Sweden’s public health agency will send the set of Christmas-COVID rules to prevent the spread of infection during the festive season, The Local Sweden has learned.
The text messages planned to be sent to every mobile phone number in Sweden hoping to drum home restrictions designed to prevent an explosion of COVID-19 over Christmas and the New Year.
In its efforts to curb the pandemic, Sweden’s home minister Mikael Damberg announced the mass text on Friday morning.
“We are now in a difficult situation ahead of Christmas and New Year and we want to give the Swedish people yet another reminder,” Damberg told journalists.
On December 14, the new health guidelines by the Public Health Agency will come into force. The restricted rules aiming at limiting socialisation activities over the festive period if possible to a bubble of eight people. People recommended to avoid new contacts, meet outside as much as possible, and avoid public transport as much as possible.
The mass text messaging: 22 million mobile phone contracts in Sweden
According to the four biggest telecoms operators, there are about 22 million mobile phone contracts in Sweden of 10 million people. A text message will not itself mention any of the actual recommendations for Christmas, instead enjoining recipients to go online and check up on what they are.
“They have come forward voluntarily to help carry this out practically. They are performing an important service to reduce the spread of infection in Sweden,” said digitalisation minister Anders Ygeman.
The text in the SMS, in Swedish, will read: “Information from the authorities: Follow the new tighter advice in order to stop the spread of infection. Read more on the Krisinformation website.”
In its turn, the Krisinformation website itself contains links to information about the novel pathogen in Sweden in other languages.
