Matter” movement and those backing U.S. protests in response to the May 25 killing in Minneapolis of Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes. Traore’s family blamed excessive force during his arrest, when he was pinned down by three gendarmes. Successive pathology reports have reached conflicting conclusions over whether his death two hours later resulted from asphyxiation or other factors including pre-existing conditions. 
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French citizens are among the first to be able to download the government-sponsored StopCovid app as the government begins coronavirus contact tracing through cell phones.The release of the public health StopCovid app Tuesday coincides with phase three of the government’s re-opening plan, during which restaurants, high schools and universities once again welcome students and patrons.The coronavirus has claimed nearly 29,000 French lives. Using a Bluetooth signal from cell phones, the app collects the presence of nearby anonymous users. If an individual tests positive, the app notifies those they were in close contact with for a minimum of 15 minutes so they can take the proper health protocols.Other EU nations are developing similar apps in the hopes that they will mitigate COVID-19 flare-ups as the bloc’s economies begin to re-open.The Euronews television channel reported in May that the continent was in disagreement over best practices for a pan-European app, with Switzerland and Spain exiting the initiative due to privacy concerns and Germany seeking assistance from tech giants Apple and Google.France and Britain reportedly rejected external backing, preferring to develop their own tech infrastructure.The French system differs from software jointly developed by Apple and Google in that it stores user information on a centralized, government-run server, rather than storing the data directly on mobile phones.The French government denies claims from critics that the app mimics a surveillance state.“The problem with a centralized protocol is that you have to be confident and to trust your state but we’re in a democratic state, we have checks and balances,” Cédric O, France’s junior minister for the digital economy, told the AP.An article in Le Monde newspaper published May 29 stated that officials preferred not to leave the security of citizen’s data to private firms, necessitating the need for a centralized, government-run system.The government says the app does not utilize location tracking and deletes user data after 14 days, the amount of time it takes the virus to exhibit symptoms.The project’s website listed transparency, regard for public health, and the respect and protection of an individual’s privacy as a top priority.Although use of the app overwhelming passed the upper body of parliament last week, some lawmakers expressed apprehension, citing additional security concerns and fears that the app would not be effective if the population does not use it. 
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