This Swedish town is raising a stink amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The university town of Lund is set to dump a ton of chicken manure in a park to deter residents from gathering there for a religious celebration on Thursday night.
Local officials said the initiative would help prevent Lund from turning into a coronavirus epicenter on Walpurgis Night, a holiday marked across central and northern Europe with parties and bonfires, The Guardian reported.
“We get the opportunity to fertilize the lawns, and at the same time it will stink and so it may not be so nice to sit and drink beer in the park,” Gustav Lundblad, the local council’s environment committee, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.
Many of the town’s 125,000-odd inhabitants usually gather in the park in the afternoon and evening for picnics before the Walpurgis party gets underway.
A potential drawback is that the smell may not be confined to the park.
“I am not a fertilizer expert, but as I understand it, it is clear that it might smell a bit outside the park as well,” Lundblad admitted. “These are chicken droppings, after all. I cannot guarantee that the rest of the city will be odorless.”
“But the point is to keep people out of the city park.”
Sweden has controversially refused to impose restrictions amid the pandemic, opting to ask, rather than order, citizens to maintain social distancing. Shops, restaurants and gyms have remained open.
The country of 10.3 million has seen more than 20,300 cases and 2,462 deaths as of Thursday afternoon — far higher than its Nordic neighbors, which implemented stricter containment measures, the latest data shows.
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