Coronavirus: Swedes have more trust in authorities says ambassador

Swedish ambassador to Nicosia Anders Hagelberg said on Tuesday that Swedish people have more trust in authorities dealing with the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, while the country has not enacted any lockdown measures, as Cyprus has.

The ambassador added the two cultures are different, and “a comparison cannot be made between countries that have different societies and family structures.”

Sweden has not taken full lockdown measures to deal with the epidemic, and the government has instead issued measures as suggestions. The only places where visitation is banned are care homes. The country has over 10,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and approximately 900 deaths.

Commenting on the numbers, Hagelberg said it is difficult to compare the number of deaths with the number of total cases as “no one in the world knows the total number of cases”.

According to Hagelberg, most people in Sweden follow the suggested measures, due to the fact there is a different cultural structure and ideas of social distancing in comparison with other countries.

“There are differences in trust of the authorities as well,” he said.

Regarding Swedes stuck in Cyprus, Hagelberg said the Scandinavian countries all worked together to bring their citizens home, with flights to Oslo, Helsinki, and Stockholm. He also thanked Germany for offering seats to Swedes on flights they had chartered.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.