Sweden records over 1,000 deaths due to coronavirus

Sweden on Tuesday recorded 1,000 deaths due to coronavirus, the government declared.

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The country which was earlier criticised for taking a "soft" approach to fight COVID-19 has since reported a rising number of cases.

Health agency said it had recorded a total of 11,445 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,033 deaths.

Last week the country had reported 100 deaths in one-day alarming officials. Sweden's public health agency had said earlier that it had recorded 7,693 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country.

114 people had died due to the virus last week. Sweden had earlier reportedly kept its schools, restaurants and bars open. The country also avoided a lockdown while Europe had already put stringent lockdown measures in place.

Earlier, the country had rejected claims by US President Trump that its approach to containing the COVID-19 was too soft and that it was "suffering" more than others.

"There aren't too many of them... They talk about Sweden, but Sweden is suffering very gravely," Trump had said at a news conference. 

However, Sweden's foreign minister said: "We are doing about the same things that many other countries are doing, but in a different way, we trust that people take responsibility."

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at Sweden's Public Health Agency added: "No, we don't share his opinion." 

"Of course we're suffering. Everybody in the world is suffering right now, in different ways," he said, adding," but Swedish healthcare, which I guess he alludes to... is taking care of this in a very good manner. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of stress on the personnel and it's really a fight for them every day, but it's working."