Sweden banned alcoholic sale after 10 p.m in order to restrict COVID-19

Swedish Prime Minister said on Wednesday that his government would propose a new legal obligation on alcohol sale in order to restrict COVID-19.

In order to restrict the high increase of COVID-19 cases, the Swedish government will have a new legal proposal to ban nationwide the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. The new rule of Sweden will be applied officially from Nov. 20 in bars, restaurants, and night clubs.

Stefan Lofven, the Prime Minister, said that Sweden “is facing a (COVID-19) situation that risks becoming pitch-black”. He added that the nation “currently is risking a situation like the one we had last spring.”

The nation has observed a tremendous uplifting of new cases of coronavirus in the past weeks. Consequently, it badly burdened the country’s health care system and intensive care necessity. “All indications point in the wrong direction,” Lofven said at a joint news conference with Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren.

“The infection is spreading quickly and just in the last week the number of people with the coronavirus who are being treated in intensive care more than doubled,” the Prime Minister added.

Hallengren said that those places, where alcohol is banned from selling after 10 p.m, must close 30 minutes after 10 p.m. She described that those places-particularly bars and night clubs-as dangerous environments.

This Wednesday, the government of the Northern European nation also had to reintroduce the restriction to visit elderly homecare. After several new coronavirus cases related to retirement facilities in Stockholm, the Scandinavian nation had to approve the regulation. The country of 10 million people reported about 166,707 cases and 6,082 deaths related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Though the deaths in Sweden is not as fatal as in Britain and Spain, the Nordic nation has more deaths related to coronavirus than their neighbors.

via AP