STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – More Swedes died in April than in any one month since 1993, figures from the Statistics Office showed on Monday, as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pushed the death toll higher.
Sweden, which has stopped short of the strict lockdown measures enforced by many countries, has suffered a higher death rate during the coronavirus pandemic than its Scandinavian neighbours.
In Sweden, the pandemic has caused around 3,700 deaths since the first reported fatality in March, but has not been as deadly as some seasonal flu over the last three decades, when the toll in December 1993 and January 2000 was higher, the Statistics Office said.
The toll for all deaths in December 1993 was 11,057 compared to 10,458 in April this year.
In terms of fatalities in relation to the size of the population, in January 2000, 110.8 people died per 100,000 of the population, higher than the 101.1 people in April this year.
The death tolls in both 1993 and 2000 were high as a result of outbreaks of seasonal influenza, the Statistics Office said.
In total, 97,008 Swedes died in the whole of 1993, the deadliest year since the outbreak of the Spanish flu in 1918.
(Reporting by Simon Johnson; editing by Barbara Lewis)
