The Swedish government announced Wednesday that foreign citizens will have to provide a recent negative test for COVID-19 when entering Sweden as of Saturday, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
The announcement was made five days after the Public Health Agency requested tighter arrival controls to minimize the spread of mutated virus strains.
"These new virus variants are alarming," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said when announcing the new rules at a digital press conference.
"The background to this decision is the new variants of the virus that have been discovered recently, and the fact that it is difficult to assess which countries have a high prevalence of these variants."
Even though the government has fast-tracked the process, the situation has changed dramatically since the Public Health Agency requested immigration rules should be tightened.