Swedish official says lessons must be learned

India reported its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases as it prepared to resume train services to ease a lockdown that has hit migrant workers especially hard by eliminating the daily wages they use to feed their families.

The government reported 4,213 new cases for a total of more than 67,000, including 2,206 deaths.

The railway system is India’s lifeline, transporting 23 million people across the vast subcontinent each day.

When service restarts today, passengers must wear masks and pass health screenings before being allowed to board and the trains will make fewer stops.

A top Swedish official has said lessons should be learned from tackling the coronavirus pandemic and Sweden could maybe have acted “a little faster”.

Dan Eliasson, head of Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency, told Swedish radio that “when major crises occur, you will always look at it afterwards. So comes the question, did we react fast enough?”

His comments come after health minister Lena Hallengren last month told Swedish television that “we failed to protect our elderly. That’s really serious and a failure for society as a whole. We have to learn from this”.

Swedish media in recent weeks have reported cases where retirement homes have seen a large death toll, with staff continuing to work despite a lack of protective gear.

The Scandinavian country has taken a relatively soft approach. Large gatherings were banned but restaurants and schools for younger children have stayed open. The government has urged social distancing, and Swedes have largely complied.

The country has reported more than 3,175 fatalities and 90 per cent of those who had died were above the age of 70