in place for one month, after which it would be up for review. travel from non-eu/eea member states was stopped on 17 march 2020 and unnecessary travel within sweden was advised against on 19 march. the foreign ministry estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 swedes were stranded abroad in late march 2020. according to swedish policy, swedes travelling abroad have their own responsibility to arrange for any return travels, without assistance from swedish diplomatic missions, and travellers trying to travel home are referred to airlines, travel agencies or insurance companies. some of those were critical of the foreign ministry, and were asking for help from the swedish authorities. the foreign ministry were initially reluctant to depart from the policy. however, as a growing number of countries closed their airports and many swedes found themselves stranded in a foreign country unable to arrange travels themselves, the foreign ministry began work on evacuating swedish citizens. in early may 2020, the ministry of foreign affairs reported that the only location from which stranded swedish citizens hadn't been evacuated was the gambia. on 7 april 2020, the foreign ministry extended the advice against all non-essential travel abroad until 15 june 2020, when it would again be reconsidered. on 9 may 2020, swedish foreign minister ann linde said that although a decision about an extension was yet to be made, she made clear that travel wouldn't return to normal after 15 june 2020. on 13 may 2020, the foreign ministry again extended the advice for non-necessary foreign travel to 15 july 2020. from 30 june 2020, the advice against non-essential travel were lifted for 10 eu countries, namely belgium, france, greece, iceland, italy, croatia, luxembourg, portugal, switzerland and spain, as well as for monaco, san marino and the vatican city. the advice against travel to other countries within the eu, eea and the schengen area would remain in effect until 15 july 2020, while advice were extended until 31 august 2020 for countries outside those areas. vaccination this section is an excerpt from covid-19 vaccination in sweden. vaccination against covid-19 in sweden started on 27 december 2020 after the approval of the pfizer–biontech vaccine by the european commission. in sweden, the public health agency has been commissioned by the government to create a vaccination plan. sveriges riksbank, the central bank of sweden, predicts that efficient vaccination against covid-19 has macroeconomic benefits. as of 20 april 2022, 87.1% of people (12 years and older) in sweden have received at least one dose, with a total of 21,491,717 doses administered. at least one vaccine has been approved for all age groups 12 and older. children younger than 12 in high risk groups can also be vaccinated. reception corona commission this section is an excerpt from coronakommissionen. the coronavirus commission (swedish: coronakommissionen) is a swedish independent commission to evaluate the government's response to the covid-19 pandemic in sweden. formed of a panel of 8 experts, the commission was established by the government of sweden in 2020 following pressure from the riksdag. in december 2020, a report by the commission criticised the government for failing to protect elderly people in aged care due to the high level of community spread. in october 2021, the commission's second report characterised the government's response in early 2020 as "insufficient" and "late". the commission said in their final report in february 2022 that the government's strategy of not introducing lockdowns, as many other countries had done, was "fundamentally correct" for maintaining individuals' personal freedoms over those in other countries, but was critical of the decisions not to introduce "more rigorous and intrusive disease prevention and control measures" in february and march 2020. it also said that the government had delegated too much responsibility to the public health agency of sweden and the responsible bodies for decision making were not always clear. media coverage many outside sweden considered the measures taken by the authorities against the pandemic to be significantly different when compared to other countries. as a result, there was a big increase in international news coverage of sweden. according to the swedish institute, the situation was unique as they had never seen such interest in sweden from mainstream media. there was also an increase in interactions on the coverage, including a higher number of shares on social media. the swedish strategy was sometimes described as "lax", "laissez-faire", "unorthodox" or "radical", in some cases even as "extreme" or as "russian roulette". much of the coverage was neutral, but it was sometimes described as curious, questioning or critical, and was in some cases accused of being "fake news". in october 2020, time described it as a "disaster". over time, the reporting shifted to being more neutral or nuanced, or sometimes positive, with some speculating that the swedish policy may be more durable in the long run. a common news story in international media was things being "business as usual" in sweden, with its citizens ignoring the recommendations to practice social distancing and avoiding unnecessary travel, often accompanied by footage of crowded streets and restaurants. one notable example was an article in the british newspaper the guardian, claiming that everything in sweden went on as normal, with swedes "going about their daily routines". the article attracted particularly widespread notice, and was quoted by many european newspapers. the guardian was also accused of misleading their readers in another article, by selectively choosing quotes and putting them in a different context, and by disproportionately giving room to critical voices from sweden in their reporting. some reported that sweden chose not to lock down to protect the economy. foreign news outlets often described sweden as pursuing a herd immunity strategy. this was echoed by us president donald trump, who in a press briefing told the assembled media that sweden was "suffering very greatly" due to what he referred to as "the herd", and that the us, if it had not taken much stricter social distancing measures, "would have lost hundreds of thousands more people". responding partly to trump's remarks, which she described by using the word "misinformation", swedish foreign minister ann linde said that the "so-called swedish strategy" was one of many myths about sweden, and described it as "absolutely false". linde said that the swedish goal was no different from most other countries: to save lives, hinder the spread of the virus and make the situation manageable for the health system, while sweden's state epidemiologist, anders tegnell, when asked about trump's remarks, said that in his opinion sweden was doing relatively well, and was no worse off than new york. remarks similar to linde's have also been made by lena hallengren, minister for health and social affairs, who disagreed with the belief that sweden had a radically different approach to the virus compared to other countries, saying she believed that there were only differences in two major regards: not shutting down schools, and not having regulations forcing people to remain in their homes. linde has also spoken out against reports of swedes not practising social distancing, calling it another "myth" in the reporting about sweden, and she said sweden's combination of recommendations and legally binding measures had so far proven effective. swedish experts critical of the swedish strategy were often quoted in international media, among them immunologist cecilia söderberg-nauclér, one of the most vocal critics, who was quoted accusing the government of "leading us to catastrophe" and having "decided to let people die". debate and criticism the swedish response to the pandemic has been debated within sweden, though surveys show a wide agreement for the response among the public. the debate has mostly involved academics, as the opposition in the riksdag initially mostly avoided criticising the response from the government or the agencies. the parties without representation in the government, including the liberal conservative party, the moderates, the christian democrats, the centre-right parties the liberals and the centre party, and the socialist left party instead voiced their support for the government consisting of the swedish social democratic party and the green party, in what often is referred to as a 'borgfred' (truce) where the opposition support the government in a time of crisis. the exception being the right-wing populist sweden democrats, whose party leader jimmie åkesson called for school closings. the leader of the moderate party, the biggest party in opposition, ulf kristersson, said that eventually it will be needed to evaluate how the government and agencies have handled the pandemic, "but not now". in may, several opposition politicians sharply criticised the government and prime minister stefan löfvén for the low number of tests being carried out, despite promises from the government in april to increase testing to 100,000 individuals a week. kristersson demanded for löfvén to be much more clear about who has the responsibility for the testing, and ebba busch, leader of the christian democrats, accused löfvén of "weak rulership" playing a "high risk game with the lives and health of swedes". left party leader jonas sjöstedt said that the government needed to step in and take charge, and accused the government of having remained powerless when the regions failed to increase testing. anders tegnell being interviewed during his daily coronavirus briefing in april 2020on 14 april 2020, a debate article was sent to swedish newspapers signed by 22 swedish researchers, saying that the strategy of the swedish public health agency would lead to "chaos in the healthcare system". moreover, they said that there was no transparency regarding the data used in the models made by the agency. anders tegnell from the public health agency responded to the criticism by saying that there was no lack in transparency in the agency's work and that all data is available to be downloaded by the public as an excel-file on their website. additionally tegnell stated that the numbers of deaths presented in the published article are wrong, especially regarding the specific number of deaths per day (this data was later re-confirmed by the 22 researchers and the information added to the original article in dn). another claim in the article saying that sweden's statistics were closing in to the ones of italy was countered by anders tegnell saying that unlike sweden, italy and many other countries only report on deaths in hospitals, making it hard to compare the numbers of the different countries. he also said in an interview with the bbc that sweden's strategy is largely working in slowing the spread of the disease; although the death toll in nursing homes was high, the country's healthcare system did not become overwhelmed, and that sweden's approach had made it better-placed than other countries in dealing with a second wave of infections. sweden questioned the scientific basis for imposing mandatory lockdown seen in other european countries, relying instead on the civic responsibility of its citizens to keep large parts of its society open. although senior high schools were closed and gatherings of more than 50 people were banned, shops, restaurants and junior schools remained open. swedes were expected to follow the recommendations on social distancing, avoiding non-essential travel, remote work, and staying indoors if they are elderly or feeling ill. sweden sometimes found itself used as a battering ram in debates, both to defend and to criticise more "strict" measures, including anti-lockdown protesters and politicians. some foreign leaders have used sweden as a warning example when defending their own strategy, including alberto fernández, president of argentina, and us president donald trump who compared sweden's higher death toll next to its neighbouring countries who had applied stricter measures, and said that "sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown". some of the harshest criticism from outside sweden was found in the chinese tabloid global times, owned by the ruling chinese communist party; it accused sweden of having capitulated to the virus, calling the country 'a black hole' and called for the international community to condemn sweden's actions. some, including swedish minister for justice morgan johansson, speculated that the strong criticism may be partly linked to the poor relations between the two countries after china's imprisonment of the swedish book publisher gui minhai. yngve gustafson, a professor of geriatrics at the university of umeå, has alleged that some elderly covid-19 patients in swedish hospitals and nursing homes who could have survived with more active treatment were