It had the same lax restrictions as the capital of Sweden: schools remained open, residents carried on drinking in bars and cafes, and the doors of hairdressers and gyms were open throughout coronavirus. But the Swedish coastal city of Malmö has shown a remarkably different result to Stockholm, with few fatalities and a remarkably low death rate. Now some experts are questioning if the Malmo model proves that Sweden’s controversial move to avoid a lockdown was right all along. Sweden has faced mounting criticism over its death rate. But Skane, the region around Malmo, had by last week registered just 17 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants due to coronavirus, slightly fewer than the 19 per 100,000 seen in the Capital Region of Denmark across the Oresund straits, even though Denmark went into heavy lockdown for two months from mid-March. Nearly half of Sweden’s nearly 5,000 deaths have so taken place in Stockholm, giving the Swedish capital a harrowing death rate of 95 per 100,000.
