Swedish Covid-19 cases continue to increase as many welcomed the toughest measures yet imposed on Monday to curb the spread of the disease that has claimed more than 6,000 lives in the Nordic country, Reuters reported.

Sweden, whose soft-touch pandemic response has garnered worldwide attention, registered 15,084 new coronavirus cases for the latest four-day period on Tuesday. It was a small decrease compared with the 15,779 cases recorded the corresponding period last week.

“We're still in a very serious situation,” Sweden's Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told a news conference.