April 17, 2020 - 2:36pm
That was one of the more extraordinary interviews we have done here at UnHerd.
Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:
- UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
- The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
- This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
- The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
- The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
- The paper was very much too pessimistic
- Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
- The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
- The results will eventually be similar for all countries
- Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
- The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
- At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available
Freddie Sayers is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.
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SubscribeFarage appeals to the Scots. Their alcoholism is renowned and any politician appearing having a jar and a smoke confirms the righteousness of their instinct to intoxication.
12% something to get excited about? And as would likely happen South of the Border, perfect to let back in the bete noire of Reformists. Happy days.
The only disappointment is it’s likely to unravel as Reform get asked more Policy questions and no doubt as some of the nut-jobs attracted to become it’s candidates attract more spotlight. Shame.
There’s something about politics that attracts nut-jobs to all parties.
I saw an extraordinary report from the BBC this morning (it appeared in my YouTube feed). The reporter spoke to people – Labour, Tory and Reform voters in Great Yarmouth about their new Reform MP, Rupert Lowe. Everyone who he asked praised him as an improvement on previous incumbents and some were very generous indeed. No attempt seemed to have been made to find a naysayer to balance things out (or if there was an attempt, it had been unsuccessful). It is very strange to see such a report on the BBC and a very welcome one.
there is also a supressed glasgow usual suspects grooming gang rape scandal. Us weegie’s are as appalled as everyone else and there is only one political avenue recognising this
On the southern banks of the Clyde, by any chance?
Perhaps the Scots are beginning to realise that everything they thought they uniquely resented about ‘Westminster Government’ the rest of the Kingdom resents equally.
Quelle surprise – Scots are not much different from everyone else in Europe after all. Who’da thunk it?
I would like to see these polls linked to age. It would not surprise me if young people in Scotland were desperate for independence – because it would be new and different and a chance for change. Anything would seem rosier than the status quo, especially with the nonsense coming from Westminster. Unfortunately, independence is always linked with rejoining Europe and older people would see the same nonsense coming from Ursula’s mob.
I would expect Reform to be even bigger in Wales than in Scotland because Wales is not as extreme and hasn’t had this oily dream in the past. The party corresponding to the SNP, Plaid Cymru, does not have a single policy except for independence and that would be achieved by everybody having to speak Welsh – an empty party with no ideas. Wales does have resources that England would need in the future (as does Scotland), but having the resources is one thing and using them is another.
As I recall, the Yes vote, while tending to be higher among younger voters, wasn’t as high as you might think and, in fact, Salmond’s giving the vote to 16-17 years olds didn’t translate into the block support he was expecting. Yes support was concentrated in specific parts of Greater Glasgow and Dundee.