Sweden joins growing list of countries to eliminate all Covid barriers to entry

in #travel2 years ago

When the world was locking down in an absurd and futile manner over the past 2 years there were a couple of countries that handled things a bit differently. These countries, like Sweden were scrutinized by other governments and their media as doing the "wrong thing" and how it was going to result in huge amounts of death not just for that country, but for other ones surrounding it. One of those countries was Sweden as they refused to enslave and lock down their population in the same way that all their European neighbors did.

Try as they may, the media was unable to find a way to make the Swedish figures look worse than other locked down countries so their solution wasn't to question whether or not Sweden might be doing the right thing but rather, to stop talking about it all. Here we are 2 years later and the people of Sweden of have enjoyed a great deal more freedom than most other countries on the planet, yet their numbers are basically the same as everyone else's. Which means to say that the death and destruction that was going to happen, did happen regardless of lockdown status.


image.png
src

When this was going on I was rooting for Sweden because they were basically the only country in Europe that was doing this and because my country was locking down like crazy to no avail, I really wanted to see this country prove everyone wrong. The did prove everyone wrong but the other European countries didn't want to admit this and I believe this is why everyone just started to ignore Sweden.

When places like Mexico and Costa Rica started to eliminate all Covid related barriers to entry the world scoffed at them an again tried to lecture them on how what they were doing was wrong and that they were going to see huge amounts of death as a result. This of course didn't happen and the media solution was the same: Instead of reporting on how maybe these strict entry requirements aren't not only ineffective, but rather pointless, they just tried to paint these countries as backwards, poor, places with idiot leaders that didn't care about their populations. Once again, there was no dramatic increase in death, there was a dramatic increase in tourism though, which the countries desperately needed.

They were still relatively poor countries though, so the governments of the world could still try to suggest that only poor countries with no choice are doing this. Then wealthier countries started eliminating all entry requirements such as Norway, Iceland, and the UK. These are some of the most expensive counties in the world to visit, so now the "only poor countries are opening up" narrative could no longer be used. Once again, rather than praising these countries for their sensibilities, other governments of the world either ignored it, or tried to tell them they are doing the wrong thing.


image.png
src

I will admit that I have never been to Sweden and am unlikely to ever do so because it is a pretty expensive country to travel to and inside of, and the weather doesn't exactly appeal to me most of the year. I am just happy that it is open and by "open" I mean completely.

In order to get into Sweden you do not need to be vaccinated, you do not need to take a PCR test, you will not be subjected to quarantine and even if you do catch covid you will not be required to isolate or socially distance. You do not have to show proof of anything other than the same documents that you have needed prior to when the entire world went crazy. You just need a passport and a visa.

Sweden had actually removed these restrictions a while ago, but this was only for people from certain countries and it appeared to be related to trade more than anything else. However, now all Covid entry requirements have been removed for all nationalities. Basically, if you were able to get into Sweden before Covid, you can get into it now.

Normally, I would offer some sort of suggestions for budget travel when I talk about a country but I don't think that is really a Sweden thing. I could be wrong but the high cost of the country has kept me from ever investigating this as a possibility. I'm just congratulating them on their decision to eliminate all Covid-related barriers to entry. They are now the 22nd country in the world to do this. Now if all of the other ones would just follow suit.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.30
TRX 0.12
JST 0.033
BTC 64344.02
ETH 3142.36
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.01