STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Climate activist Greta Thunberg said on Friday she will stop her regular protest outside Sweden’s parliament because of the surge in COVID-19 infections, and return to only campaigning online.
Sweden reported 2,820 new coronavirus cases on Oct. 28, the highest since the pandemic began.
“The situation is worsening, so therefore it’s back to #ClimateStrikeOnline for me,” Thunberg told her roughly 4 million followers on Twitter.
Thunberg has been skipping school on Fridays since August 2018 to stand outside parliament in Stockholm to demand her government take action on climate change.
What started as a lone protest with a hand-painted sign quickly developed into a global phenomenon, mostly due to the attention it gained on social media.
She urged activists to protest online in March as the pandemic started building, but she returned to her place outside parliament in September.
The Oct. 28 spike in cases was the third record number in a matter of days for Sweden, though the health agency said the peak during spring probably ran much higher but went unrecorded due to a lack of testing.
“Stay safe, take care of each other and #flattenthecurve!” Thunberg said on Twitter.
(Reporting by Colm Fulton; Editing by Simon Johnson and Andrew Heavens)
