STOCKHOLM, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish government announced Wednesday that foreign citizens will have to provide a recent negative test for COVID-19 when entering Sweden as of Saturday.
The announcement was made five days after the Public Health Agency requested tighter arrival controls to minimize the spread of mutated virus strains.
"These new virus variants are alarming," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said when announcing the new rules at a digital press conference.
"The background to this decision is the new variants of the virus that have been discovered recently, and the fact that it is difficult to assess which countries have a high prevalence of these variants."
Even though the government has fast-tracked the process, the situation has changed dramatically since the Public Health Agency requested immigration rules should be tightened.
In mid January, fewer than 100 cases of the mutation first detected in Britain had been discovered in Sweden. On Tuesday the Public Health Agency announced the mutant had been found in 11 percent of 2,200 individuals with COVID-19.
Travelers under the age of 19, cross-border commuters, foreign citizens living in Sweden, and those who want to enter the country for humanitarian reasons are exempt from the new requirement, as are elite athletes.
"Elite athletes are considered as a category that performs work, and may therefore cross the border (without a recent negative test)," said Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg.
According to the latest update from the Public Health Agency of Sweden, 580,916 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in the country as of Wednesday, an increase of 4,310 since Tuesday. A total of 11,939 deaths had been recorded, 124 more than on Tuesday, whereas 245 patients were in intensive care.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in some countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 237 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 63 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Jan. 29. Enditem
