Sweden

Sweden, Lockdown was never on the agenda Dr. Anders Tegnell ‘Lockdown was never on the agenda in Sweden’ Sweden’s state epidemiologist (medical) UK, SPI-B (Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour) To increase adherence, “perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased” Professor Neil Ferguson (Imperial College) Letting the virus spread freely in the UK 510,000 deaths Anders Tegnell “If you put numbers into models and you don’t know those numbers are fairly much correct, you can arrive at very, very strange results.” “You need to weigh together different sources of science and then you can maybe arrive at something that’s reasonably, hopefully true,” “And you need to really double-check and see if you get more people doing the same thing before you can feel reasonably safe. But to rely very much on just one study, one model, that’s quite dangerous.” Swedish people, advised to work from home wherever possible Ban on gatherings of over 50 people A few rules for restaurants Other Covid measures, entirely voluntary Johan Giesecke, (previous state epidemiologist) “apolitical – one of those people who did what they were supposed to without reflecting too much on what was expedient or politically viable at the time” Anders Tegnell “If you go back to the Spanish flu (1918-19), you can find instances when they tried to lock things down,” “But in all the pandemic plans we have been discussing during the last decades, closing down a society has never even been on the agenda.” Shutting down short term? “I mean, if you know that your healthcare system needs a few weeks to ramp up the ICU and so on, there are instances when such things can be a solution.” Airborne respiratory virus was going to sweep through the population anyway, The best you could hope for was to slow it down while protecting the vulnerable The cost of lockdown would be horrifyingly high Was the world influenced by China? ‘China is, of course, a state where draconian things like that can be done,” “And it did work to a certain extent. So, for a while, there was an idea that we should have very strict measures like a hammer coming down. Bam! Bring the hammer down hard and then take the hammer away and then sort of let it slowly build up again and then, bam! But that never worked.” “We learn quite soon that it’s easy to start having different kinds of restrictions, but it’s very difficult to stop having them.” No billboards with scary pictures of Covid patients, no masks, no street furniture of fear Mobile phone records, Swedes chose to restrict travel and social activities People told it was safest to be outdoors Swedish national parks very busy Denmark and Norway Closed all schools on March 11th Sweden Over-16s and university, moved to remote learning Younger children, in class as normal March 13, Johan Giesecke to Anders Tegnell Don’t you know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed? Anders Tegnell “The world has gone mad” In Sweden, it’s even written into the law that the health care should be driven by evidence-based medicine and that was so quickly left behind in other places.” Stefan Lofven, Sweden’s prime minister Played no part in the 2pm daily press briefings Telegraph there was no baying for blood like there was from the British media as broadcasters with GCSE biology screeched at hapless UK ministers to hurry up and shut the schools.