Today in Sweden: A round-up of the latest news on Wednesday

Covid-19 vaccinations to be carried out in Stockholm City Hall

The Blue Room (Blå hallen) in Stockholm's City Hall will be turned into a temporary vaccination hub for people working in elderly care, said mayor Anna König Jerlmyr. The venue is most famous for hosting Sweden's Nobel Prize banquet every year.

Around ten sports halls will also be used as vaccination venues in Stockholm.

Swedish vocabulary: elderly care – äldreomsorg

What Stockholm City Hall looks like when it's hosting the Nobel Prize banquet. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Swedish lions and tigers test positive for Covid-19

Five lions and two tigers at Borås Zoo in western Sweden came down with Covid-19 in mid-January, which was discovered after they started coughing and had no appetite. A 17-year-old tiger with underlying health conditions had to be put down, reports SVT.

Several members of staff also tested positive for Covid-19, and everyone working with the tigers and lions was quarantined. The zoo told Borås Tidning that the staff are believed to have infected the animals, not the other way around. Similar cases have been reported in other parts of the world, but this is the first time it has happened in Sweden.

The animals' symptoms have improved, and the outbreak was believed to be under control on Tuesday

Swedish vocabulary: lions and tigers – lejon och tigrar

File photo of a lion at Borås Zoo. Photo: Borås Zoo

Almost 200,000 Covid-19 vaccinations have been given in Sweden

Just under 500 new cases of the coronavirus per 100,000 residents were reported over the past 14 days in Sweden, pushing the country below the threshold that would see it marked 'very high risk' under new EU plans.

The Covid-19 case notification rate had fallen from 616 the previous week, the Public Health Agency reported in Sweden's biweekly coronavirus briefing, and compares to just under 900 in the week before Christmas.

While the current rate of 479 cases per 100,000 residents would not see Sweden marked as a very high risk 'dark red zone' under the proposed EU-wide classification, it still shows a high level of spread of the virus.

In late October, before the second wave took hold in Sweden, this figure was below 150, roughly the same as the current case rate in Norway.

In total 192,700 vaccinations have been registered as carried out in Sweden.

Swedish vocabulary: dark red – mörkröd

Sweden extends travel warning for non-EU countries beyond Easter

Sweden's foreign ministry has extended its advice against non-essential travel to non-EU countries until April 15th – beyond both the winter sports school break and the Easter holidays.

The guidance relates to restrictions in place for travellers rather than being based on the spread of coronavirus infection in the countries.

It is not a legally binding ban, but has other implications that residents in Sweden may want to take into account before deciding to travel, for example that your Swedish travel insurance may not be valid if you disregard the advice.

Swedish vocabulary: advise against – avråda från

How space rock hunters found rare traces of a meteorite in Sweden

Swedish meteorite hunters have discovered fragments from the fireball meteor which lit up the night sky in November, the first from an observed meteorite found in Sweden since 1954.

Jörgen Langhof, a minerologist at Sweden's Museum of Natural History, found and analysed several of the fragments, after an anonymous hobby meteorite hunter tipped him off to the location.

"It's very interesting because fragments from iron meteorites are quite rare," he told The Local. "They are very sensitive to weathering. If there's water and weak acids in the ground it will decompose in smaller particles and in time dissolve completely."

Swedish vocabulary: space – rymd

Swedish playwright Lars Norén dies aged 76

One of Sweden's most well-known theatre writers, Lars Norén, has died aged 76 from complications owing to Covid-19, his publisher said.

"The importance of Lars Norén as an author and dramatist is almost impossible to convey at the moment in a couple of sentences, but he was one of the greats of our time," Eva Bonnier, editor at his publishing house Albert Bonniers Förlag, said in a statement.

Famous both at home and abroad he was seen as following in the footsteps of renowned Swedish author August Strindberg (1849-1912) and film director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). He started with poetry in the 1960s before homing in on theatre in the late 1970s, as both a writer and director.

Swedish vocabulary: director – regissör