This archive report was first published on 17 July 2020.
Published on July 17, 2020, Sweden was experiencing a surge in new COVID-19 cases, with the country recording over 76,000 cases by July 16, 2020.
Despite the rise in cases, Swedish officials claim that the virus is slowing down due to improved testing and barrier gestures.
Deputy state epidemiologist Anders Wallensten attributed the increase in cases to the scaling up of testing, which had more than doubled in July compared to May.
However, the World Health Organization's European branch had put Sweden on a list of 11 countries witnessing an 'accelerated transmission' in late June, a move that was disputed by Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
Sweden's Public Health Agency argued that the large increase in cases was mostly made up of milder cases, which would have gone unnoticed previously.
US President Donald Trump had also suggested that the surges in cases around the US were related to increased testing, but unlike the US, the rise in cases in Sweden had not been accompanied by an increase in intensive care unit admissions.
According to Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of microbiology at the Public Health Agency, the decline in serious cases was also likely a product of barrier gestures, such as people learning to keep distance and protecting risk groups.
Sweden's high mortality rate had often been attributed to the disease hitting retirement homes, with nearly half of all Swedish COVID-19 deaths coming from care homes.
However, the numbers of deaths in retirement homes had progressively gone down, with Emma Spak, head of healthcare at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, attributing the improvement to better handling of COVID-19 by healthcare workers.
Antoine Flahault, a professor of public health at the University of Geneva, argued that Sweden's mistake was not the no-lockdown policy but late mass testing.
