Sweden poised to lift some Covid restrictions from July 1 as cases fall

© AFP / Jonathan NACKSTRAND
FILE PHOTO. People wait for their turn to enter Stockholm's City Hall, known as venue for the Nobel Prize banquets and converted now into a Covid-19 vaccination centre.

From July 1, Sweden will relax some of its Covid-19 restrictions, including removing curfews and increasing the number of people allowed into venues, as its infection rates continue to decline and more people opt for vaccination.

Health Minister Lena Hallengren announced on Monday that Swedes can expect to take one step forward closer to normality by the end of this week. The decision to ease protection measures comes as case rates have fallen, with the reproduction rate of the virus dropping to 0.89 as more people have been vaccinated. As a result, Hallengren announced that, "from Thursday, life can start to go back to a little bit more like it was before the pandemic."

Even vaccine manufacturers admit that the vaccinated can still catch and spread the coronavirus, and countries across the northern hemisphere have seen a reduction of cases, regardless of vaccine uptake, so it's unlikely that this claimed decrease in cases has anything to do with vaccine status and instead it's probably because the coronavirus is most virulent during winter months. We saw the same pattern last summer.

The government will unlock the country in phases, moving it first to an eased 'stage 2' level on July 1. The guidance from its Public Health Agency (PHA) for this stage means the number of spectators at outdoor stadiums can increase from 500 to 3,000, though all attendees must remain seated.

Another change due to be made pertains to the hospitality and events sector, with restaurants and pubs no longer restricted to a 10.30pm curfew and no limits being imposed on the numbers who may share a table outside. The recommendation to mingle only with those in one's family or who are immediate contacts will also be scrapped, although meeting outdoors rather than indoors will still be encouraged.

'Encouraged', 'recommended', note that these restrictions weren't being aggressively enforced by the police, unlike some of the deeply disturbing scenes documented elsewhere, with religious leaders and even pregnant women being arrested.

Stage 3 is expected to follow later in the month, with social distancing limits on the number of people allowed to meet both indoors or outdoors lifted, and Stage 4 is anticipated to be implemented by the fall. This phase will see the removal of all limits on public and private gatherings. The final step, stage 5, will lift all the remaining restrictions.

The (currently) relatively harmless coronavirus is likely to reemerge again this winter, and so, if signs in more oppressive countries are anything to go by, such as the UK and Singapore, these restrictions will never be fully lifted and, come autumn citizens will probably find themselves back under some form of lockdown: "Four more weeks to, er..." - The UK government's weakest excuse for a lockdown yet

Sweden took a relaxed approach to the outbreak of coronavirus in 2020 compared to other European countries, and did not impose a lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, relying instead on its citizens' voluntary efforts. However, it was the last among its Nordic neighbors to begin easing restrictions on June 1. Iceland fully lifted its domestic Covid curbs on June 26.

Over the course of the pandemic, Sweden recorded 1.09 million cases and 14,619 deaths, according to the PHA. As of June 26, 26.6% of its population had been fully vaccinated.

The Pentagon isn't alone in investigating strange objects spotted in the skies: according to reports, the Chinese military has also been tracking UFOs, and in recent years has registered an uptick in sightings.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) uses a three-tiered system to investigate instances of "unidentified air conditions" - a euphemism reminiscent of the US military's term for UFOs, "unidentified aerial phenomena," the South China Morning Post reported.

The PLA relies on reports from military radar stations, air force pilots, police stations, weather stations, and Chinese Academy of Sciences observatories to gather as much data as possible about mysterious flying objects. The information is then processed by the military and undergoes preliminary analysis, before being submitted to a national database. PLA headquarters then assigns a "threat index" to each sighting, based on the object's behavior, physical features and any other relevant variables.

But Chinese analysts have been "overwhelmed" in recent years by the growing number of sighting reports from "a wide range of military and civilian sources," according to the Post, prompting the PLA's UFO task force to rely on artificial intelligence to help sort through the data. Many of the reports are ultimately attributed to natural phenomena which are picked up by radar or trigger electronic sensors, according to Chinese military researchers cited by the paper.

While such reports conjure up images of alien craft, sightings of unidentified objects in China's airspace are "more likely caused by humans than aliens," according to a Chinese radar scientist quoted by the outlet. The increasing popularity of recreational drones, as well as an uptick in military activity in the South China Sea, could also explain why the PLA has been inundated with UFO reports.

China's only officially confirmed UFO sighting occurred in 1998, when two military jets intercepted a low-flying object that appeared above an airbase in Cangzhou, Hebei province. The object was described as a "short-legged mushroom" with beams of light shooting down from its underside. The object was able to quickly accelerate before disappearing from radar, according to a report about the incident published in an official newspaper.

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Harris gave the surprisingly upbeat take during her first trip to the border in her 94 days as President Biden's illegal immigration czar.

"In five months we've made progress, but there's still much more work to be done, but we've made progress on family reunification... And we've also made progress in addressing the root causes."

Later, as she departed El Paso for a weekend trip to her home state California, Harris upgraded her assessment, telling reporters:

"We have seen extreme progress over these last few months."

But statistics indicate otherwise as critics attribute the surge to Biden's policies. The number of US-Mexico border detentions hit a 21-year monthly high of more than 180,000 in May. Nearly 179,000 people were detained in April.

Harris was on the ground in Texas for less than 5 hours and got off on a testy start when she sniped at a reporter, "It's not my first trip. I've been to the border many times."

© Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
How she spent her time:
Harris hosted a roundtable talk with nonprofit leaders on her border visit to El Paso, Texas

Before touting the "progress," Harris met privately with detained migrant children who were reportedly glad to see her — a discordant picture amid recent reports of a crying 5-year-old boy abandoned by smugglers near El Paso and smugglers infamously dropping 3- and 5-year-old girls over tall fencing nearby.

Other parts of the border are far worse, leaders of the Border Patrol's labor union said, slamming Harris for picking El Paso.

Although reporters weren't allowed to witness the VP's meeting with children, Harris' office released flattering quotes from her meeting with the five girls aged 9-16, who arrived to the border from Central America without their parents.

© Unknown

"I met with the children, with the young girls. And you know, it was interesting, they have obviously fled great harm. They're there without their parents. They are also full of hope. They were asking me questions: 'How do you become the first woman vice president?'"

Biden has called for legislation to legalize almost all of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US and campaigned on welcoming asylum seekers from Central America.

Critics accuse Biden of creating new "pull" factors that are luring the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to the country — a stance notably taken by Guatemala's president and Mexico's president.

Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott was dismissed from his job Wednesday ahead of Harris' visit — which was hastily announced ahead of former President Donald Trump's trip to the border next week. Trump is expected to slam Biden and Harris.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said in a Fox News interview:

"You don't go to El Paso to see what is actually going on at the border. Harris should have visited McAllen, Texas, to see where the most migrant apprehensions are happening or Tucson, Ariz., to see where the most migrants are successfully evading authorities."

The vice president of the Border Patrol's union, Art Del Cueto, called Harris' choice of El Paso a "slap in the face. If she really wanted to see what was going on, she would go to the hot zones."