The Role of Geography and Territorial Planning in the Spreading of SARS-CoV-2. A Case Study on the Peculiarities of the Swedish Rurality

Abstract

This article studies the spread of SARS-CoV-2 at a local level in Sweden and the role of geographic features that might have influenced the path of the virus. Then, the differences between rural and urban contexts have been analyzed. Results showed that the Swedish rurality seems to have been hit less by the pandemic than the ones of many other Western countries, possibly because of its more advanced stage of rurbanisation and a better institutional government and planning of its former rural areas. On the other hand, other Western countries have chosen models which appear closer to the American one, in which the social and economic structure of the urbanized areas, from the hamlet to the metropolis, is disappearing in favour of a sprawl model that could have boosted the infection.