SWEDEN and its political leaders have come under criticism in recent weeks for refusing to implement restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19, and in the midst of it all, a Fermanagh-native is living in Scandinavia’s worst affected country.
Kieran Smyth, a native of Enniskillen, moved to Sweden in 1984 and during his time there he has been working in the carpentry business.
In recent weeks, the Covid-19 situation has developed quite severely in Sweden provoking a lot of criticism on the Swedish Government which have refused to enforce restrictions like other countries.
Just last week, the Sweden Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, announced that the Government have got new legislation passed to make it possible to enforce a nationwide lockdown and for Kieran, he admits that this is very positive news for the people of the country if this can help to stop the spread of the virus.
“At the minute there is no full lockdown introduced here yet. I myself live about two miles from Gothenburg and I have been chatting to a lot of people who live there and they said that the local traffic and the trams and such methods of travel are packed still. The restaurants do close at 8pm in the evening though.”
“There is still no law in place over here about the wearing of masks or face coverings. They recommend that you wear one alright but it is not being enforced in public. There is no law to say that you have to have it on.”
“The Government hadn’t got the Bill to close down things but now they have been successful in getting that through last week but, as of yet, they haven’t used it to close down anything just yet. They had to wait until they got it put through and they did so last week but they have issued new guidance to say they are going to wait for a while and to see what happens.”
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