Transcripts For DW Conflict Zone 20240712

Pressure a group of scientists wrote a letter condemning the approach months ago and more recently the countrys chief epidemiologist admitted mistakes have been made my guest this week is swedens foreign minister and linda with a death toll much higher than its neighbors and borders closed due to concerns over the number of infected has sweden made it deadly our. Foreign minister and linda welcome to conflict zone thank you very much. You said recently that swedens trust based strategy to combat the coronavirus was working your Prime Minister also continues to maintain the strategy was the right one but today you have nearly 5000 confirmed coronavirus deaths far higher per capita than your neighbors who imposed stricter lock downs early on with such a high death toll how can you say that your strategy is working. Well actually we have the same goals as most other governments that says to save life and health and also to keep the system in the Health Service able to cope with this very strong push on the limits and actually we manage to flatten the curve we have there for have. Problems we getting sick people into the health care. Actually or so we have managed to get our people to follow their recommendation and we also have legally binding measures like social distancing. Also washing your hands dont travel or work from home all of those issues what we have not managed to do is to keep the virus out of the Elderly Care Center in specific region or stock or and the surrounding of stock or so i would say that its a tragic for each death but its not possible to compare it with any country some countries who have had complete lockdowns has far more death tolls than we have so its actually no use to do such comparisons and i want to talk about that impact on the of the elderly which has been so dramatic in your country but 1st id like to just pick up on something that you said because you said that youve managed to flatten the curve but we have a European Center for Disease Control saying the initial wave of transition transmission excuse me has passed its peak in all countries in europe except sweden and poland what does this say about your strategy because we know how not to remarry and i would like to counter what youre saying there because that is not true and that was our state appear merely dhea said today that we have gone far. Away from the peak we are going down but 2 weeks ago we started the massive testing for virus meaning that everybody every Single Person if you dont even have the slightest symptom you can go and test yourself and of course that means that we will now have a much much much greater number of viruses and thats why its so wrong just to look at that situation we dont have any except excess of death anymore we have far more places available when it comes to intensive care so its absolutely what you look at to to listen to our sheaf opinion merely against the it is not the way that there is in the u. Outbreak or anything like that so i totally counter what youre saying you mentioned that the goal was to save lives slow the rate of infection about half of the deaths however have been in homes for the elderly which youve also highlighted and those over 70 have accounted for almost 90 percent of all deaths 90 percent of all all deaths so when you set out those goals was it just for the young in your population. No we hope that we should be able to or see too that vulnerable groups did not get the disease but we didnt manage to get it out of our elderly care home and that is something we really have to look into in sweden many elderly care home is privately owned there is a lot of precarious work there is also a lot of people working there who dont even have a monthly salary there they are only there per hour many of those didnt stay home when they have slight symptom and distance something that we dont want to be able to to evaluate later what was your level of responsibility though because we have the former state epidemiologist on a kalinda saying the following about your your handling of this she says there was no strategy at all for the elderly i now understand that i do not understand how they can stand and say the level of preparedness was good when in fact it was lousy was there no plan for the elderly well actually shameful isnt it. When its your worst i think that you are actually acting like this this kind of a world in who get the disease or not get the disease we dont see it that way thats not how responsible government is handling those issues actually what we have in sweden is another way of. Governmental organization we have very much a local level care is taking care of regional level the whole spittal care is taken care of and then we have the central lever with a very small ministries and very big authorities and that means that if its not working on one of the levels then we will have a problem and that is why the state had to go in and take a lot of decision when we saw what was happening in the local iran and mostly privately run elderly care homes that means for example that we have taken more than 40 different ordinance and also several new laws so that the central level could be able to go in and decide also another levels and now we could see that the disease and the transmission of the virus is actually going down india lake eyre but for example the Regional Organisation for regional and local authorities stated that there was more than 40 percent of those who were employed that didnt have enough knowledge of basic hygiene care for example how you wash your hands and so on and so forth that is now being taken care of 12140000 having got an education so lets take a deeper look at why this happened in elderly kell care homes because there have been these horrific reports from news outlets that. Not everything has been done to save the lives of the elderly aid workers and care homes as youve also highlighted were reportedly told that they should not send anyone to the hospital for intensive care even if they were in Critical Condition youve mentioned that youre launching a you know a commission to look into the strategy that youve also launched additional measures but at the end of the day it is too late for the families who have lost loved ones it is too late for those nearly 5000 who have died so what do you say to them. Well every death is very tragic and that is of course nothing that we wanted to have the corn coronavirus i dont think you thought that in germany too and i dont think that anyone think that well this is something that the government wants for anybody and thats also the case for our government we have really really tried to work out the best strategy but we have like several other countries very high virus transmission in a regional part of sweden that is stockholm and the areas around it. It came into the elderly care homes and that is of course very very unfortunate and thats why we have taken central decision to make it better and thats why we are now in a much better position we dont have any exits the death rate then the more and its going down or so when it comes to intensive care and the people on the hospital which of course hope will stay so that there will be no more sick and way we dont know what happened this was a new virus to everybody id like to talk with you about that potential 2nd wave because we have had your chief epidemiologist saying the following about the potential for that sweden will see more cases for a period but in the long term we hope will have better control of the pandemic is also highlighted the fact that in the autumn there will be a 2nd wave sweden will have a high level of immunity and the number of cases will probably the quite low you see you say youre in a better position now but but ultimately i mean you do have nearly 5000 dead in the country there is so little know about immunity and coded 19 so i just think to ask you where were is your science or just sweden no more then than all of the other leading researchers in the world. Well i dont think anybody knows right now about possible of herd immunity or how long an immunity should stay or if there is a 2nd wave or 3rd wave or anything like that that is not the possible to say because it is the 1st time in the history of the world that we have discovered 19. Pandemic we have never had it before so we cannot know about that. There has been talk though there has been hope for the 1st vaccine perhaps being on the market by the end of 2020 of trials go well the e. U. Already signed a deal with drug maker astra zeneca for 400000000 doses. Have you considered that a vaccine could come to the market so quickly and how do you consider that you might be front loading or at least with the strategy might have front loaded your human losses without having the science to back up that its a smart move in the long run. Well we have now put to mid billions we describe one and the vaccine coordinator because of course we hope that the vaccine that comes will be part of a Global Common good and it will come to those who do serve it most. But did you have the right science on immunity. Well actually im a minister of Foreign Affairs so i dont know if we have the right of herd immunity or whatever and i hope that you would also interview the middle east the minister of social affairs to be more able to discuss those issues. Id like to talk about something that you have spoken quite extensively on the swedish coronavirus policy was designed on a system of trust politicians authorities the public youve spoken very highly about the system of trust but but the latest polls indicate the following about that level of trust about the swedish public has in your policy only 45 percent of swedes have now a fairly high or very high faith in the strategy compared with 63 percent and if all that thats a pretty dramatic dip do you see that as as damaging to your relationship with the public and you know the concept of a of a stable and a and as a sane and a reasonable sweden. No that is not what we talk about when we talk about trust you have misunderstood it unfortunately because when we talk about trust that is if people are trusting the pope with the political and the authorities in what measures should be taken that is not legally binding and still after 3 months more than 80 percent of the people of full in their recommendation and that is trust and that is because the swedish people know that when recommendations come from authorities that is not some teeth that you are supposed to fall or not you should follow it and they do more than a degree of 80 percent that is the trust that we are talking about and that is very very good because for a long time actually since the 16th century it has been built on Big Authority is small ministries its the advice and recommendation of authorities combined with a legally binding measures that hes always taking form of a strategy or so days time and im very very proud that so many swedish people are actually having a trusts of the following recommendation lin of course if they have trust in the Political Parties or so on that is a completely different issue lets talk a little bit more about the relationship that you have with your neighbors right now the state of trust there your neighbors including finland norway and denmark are lifting travel restrictions in the region but for the most part they are excluding sweden due to its higher level of covert 1000 infections they have concerns they have voice them on record you traditionally have excellent communication and cooperation with your nordic neighbors so leaving sweden outbreaks with a longstanding close cooperation youre the foreign minister what do you think about being isolated by your neighbors right now. Well im so glad that we have such an excellent door that Corporation Like we manage to repatch reate 8600 swedes from all over the world with a very close a good nordic operation we have minister of Foreign Affairs meeting every week we had consular meetings with our consular diplomats every day and we had a very very close nordic operation managed to get everybody back home we are also of course keeping that cooperation hour during the week and i had long talks with both my norwegian and my danish colleague and i also have contact with my finnish colleague and for example we are now hoping that everybody will vote for norway to morrow so they get a seat in the council a Security Council in United Nation but one thing that is not so very good is the border corporation where everybody who has been living working. Having families across the borders have been very very aware of that we are different nations in for example the north of sweden between. Torneo it has been practically like one town and suddenly now when we were at heat differently by the Coronavirus Border of birth closed and that will be wounds that will take time to to heal how about the wounds with your European Partners we also have the e. U. Home Affairs Commissioner earlier hansen who also happens to be swedish she wants e. U. Member states to lift all border checks within the block by the end of june as we mentioned to the european c. D. C. Their assessment is that your wave of transmission has not yet so thats not happening as it. Well we have to see it because thats the decision from every country themself and every country is doing what they think is best we have since the beginning wanted to have a coordinated in e. U. Wide solution that would have been the best but that has shown its not possible but i still i mean the way you are was in the government together with me so we know each other very well and we speak all the time so i know very well that they really want to have a coordinated answer and i think that would have been the best because now every country has their own. Right reason for why they are lifting or not lifting different border controls and that is not the best of the time for you and for example Different Countries they have export restrictions sweden did not have it for example with the space spanish Prime Minister said when we couldnt get our medical equipment sweden came and helped us to get it free from countries who had put export restrictions or so on medical and lets talk about that take the where yeah lets talk about that because youre getting into the economic aspects of best of this pandemic now the e. U. Facing the worst recession in its history its exposing rest between countries about how to deal with that youve highlighted some of them you highlighted on the export front we have Southern States like italy spain theyve been the hardest hit they have pleaded for aid from the e. U. In the form of grants and neutralize debt of clear that you and 3 other nations called the frugal for mostly in the blocks north oppose now the e. U. Of course its a union that goes far beyond the Single Market its a union of values european identities solidarity how should this project survive if you and your frugal for allies who together only represent less than 10 percent of the e. U. Population tell the citizens of some of the largest countries whose economies are literally too big to fail that you wont support your partners when they need help the most. Well it sounds like you want to troll us out of e. U. I dont think the other countries want that i think the e. U. Really really wants to stay in 27 countries and that is what we are planning to do but of course we could have differences when it comes to how you should have. Released or ring of the Economic Situation from our part we have always said that there is a sound good economy as a basis of everything and that these are also how we are now recently we think that we should have a Recovery Plan but we think it should be done in a sound and economically wise way that is why we think it should be just the measures measures that it is time limited it should be measures that is controlled. That is what we will work for each. M. F. If that is the Budget Discussion put it together we are not against to have a Recovery Plan not at all but we want to do it in a responsible way so a responsible in a sound way and lets drill down a little bit deeper into the message that your group the full 4 has been sending to your European Partners in need because after 9 countries including italy and spain as we mentioned requested Financial Support in the form of neutralized the dutch finance minister said the following brussels should study why some governments lacked the financial wherewithal to fight the crisis on their own and in that context i would like to ask you i mean it is now really the best time to be taking the high ground in a lesson in fiscal more ality a time when your partners need help. Well actually i think that we should help each other for example by keeping the internal market totally open so you dont put export restriction to anybody that actually need help from other countries sweden has been one of the country who has been most active when it comes to ventilators all over europe when some other countries wanted to keep them for themselves for their National People we didnt do that we showed that solidarity we also showed a lot of solidarity by giving very very high grants to World Health Organization the United Nations the Vaccine Program because we think that this is the Global Pandemic that we should fight globally so you say that you have expressed a sense of solidarity you know one of the chief messages of those who support this mix of grants and loans is that it does indeed benefit all states in the e. U. For example he says the frugal countries benefit disproportionately from the Single Market and so should swing behind the proposals and now this is coming from the e. U. s budget commissioner who is austrian. Tell us i mean sweden is an export based economy over 70 percent of swedish exports and up in the e. U. If the Single Market burns so does your economy so does he have a point here. Its of course the budgetary commissioner warned the e. U. To have a much bigger budget he was no he would not do his job if he didnt have that view but we are saying the same thing we are always saying we think that e. U. Should have a sound economy we dont think it should be too much loans and we dont think it should be mutal iced that is actually now its against the 33. 00 of the e. U. To have mutal i slowed so this next weekends negotiation amounts leaders will of course be very very interesting and we i dont think that they are supposed to take the decision now but it will be much clearer in what way it would be possible to go to get a recovery leigh plan but not to put jeopardy on the. Economy. Id like to ask you because one of the areas that has come up when were talking about jeopardy for the use economy is this issue of inequality an unequal recovery merkel and mccrone have warned that allowing some e. U. Countries to recover faster and some stronger would only deepen inequality is in the block hampering the way the trade operates internally funder line has also stressed that its crucial for the recovery to be even so see you even have the fiscally conservative germans recognizing the need for grants in the Recovery Fund arent you forcing a more unequal europe with your approach where is the solidarity where is the urgency i am i think the more equal e. U. Is nothing that anybody want and not to have an equality inside the country thats why i hope that many more countries would follow our example to have a tax system that is more equalizing that possibility for people to have the same possibilities both when it comes to job to education and to pay more for the for the. Common goods and that is something i think should be a national thing and there is a lot to discuss there when it comes to in quality inside and between countries and their own thing sweden least a country to blame here what is your vision then of the e. U. Post khurana i mean if the e. U. Can rise to the challenge now and use this moment for further integration further solidarity further consensus coming together when its really facing this Massive Public Health Crisis and the greatest economic challenge since it was created then when when when will it become a stronger yen well e. U. Has managed to sell many crises during the whole lifetime or e. U. I am i quite sure that the e. U. Will manage it managing this crisis as well and it will take some time to go back to to the economy to the free borderers to the internal market but we will manage as we have star always im not afraid of that thats nothing i worry about Swedish Foreign minister and linda thank you for joining us on complex. Thank you very much. No longer alone in belgium mourning more people are rising up as an event see the art historian is fighting against the romanticization of her countrys colonial past and for confronting repression she is demanding more equal rights and respect for all nonwhite people together with many others to some piece from her a. 30 minute spot d. W. What keeps us in shape what makes us see and how do we still come from. My name is dr costly i talk to medical experts. Watch them at work. And then discuss what you can do to improve your head. Stay choose and lets all try to stay in good. On the job of. How does a virus spread. Why do we panic and when will all of this. Just 3 of the topics that weve covered and weekly radio show is called spectrum if you would like any information on the krona laroche or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you can get your podcast you can also find us and dot com forum slash science. Are we alone its a fundamental question on humanity trying to figure out whether or not. Life existed on mars pretty clear water was there quite abundance well that would be interesting so on mars the atmosphere is 100 of what we have here on earth its very very cold and at the past its like antarctica you could imagine bringing some supplies and you know you do and build a little selfcontained pressured vehicle or vessel which is be on the surface there are things like oxygen that you can harvest from the atmosphere to help make living possible. If you want to think of humanity if we really want to survive for ever were going to have through off the earth eventual a and i know that seems a little crazy but youve got to start somewhere. This is. A contract killing in the german capital. Of the russian government prosecutors say the kremlin. Has to retaliate if germany moves to punish russia for the murder also coming out. Of former national security