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December 18, 2020 - 11:26am
The world of Swedish epidemiology is small. Fredrik Elgh is a Professor of Virology at Umeå University in Northern Sweden and a clinical physician, but earlier in his career, heading up a department at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control in Stockholm, a certain Anders Tegnell was in his staff, and Johan Giesecke was another department head. From our 45-minute conversation, I think we can surmise that they are no longer on speed dial.
Professor Elgh has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Swedish response to Covid-19, calling for more dramatic action as early as March 2nd in an op-ed in the main Swedish broadsheet. Since then, he has been shocked by what he sees as inaction by the Swedish government. “In the early days, the information was ‘this was nothing to worry about,’ week after week after week,” he says.
From the start of the epidemic, he says there was no serious attempt to quarantine arrivals from infected areas in Europe — much of the Stockholm infection is thought to have arrived from returning skiers from the Alps in February — and even contacts of known cases were not required to isolate. As Professor Elgh puts it, “there was no will to stop this, no will to put people in quarantine that came from these places, no will even to put people in quarantine that had been in contact with people who came down with the disease, no will to stop pupils going to school who had come back from infected areas.”
He targets Johan Giesecke and Anders Tegnell for particular criticism. “They have not really told us what the exact strategy was, but it must have been that it should sweep through the community rapidly,” he says. “I will say to the day that I die that this was a huge mistake.”
Once the summer arrived and cases and deaths fell to a very low level, due to seasonal effects, he believes that the country should have been preparing for a second wave. “We could have prepared ourselves in a number of ways during the summer. I was really upset when it was like everything was over and we had done a fantastic job. That was not okay with me.”
Professor Elgh says that right now, dramatic action is required. “We have to save lives. We have to save health. In Sweden, we need to save our health system because that is almost full… In a fortnight we will have a tremendous amount of cases in our hospitals.”
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Subscribe“First two weeks of lockdown so you get rid of the contagion….”
Sorry to be the one to point it out but this hasn’t exactly been a raging success anywhere thus far.
Hooting with laughter! basic rule of science if your experiment to test a hypothesis does not support it. Question the hypothesis. Don’t think we can claim lack of power for the lockdown experiments.
Second rule of scientific experiments, if the first did not work do it in ever greater numbers, maybe the hypothesis was right but you just did too little of it.
OK but at what point do you stop?
Google ‘Incandescent Light Bulb’ for an exhaustive list of the thousands of attempts at making one, till Edison hit on carbonized bamboo strips.
Let us hope this is not the direction lockdowns will take.
What? Pilot studies are small studies to rule out the need for larger ones. If NOTHING was demonstrated supporting the hypothesis at a smaller amount, making a larger expt. is POINTLESS. Like making sh.t up, do you? Not part of the scientific method at all. Hoping you are being sarcastic and I missed it.
Oh, come on. The Large Hadron Collider… You think they did a pilot study with a couple capacitors and a few electromagnets and then said, ‘well, that didn’t work, so hang that idea up’.
No, they said, bigger capacitors, bigger magnetic rings, over and over till it had grown to a tunnel 27 miles long and the most massive electromagnets and sensor arrays ever seen.
This is science. If the pilot failed a different and bigger pilot needs to be tried.
But then on the whole lockdown thing, this was tried, the bigger and better attempt till it is Hadron in scale (London in tier 4) and my guess is the same results will come out. The worry is this means in March the even more massive one will be attempted, Tier 5!
Wuhan supposedly… but than you look at Japan and Tokyo. Or Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam,Taiwan. You have to start wondering.
South Korea never had a lockdown. I don’t think those other countries did either. Taiwan banned travel from China quickly. As we would have done but we were too cowardly to upset the CCP. Vietnam and Thailand used masks and social distancing immediately. Having said that, it’s going up in Jpn and S Korea.
Oh, and they banned international travel, rather than letting thousands and thousands of people enter unchecked from known highly infected areas, like every European country did … duh
We must “Nuke the Chinks” ASAP!
We must “Nuke the Chinese” ASAP!
Vietnam immediately closed its frontiers , tight , they still are and went into a very rigid one months lockdown . They have also developed an excellent track and trace . None of this is too difficult in a communist system . We on the other hand have a population noisily demanding explanations and , of course , their ‘rights’
Taiwan did very little and, with a dense population, has the lowest death rate on the planet.
Explain, please.
They are an island nation. Almost all island nations have cope pretty well… except UK and Ireland. It turns out that with a viral pandemic borders REALLY matter
Always good to know what the other side are thinking. I do worry about the level of denial there is about the harms caused by viral suppression measures – in my opinion, a far more insidious form of denial than ‘Covid deniers’ (no one seriously doubts the existence of Covid).
When ever people like this are interviewed (or Ferguson; Whitty; Valance; etc) I wish they would say what their lines in the sand are – what wont they do to stop Covid. We already have increases in domestic and child abuse due to lockdown, increases in deaths from other causes, livelihoods and lives destroyed and increases in mental illness. These are just the first world problems – globally we have 130m people in extreme poverty and around 11 million children (according to unicef) at risk of malnutrition due to the cessation of economic activity. You can add to this the additional 1.4m tuberculosis deaths predicted this year.
I appreciate these issues are wider than any one man can answer, but I think these people should be pushed on this. So far, as I have been able to make out, they merely offer the cognitive dissonance of saying ‘well, these things are caused by the virus’. This is absurd – the virus doesn’t cause the problems above; nor did it cause the abuses of human rights in the name of suppressing Covid documented in a recently released Amnesty report.
Surely civilised people can think of a better way to re-allocate resources and mobilise populations to avoid the overwhelming of the health services in a more proactive way, rather than defaulting to a damaging and dehumanising self imposed incarceration?
I don’t believe – even despite the recent problems in Sweden – that the uptick in infections amounts to a repudiation of their strategy, especially not when run against the absence of evidence for the effectiveness of the alternative. Even if such evidence were forthcoming, it would still leave the considerable ethical issues – and again beg the question ‘where is your line in the sand?’
Thanks for the continued interesting interviews.
Thank you David for putting that so succinctly.
The devastating damage that Governments are inflicting upon their civilian populations through these lockdown measures is unquantifiable.
Very poignant story on BBC website about Pastor Mick from Burnley, putting a human face to the real people who are being so terribly affected by these lockdown measures.
Is that the BBC and the UK news media who were howling for a lockdown at the start of the year? How times change eh?
Lol know thine enemy as they say!
The lost year of education will make the poor students even worse, and a great amount will become unemployable due to lack of school structure giving some socializing, and much reduced learning because almost none of them did serious home study.
THIS is a huge issue. Unemployable young males are the most destructive force in society.
Why start caring now?? We have had a government for the last 10 years who is focused on debt reduction (ironic no?) to the detriment of public services, a totally ideological argument, reducing UK expenditure to ~35% of GDP. Not necessary, and then we start worrying about schooling now! Stable door etc!
https://www.weforum.org/age…
They know. They talk about it. They are just “breaking eggs” to make their omlet. This is all “collateral damage” to save the world in their eyes. I highly recommend reading the WEF’s site and Klaus Schwab’s book on the Great Reset. This is where they are going. I don’t think it will work out. It will be a disaster like all utopian schemes but they are going to try
The trouble is these experts only view things from a very narrow angle – stopping Covid. What about the rest of the Public Heath sphere? Are they not aware of the mental health issues that arise from confinement and unemployment? The drug abuse, alcoholism, wife-beating, and suicides? Their blinkered ideological approach to Covid is criminal, but the politicians and media lap it up. Depressingly, most of their measures don’t even work for Covid!
We can’t expect epidemiologists to factor in the economy, that is what politicians are for. They should know, instinctively, without needing a spreadsheet, that the Covid measures used in most countries are going to have catastrophic effects on population health through reduced tax receipts for public services, from shrunken economies. But the gutless lot of them continue with these ineffective measures, hoping to hide in the smoke of confusion.
It is rather telling how Elgh tries to avoid answering Freddies direct questions about having lockdowns as THE response to future threats.
And the young generation will have to pay the bill.
Future threats can be dealt in the future – depending on the threat.
I do not know Jeremy, this guy seems to be the sky is falling about viruses. I do not see him do anything but err on the safe side, even if it kills Society.
Poor students almost never recover from missed schooling, but fall further behind. How about this? A HUGE thing. Making more unemployable is society wrecking.
Well said. Remember austerity – We can’t leave our children and grand children to pick up the bill. Well they’re paying now and they will for a century. Gutless leadership is the problem here.
My view is that they have responded as though there is a single contagious patient in a hospital and have yet to realise it just doesn’t scale!
Not true in Australia for a start.
It’s totally hilarious, he says that Belgium and France have been quite succesfull in bringing down covid-19.. The only question to be asked is by what pharmaceutical company is this guy paid?
No-one who looks at the data could believe for one moment that France & Belgium have been more successful than Sweden.
After this morning, though, it appears Professor Elgh’s take has the ear of the Swedish king. thank goodness it is a constitutional monarchy.
I think you’re missing that Sweden has a small and widely distributed
population, largely in excellent health and with the highest proportion of
single person households in the world and a world class natural tendency to socially distance. Sweden cannot be compared to
countries with high population density such as France and Belgium in any
meaningful way. When you look at Sweden’s neighbours with more similar
demographics, who had short but strict lockdowns, Swedens numbers are
ridiculously high (and the associated economic impact). It’s not only the death rate that matters, but the ten percent of sufferers who end up with long COVID and the sixty percent who end up with organ damage.
These are tropes wheeled out every time Sweden is mentioned. In fact, 85% of Swedes live in urban areas, with 2.35 million in Stockholm, and 1 million in Gothenburg. It seems de rigeur just to compare Sweden with other Scandinavian countries, as if they all the same. They are not.
For every country that did/did not lockdown, anyone can find a counter example that proves their point. The bottom line is, if I showed you graphs of countries’ or US states’ deaths from Covid, you would be unable to point to the ones which had mask policies or lockdowns, and the ones that didn’t.
On another note “Long Covid” does not even officially exist. It is one of the many conditions people have self-diagnosed themselves with, thanks to social media. It can be explained by post-viral fatigue, PTSD, and many other conditions suffered by people who have been ill. Don’t believe me? Direct me to the scientific literature on “Long Covid”.
Fine. But that poses the question: what did make a difference? That is to say, the difference between the US and China, for example.
After searching for a while, it seems that what makes a different is an easy access for at home treatment protocole. There are a number of drugs that fit the bill ( (zinc, favipiravir, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, doxycycline, ivermectin) combined to vitamin D and C. The earlier the treatment the better. Everyone older than 50 years old and/or with comorbidities should be treated as soon as the symptoms are felt. In many developed countries where the death rate is high, infected people shelter in illness and fear without home treatment for about two weeks. For the most vulnerable, once they arrive at the hospital, it is too late. They will either die or suffer long term damage.
That is a question which will have a hugely complex answer, with any comparison. But to start with, would you trust any data coming out of China? And on that note, every country records “Covid deaths” differently, and many have changed the criteria as the Pandemic has progressed. You are not even starting with accurate figures to work with. In the UK, it is anyone who dies, who has tested positive in the last 28 days, for example.
As far as comparisons go there are just so many variables to work with. Climate, population health, diet, age, population density, pre-existing immunity, genetics, treatment. The list goes on. I doubt anyone will ever get to the bottom of it all.
Hey Nick I fully agree with your post except for the second sentence, why mention China degrogatorily, when the US or UK lie as much or more with numbers and other things, weapons of mass desrtuction comes to mind…
I don’t particularly trust our government. In fact, I’ve openly heard Matt Hancock lie on the radio. They are definitely muddying the waters with deaths recorded as Covid – whilst the death rate at the moment in the UK is within normal bounds, Covid deaths account for a huge chunk. How come no one’s dying of anything else anymore?
That said, there are limits to how much manipulation of the data the UK can do. They can’t cover up actual deaths. I don’t know enough about China, but they are a far more secretive state, and a totalitarian regime, and therefore capable of far more cover ups than Western democracies, with a free (ish) press, and media.
The death rate within England and Wales is not within normal bounds, see the graphs in Section 2 of
Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 4 December 2020 from ONS.
The death rate is within normal bounds with a seasonal flu outbreak on the ONS figures.
I’m not sure what this means. Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 18 December 2020 now has England & Wales about 13% above the 5 year average in week 51. What does “with a seasonal flu outbreak” mean? The averages and ranges for previous years would include the effects of flu in those years.
Agreed. Infection rates look frightening but what is the actual death rate in those under 50 years old? And out of those who died, how many had underlying health issues?
And we record deaths in a manner which boosts the actual death rate from Covid.
The basic fact is that the virus is not deadly for about 40 million of the UK population. And that includes old people. My friend’s 90 year old grandmother has it and she hasn’t felt a thing.
Of course…why didn’t I think of it that way, I mean Goebbels lied, but so did Churchill and other leaders…
Can you really believe a single word the wretched Chinese say?
As the old (Shanghai) saying goes “if you see their lips moving you know they are lying”.
That’s better than with an ex-employee of mine. With him the test was “is he breathing”
China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, all the West Pacific, deaths 0.3 to 4 deaths per million. The West 700-900 deaths per million. Remember the Europeans bringing disease they could tolerate to the new world and it wiping out the Natives? This is what is at play. ‘Dark Matter Immunity’! The West Pacific are basically mostly immune. This is a disease of the West and Americas. (which is a bit suspicious)
They may also record deaths differently. If we recorded Covid deaths in the same manner as Germany our death rate would be a lot lower.
In America there are government funds harvested for every “confirmed” Covid death, thus we have auto accident victims, gunshot victims, heart attack and cancer deaths all attributed to this flu because it is detected in the deceased.
Sino delenda est!
How about they’ve been having similar viruses over the centuries and have more immunity than we do.
Well said, there are far too many ‘Shriekers’ obsessed by this topic.
Would it be valid to compare Sweden with a country like New Zealand in population distribution? I suppose there is a real sense in which comparing countries can never be valid in that none are sufficiently alike.
I suspect you may be proved wrong about long-covid but, as you say, there is no scientific research yet. Short covid existed for real long before we had scientific data!
I live in one of these ‘urban areas’ and I can say for certain that there is no comparison to densely populated cities such as London, Berlin, Sydney or many other large cities. Aside from the actual size and layout of the cities, forty percent of households in Sweden contain only a single person, and with a workforce primarily engaged in knowledge industries, many of these people have been working from home since early March and take strong precautions to avoid infection.
While Sweden didn’t lockdown officially, universities and high schools moved online, many businesses shut their doors and Swedish workers were directed to work from home where possible. And Swedes on average are excellent at following rules and guidelines.
A recent article of New Scientist suggested that the most likely cause of long covid was autoimmune antibodies based on recent research. It’s rather condescending to suggest that you know more about long covid than those who have suffered from it. Studies have clearly shown long term organ damage from even the mildest cases of COVID, including damage to brains, lungs, heart, kidneys and liver.
Re Long Covid: Which studies? What per cent of people? And how does it compare to, say, auto immune problems resulting from hundreds of other viruses? Not to belittle this but just to bring some evidence and perspective to the picture. Are these outlier cases? But even more importantly, there is very little evidence to show that blanket lockdowns bear any relationship to the spread of this virus, and in particular to deaths. The curve of deaths does not appear to be shaped in any way by lockdowns (in the UK, at least)… in fact, zero effect from any of these policies except killing many many more younger people from non-Covid causes. It’s worth while watching the Fat Emperor Part 1 Covid story online. A very detailed analysis of current official death figures in light of the timing etc. of govt policies. Shocking how deluded our governments appear to be. All the best.
There could be many reasons for Sweden’s higher death rate, which are not related to lockdowns.
Please refer to a paper written “16 reasons why Sweden has higher death rate than its Nordic neighbours” GMU working paper in Economics
Sweden has a much larger nursing home population. Relative to population size, Sweden’s nursing home population is 50% larger than Denmark’s.
Also the preceding year 2019 Sweden compared to its neighbours had an unusually low death rate, (please forgive my clumsy explanation) meaning there was a much larger older population that were susceptible to covid.
Also it suggests Sweden imported more cases, they travel 80% more per million people than their Nordic neighbours. Their half term holiday falls later and hit when there was a lot of COVID in the Alps, it is thought that brought in a lot of cases. Also Sweden has a higher immigrant population than its neighbours, there are thoughts that vitamin d deficiency, may have had an impact on people with darker skin becoming much more susceptible to covid deaths.
As I say forgive my poor explanations.
I don’t find anything clumsy with your post.
They will also report deaths differently from other countries. It is impossible to make meaningful comparisons between countries as there is not a uniform measure of recording deaths from Covid.
Could you provide evidence for your assertions iro organ damage. By the way any views on the low death rate in non-lockdown Belarussia and the high death rate in total lockdown Peru?
Belarus
Quote: “with its larger migrant populations and dense urban areas, Sweden is actually more similar to the Netherlands and the UK than it is to other Scandinavian countries”
From
https://unherd.com/2020/07/…
You shouldn’t make statistics up. It’s wrong.
To give you a more acuurate statistic, at one point 49% of Tokyo’s population were estmiated (by sampling) to have had Covid antibodies at the same time. The estimate for total with antibodies was upward of 49+12%.
Don’t tell me that 6% of Tokyo is suffering from long Covid, and 35% with long Covid.
Don’t make stuff up, even on the internet.
https://covid.joinzoe.com/p… the research suggests ten percent suffer from long COVID. Further research suggests this is caused by autoantibodies.
https://www.wionews.com/wor… 60% of patients have lasting organ damage
No made up statistics here.
Worldometers shows cases increasing in Sweden but deaths declining from a shallower peak than the one experienced last spring. It appears worldwide that none of the mitigation techniques work. California in the US has one of the strictest set of rules yet cases are soaring. Contrast with Florida in the US that is largely open and has fewer cases and deaths.
So the question remains: what company is paying this guy for his fake-information?
Any current decline is false – the records take 1 – 2 weeks to come through, as the authorities don’t release them until they figure out the correct days for all of them.
If mitigation methods haven’t worked, why the wide disparity in levels of infection and deaths?
I would put it down as genetic. Nothing else can be so easily seen from covid statistics!
I suspect Germany’s mitigations did work – they mad a big difference on a falling tide of Covid cases. Covid was already being mitigated against due to seasonality, and Germany’s better tracing mechanism worked.
Those same mitigations aren’t enough for a rising tide of cases, as we can now see.
In New Zealand’s case seasonality worked for them, the virus originally hitting during their summer.
Then, add the confounders of genetics (which we are gradually begining to understand) and possible previous waves of similar viruses (which we might never know about) and only then can you start to understand any interventions on top of that.
Sadly,”cases””soaring or otherwise”has about as much import as “long covid,” “asymptomatic spread,” and “overflowing hospital ICUs.”
It’s likely worse in Sweden than the Worldometer numbers suggest, there is quite a lengthy delay in confirming the data, and the numbers are usually corrected upwards. That said, their second wave is still a good lower than most European countries.
The numbers trail by 10 days.
However theere seems to have been a decline beginning roughly 20 days ago. But it is right to view these numbers with caution, and to know what you are looking at.
Some statistics re Sweden…
According to Statista*, 7,667 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 in Sweden over the past nearly 11 months. 5,301 deaths were in people over 80 years. 6,914 deaths were in people aged over 70 years. There were 482 deaths in the age group 60-69 years. 271 deaths in 0-59 years. That’s over the past nearly 11 months.
Swedish population is around 10.4 million, with annual deaths of around 90 odd thousand. So deaths attributed to COVID-19 in 2020 have to be seen in that context.
In fact there needs to be very careful analysis of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 around the world, by independent and objective analysts, particularly in light of plans to vaccinate the entire world population with novel coronavirus vaccine products, potentially every year, or maybe every six months…it appears due ethical consideration has not yet been applied to this matter.
* Statista – Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths in Sweden in 2020, by age groups (as of December 16, 2020)
I’ve been intrigued why there has been such negative media about Sweden lately, in spite of the fact that, according to Euromomo, Sweden has low excess deaths, compared with other countries such as Italy, Spain, France and the UK, and also see my comment above with more statistics.
And then…the penny dropped…Sweden is being pulled into line with the rest of the EU…to get those vaccines rolled out…
Swedish media The Local reports: ‘Coronavirus: Sweden set to start vaccinations on December 27th’.
“Sweden, like other EU states, is currently waiting for the European Medicines Agency to give the green light to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is expected to come next week.
The plan is for delivery to get under way on Christmas Eve, and for all member countries to start vaccinating on December 27th, although Sweden’s vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström told Swedish public radio broadcaster SR on Thursday that vaccinations in Sweden could start as early as Boxing Day, December 26th.”
The low excess deaths rate compared to the UK is particularly interesting, much lower for 2020. Either the UK has massively under recorded Covid deaths, or the lockdowns and poor government has contributed to a huge number more deaths.
Here on the Isle of Man we have been COVID free since May and living as normal ever since. The local NHS was, like everywhere else, operating on hugely reduced capacity. We had 24 confirmed COVID deaths. I will be putting in a freedom of information request to get the all cause mortality numbers. Subtracting 24 from the final yearly figure should give us an idea of the effect of reducing treatments for all in the name of C-19.
Not sure if it’s the same in the UK but in the US some deaths were classified as covid when they likely were not. Dying with covid is not the same as dying from it. Hospitals got money specific to covid cases.
Ben, you should also check how the deaths are attributed to Covid. As I understand it, if you test positive for COvid then suffer a heart attack/life ending event within 28days of a positive result then it is listed as dying from Covid. Of course in some cases for the elderly the extra strain caused by Covid will mean an early death. But in many cases it won’t.
I go for option 2 (a) I know a lockdown related suicide but no covid-related deaths (b) there seems to have been a huge appetite for over-counting.
Why has the land of Gustavus Adolphus rolled over so supinely?
Perhaps they should consider SWEDEXIT, and follow us?
No one talks about that other non-lockdown country, Belarus.
https://www.zerohedge.com/c…
Don’t worry, zerohedge is already being listed as perpetrating in fake news so it won’t make any difference.
Gosh, 271 deaths in the cohort 0-59! Will the land the Aga, Saab and Volvo really be able to survive such terrifying figures?
Is this the end of Swedish civilisation as we know it. What an awful tragedy. Or have I missed something?
Whatever happened to the UK Government’s National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines which only considered interventions costing the NHS less than £30,000 per quality-adjusted life years gained to be cost effective. The spending on Covid blows this out the water. The average age of death for people with Covid often exceeds the average life expectancy in European countries. If you spend, as the UK has, 3 x the annual budget of our NHS I’d expect many, many more lives (let alone QALYs) to have been saved.
It’s a small price to pay for the Brave New World:)
“We have to save lives. We have to save health.”
no matter how many lives are lost and no matter how much health is compromised in the process.
These people act as if their actions would exist inside of a vacuum, absent of any consequences. They are willing to cast aside the in the relentless pursuit of an unattainable perfection.
These people have guaranteed incomes, and virtue signaling is how they aim to keep their safe, highly remunerative jobs.
I draw three conclusions :
1. He is a typical “expert” incapable of admitting he is wrong.
2. He has shares in big pharma.
3. The Swedish government has faked all the Covid figures on their official website!
Hmmm tricky one. I’m going for number 1. It as amazing how utterly in denial people can be.
I’m thinking number 1 too. But I might go a bit further and say he is not just reluctant to admit he’s wrong, but actually he is an outright liar and avoider of truth.
I am thinking he should be a guest scientist on the British SAGE group.
This is vastly incredible pernicious nonsense: if we listen to people like this tens of millions will be rendered destitute, homeless, starving, dead, while our societies and economies will never recover. In the 2009 “pandemic” I was concerned about the distortion of health policy – now we have the distortion of every policy and the health officials just raise the stakes all the time. We only have to go back to the first half of the last century when ordinary people routinely faced far greater health threats to their daily lives but they had lives nevertheless and society was not shut down.
Elgh has deluded himself into thinking Sweden is not an advanced industrial-metropolitan country with comparable urban population density and age demographic to its larger neighbours. The real outliers are its smaller Scandinavian neighbours.
He asks, “Look at our curve ““ where is it going?” Has he not studied the previous waves? Has he not heard of the Gompertz curve? Of course he has.
It’s good there’s diversity of opinion. I hope the Swedes continue to pursue a slightly different path to the rest of us, something we can learn from. Recurrent lockdowns cannot be the answer unless you are good to destroy the west’s affluence, which is the hidden agenda I detect here. Recurrent lockdown is a trick of the green left to immiserate us.
That’s unfair – you have stolen my conspiracy theory <g>
I was going to start promulgating it. No idea precisely haw covid started but its management is highly aligned to a radical green agenda.
I shall now go away and sulk whilst inventing a new therory.
If these doomsayers maintain control of public health policy I’m afraid by responding in this way to every new scare we are destined to spend the rest of our lives in and out of lockdown until our underlying economies disintegrate so badly that we starve.
I rather believe that is the point… and then… reset. I can’t imagine any good will come of it.
I am neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist, and so I will cheerily admit I am not qualified enough to argue with him. I will also admit, just as cheerily, that I have not watched the video as, based on the summary, it is in line with what local authorities here have been unspooling for our benefit for some nine months now. Finally, I will admit that it is not impossible that he might be right about certain things. What do I know about what’s happening on the ground in Sweden (aside from the fact that, despite them not mandating masks, their deaths/1 million are still below those of Belgium, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic)?
However . . . I found this comment interesting:
“I will say to the day that I die that this was a huge mistake.”
Did he really say that? Given that the story is far from over, and the situation is still very much developing, this seems like a sign of intellectual inflexibility to me.
Quite: “I’ve made up my mind and I won’t be dissuaded by anything”. Perhaps he meant to say “I don’t think anything is going to turn up which will prove me wrong” but just ‘simplified’.
Still seems like an overly confident assertion for a man of science . . .
Epidemiologists aren’t scientists like physicists and chemists and that is part of the problem.
Thank God he wasn’t and isn’t in charge but Tegnell was and is.
Ever heard or assessed the collateral damage of the lockdowns, medically, economically, societally, democratically, psychologically?
And they were and are not really a raging in success in other EU countries, not even in Germany anymore.
SWPRS has come to the correct conclusion: either you do early border closures and quarantining and stick to them for good- a la N, FIN, OZ, NZ&co and the exact opposite of the WHO revommendation, and what Trump wanted to do but wasn’t allowed to, and killing your tourism industry, and forcing you to live like the Sentinelese for good, as the vaccines won’t be able to prevent infections or infectiousness, let alone at a 100% rate- or you’ve got to live sensibly with the virus, like Sweden did and does.
Btw: only small, remote or island countries did and can do these tight border closures at all- they are not an option for most EU countries with their interconnectedness, trucking traffic etc..
And if everyone had done like Sweden, we would not have had the economic disaster we will now have to deal with over at least a generation.
And only the Swedes don’t have the blood of millions of people in the 3rd world on their hands, which our lockdowns alone have killed or will kill, as per Worldbank, Oxfam&co.
There has been no explanation for Japan. There is a supposed surge but in a country of 130 million people and urban centers like Tokyo there are less than 3000 deaths total. Thailand has less deaths per million than New Zealand. Although supposedly there is a “surge”. South Korea. Taiwan. Even China! Wuhan left lockdown on April 8th and China has very low deaths per million. No discussion by Western media at all. Something is not making sense. Covid fascists claim it is mask wearing and better health…. but that is just a claim. Shouldn’t this be under serious study. If found to be true shouldn’t our health overlords be screaming better diet and excercise at the top of their lungs… instead of stay in your house on your couch?
The one good thing about COVID is that at least no-one is dying of any other diseases at the moment.
Covid-19 deaths per million:
1. Belgium 1,600
2. Peru 1,100
3. Italy 1,100
4. Spain 1,050
9. U.K. 970
10. U.S. 950
11. France 910
24. Sweden 750 (no lockdown)
28. Netherlands 600 (no lockdown)
Vietnam and Taiwan, 0.3 per million! China 4 per million! They are immune largely. Which has worked out very well for China.
I am not at all inclined to believe anything the Chinese Communist Party says.
What people seems not to understand is that vÃrus do not follow “directives” from Governments or “health gurus”. Biology is King here and no Queen or Jocker can do anything other than delaying: what we have seen is different levels of freedom with the same results: deaths of the “usual” in slightly more number than during other pandemics because today we have many more “usual” people (i.e. very elderly) than before. It is time to start choosing a side: should we restrain the freedom for ever (meaning: not living) to 99% with the supposed gain of less deaths (presumed but not proved) or should we accept that people specially older are prone to die, care them by best and let all other 99% live their normal life. Sooner or later we will be forced to choose because vaccine is not going to change this.
Another technocrat with a scientific fix nobody else thought of. But before the population of Sweden is interned (like the rest of us), maybe he could take time out to explain why the total number of deaths in Sweden this year is no greater than it has been any other year, open streets or no open streets.
Yes – my comment also https://www.statista.com/st…
Not interested. Just another “expert” expressing his opinion. Whether he’s right or wrong all depends what tribe you are in.
Very well said Carl.
It reminds me of ‘pundits’ and ‘experts’ passing comment on why a football manager should or shouldn’t be sacked…. they rarely ever know more than 10% of what fans know.
ah yes…the relativism of Conservative ideology and magical thinking.
He seems stupid to me. I know ‘experts’ can hardly be ‘stupid’ because they understand so much maths and stuff, right?
But some of them are, quite clearly.
Because they always seem to divide into two camps, one saying this and one saying that – so one of them has to be ‘stupid’ don’t they?
Or they’re both stupid for failing to find the fault in their thinking.right?
so, yep, I’ll call some of them stupid and this one merits it, I think.
for all the science I’ve seen shows that lockdowns just don’t work. And nor do masks.They don’t fix the virus.
But he wants to introduce them. Again. And again. He’s either mad or stupid or both.
But they do something: they destroy freedom, liberty, finances, health, the economy, people’s hopes and dreams (small businesses going bust) and turn people into docile dumb slaves under house arrest without charge, without conviction, without sentence and forced to walk around muzzled like dogs.
A cost that clearly exceeds the cost that would have been exacted by the virus if it had run freely.
And now they’re going to top it all off with vaccines that will itself probably cost more than the virus would have cost.
And which doesn’t promise to cure only to prevent. And doesn’t promise 100% prevention.
And will have its own contra-indications and side effects. And will need updating every year with every new mutation of the virus. And which is proposed to be administered in a setting of lockdowns and masks thereby institutionalising the whole bag: sweeping ’emergency’ measures, wholesale distortion of truth, total suppression of reality, massive expenditure of the people’s funds without consultation, wholescale arbitrary destruction of business and work, permanent crippling and humiliating and – never forget – useless ‘measures’ and Orwellian compulsory ( in fact, despite protestations ) innoculation of the population.
Just as nomadic life ended totally and was replaced by agricultural. Just as agricultural was replaced by industrial. Just as industrial was replaced by our electronic age. So this age is ended to be replace, clearly, by the ‘orwellian’ age. By 1984. Only its 35 years late. But its here.
In our western world at least where we become dumb state controlled termites.
As expected an epidemiologist who frames the outcomes of the pandemic from his own, narrow specialist viewpoint.
There are other aspects which must be considered. Though unpalatable, we cannot ignore the cost-benefit question i.e. is the value of the benefits (deaths averted or quality of life years saved) more or less than the “opportunity” costs of the interventions.
We must recognise that, sadly a large number of people who have so far died with covid-19 would have died this year from other causes, given their advanced age and co-morbitity factors.
We do not as a society like to think of the “opportunity costs” of the restrictions imposed due to covid. It might seem callous, but insurance companies do it every day. The opportunity costs from covid are very wide ranging, they include “excess” non-covid deaths because of reduced use of health services and delays in treatment of other illnesses arising from the NHS prioritising resources on covid-19.
Loss of income to those who have lost jobs, redundancies. The mental health impacts of lockdown. Children’s education being disrupted.
As a society it is incumbent upon us to reframe our outlook and assess all sides of this situation.
Just another bloody opinion.
He focusses only on the health consequences of the virus, not on the second-order health consequences of lockdowns.
He’s just another freckin’ idiot who can’t see beyond the immediate consequences of the virus. He’s as blind as the bat which is supposed to have been the origin of the disaster.
Very good interview, Freddie. Good questions.
HE LET HIM OFF ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOCKDOWN. He gave him a ‘Get out of the argument free’ card.
It’s great that Unherd gives space for competing views on this issue. It has all got very tribal and we do get emotionally attached to our opinions. I’ve been a diehard lockdown sceptic but must confess to a few wobbles lately, especially as what we are told about a second wave and the inevitable delay in producing a vaccine hasn’t exactly come to pass as expected. For a long time I’ve been suspicious of attempts to rubbish the Swedish experience but it’s clear from this piece that they are not necessarily part of a conspiracy. Even experts, so called, can disagree and we are all prone to confirmation bias and interpreting any piece of incoming data to prove our point. The BBC and Ofcom surely have a lot to answer for. If there had been a more balanced debate in the mainstream things might not have got so polarised.
But Sweden all cause mortality is flat for the decade – with 2019 and 2020 a reduction against previous years. Sweden also moved from 8th highest deaths per million for Covid to 23rd….
One thing I wish Freddie had touched on is to examine the overall picture for Sweden with respect to deaths in 2020. Notwithstanding any lag in reporting the figures up to mid December show nothing out of the ordinary compared to previous years. It would have been interesting to hear the professor’s take on this. https://www.statista.com/st…
When are they going to early-outpatient-treat this? India hands out ivermectin like candy. The prof here is familiar with dengue – which is a virus – and ivermectin is used for that so ivermectin has other uses besides parasites.
Lockdowns akin to using an elephant to swot a fly. The resulting devastation not worth the end result.
That makes sense. Sweden just voted to join NATO. Therefore, there is a “change of course” in handling the disease. What a circus, really…. North-American-Terrorist Organization. Congrats, Sweden…
He did say the country has to be on war footing against both viral, and human enemies. He said if Russian, OR American tanks invade Sweden they would respond robustly. Why say the Americans? I just do not seeing even a crazy anti Western President as Biden attacking Sweden with a land army. (drones at the worst)
I have to wonder if this virologist has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since it fits so nicely with their scaremongering narrative. The “second wave” is a fiction.
I bet his facebook page and Twitter account are not blocked..
Don’t panic. Swedish deaths have stopped in their tracks.
Looks like their approach worked after all.
And Germany’s approach is coming undone.
When we have a better idea about what the major factor causing huge changes in Covid transmission (Is it the weather? I think it’s the weather!) we’ll be able to unpick the contributions of policy.
Everywhere else is a disaster
Why are doctors and nurses complicit in this?
youtube com/watch?v=XNnArXzn-18
QUOTE ” I have been a nurse for almost 20 years, none of this from the beginning, ever felt “right”. In the first lockdown when all the hospitals were supposedly “over-run” and people were clapping on a Thursday night, my colleagues at the normally-busy hospital where I work, enjoyed empty wards, quiet shifts and daily pizza and other fast food deliveries donated by the public. They admitted that they loved it.
Now I see all the colleagues around me lining up for this vaccine, not questioning a thing. I have never had the flu vaccine and I am certainly not having this.
Last week, I worked my final shift, I am leaving the profession. I simply cannot stand it anymore, I want no part in it.”
One presentational point that I think Freddie should have altered is to show the Positivity Rate of Testing. The German and Sweden positive rate is 12% and 14% respectively and both have increased rapidly since Mid October. This I think underlines the dynamic between climate, behaviour and case numbers rather than government interventions.
I have just checked the age profile of the 7993 deaths recorded to date. 7211 are 70+ with 5,500 80+
In the UK we have no excess deaths in Aged Care Facilities they are broadly split between hospital and home. The age profile is much the same. This means the shielders (living alone) and multigenerational are responsible for all the deaths in the UK and are not doing enough to protect themselves from death. If they were as diligent as Aged Care which must be exceptionally difficult to manage with between a quarter and third demented their were would be no excess deaths. I would like to see how Sweden’s Aged Care are doing now.
What is clear in both UK and Germany is their is no strain on ICU (95% of those who die are to frail to take it). The ICU numbers provided by the Swedish Directorate suggest maybe 700 are in ICU fourteen days maximum input. I find it hard to believe that stretches capacity.
This interview was exceptionally helpful. The hubris of hindsight and the notion that four weeks lockdown would ‘do something.’ If you look at successful lockdowns they take around 100 days (Wuhan and Victoria) If you judge brutalising your population to save no actual lives (Victoria had three times influenza) and end with zero cases is your bag….. Until the next outbreak.
Finally on transmission most of the CCTV that discovers cases by forensic analysis indicate high touch surfaces are responsible. Without surgical gloves and a face shield to cover your eyes a Mask will only stop transmission for 45 minutes by someone who is wearing one is symptomatic and out in the community in enclosed spaces where SD is not being observed. That explains why mask wearing makes no difference at all or has no meaningful effect.
Very insightful thank you
New studies showing madks might be harmful to a covid positive wearer. Worse outcomes. Possibly causes virus to go deeper into lungs.
I try and be as even handed in the debate as I can given their is so much agenda driven ‘information’ being offered. I find when I have practised where a mask my glasses steam up and I cannot see anything. In other words we are creating a sealed environment as your study suggests. Apparently if you wear the mask incorrectly crossing over the draw strings it lets the air out but of course that makes a nonsense of wearing the mask. I have also flown on a fully loaded aircraft with people putting mask on for the flight. 75% of them break all the rules fidgeting with them with their hands and then touching surfaces. The reality is masks are not meant to be worn for lengthy periods of time and to get 6,000,000,000 people to wear them with any meaningful benefit is just not realistic. There are so many transactions where the theory fails (eating out to name but one.
Yes, I have always believed that masks do more harm than good. The same applies to anything recommended by any government or any form of authority.
Their only interest is money and power. If they gain that by doing something good they’ll jump on board. Outside of that they couldn’t give a…
Interesting data here Michelle. Can I just check the Aged Care point. Are you saying that ALL those who have died in aged care homes (over 40% of the UK deaths) would have already died by now anyway? If that is so where have you got the info from. It is fascinating
Why you don’t compare anitbodieis SE vs UK vs BE?
Japan got 47% without lockdown.
Euromomo.eu excess mortaity indicatess much higher in UK, BE than SE.
ECDC report shows surge much higher positivity % in CZ, PL with strick measures than SE without.
I have to give Freddy a lot of credit for grasping the nettle here.
The silence from the “but Sweden!” crowd lately has been both instructive and deeply satisfying, though I wish the cost of that silence in human life and misery hadn’t been so bitterly high.
Please refer to “16 reasons why Sweden has higher death rate than its Nordic neighbours” GMU working paper in Economics for explanation. Higher death rate in Sweden is not because of failure to lockdown.
so…within days of the UK begining a vaccination role out, a new strain”very possibly more infectious”appears.
when do concidences stop being coincidences?
Did you hear Johnson let slip that 1 in 3 infections are asymptomatic….
asympotomatic and very very contagious
No it is unproven and Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on the Covid-19 pandemic said on Monday 8th June that a genuinely asymptomatic case being infectious is very rare. On the 9th June she was asked to retract it not because it was untrue but because it was not proven in away others approved of. Common sense says that if you have Sars CoV 2 without any nose droplets emissions unless you are involved in intimate contact you can not pass the disease on. Most commentators try and mix asymptomatic with pre symptomatic that is entirely different.
you are basing your comment on what was argued six months ago?
This is not true
Sweden was never an example for any other country to follow. What is truly amazing is that anyone ever thought it was. Wasn’t it Freddie Sayers who interviewed John Gieseckie in order to pillory UK’s Prof Ferguson? Turns out Ferguson was highly optimistic. He estimated 20-25,000 deaths with lockdowns. How many now? nearly 70,000.
This guy is a virologist? What did he teach us about the virology of this pathogen?
All he did was to point a finger at public policy, as if he has the solution. Everyone is now a public policy expert.
I will try to fill in a few basic questions that those in his field ought to be at least asking, if not attempting to answer with some reasonable hypotheses.
1. Why are we having a 2nd wave / 2nd season of this virus for the first time since Spanish flu (if indeed we really are)?
2. What is different about the biology of this virus vs. flu?
3. Can this virus be treated effectively (in hospital), or should those who are sick stay home?
4. Why does the profile of mortality risk vs. age for this virus match that for all causes?
5. How does the actuarial loss of life for this epidemic, measured in lost man-years (not in purported # of deaths, which is a nonsensical statistic), compare with some of the more severe seasonal flu’s (e.g. 1957/58 Asian flu), much less the Spanish flu? And how does it compare to all other causes of death that are concurrent?
6. Why has there been no noticeable effort to isolate ONLY the more susceptible (e.g. care-home residents), while there is so much ardor for setting unjust and unjustifiable rules for everyone in society?
It is very interesting how quickly this guy dismissed the sharp decline (after peaking) of death rate in Sweden. This is the normal epidemiological pattern, and it is what happened in early 2020 pretty much everywhere (regardless of lockdowns, and BEFORE lockdowns).
Seems to me that a virologist should be addressing issues such as these:
a. CoVs are the only known family of viruses with built-in genetic error correction. I would suggest that this is the reason that there might be a true 2nd season of this virus at pandemic levels — other viruses evolve so rapidly in response to building/increasing population immunity that they do not “survive” (genomically intact) between two consecutive seasons.
b. Some of the vaccine developers had (early on) discovered the strange phenomenon of stronger binding/affinity of SARS-CoV-2 to human ACE-2 receptors vs. those of all other mammals (including bats). This cannot, by any known mechanism, have evolved in the wild, but is exactly what would be expected from a human-cell culture (i.e. breeding) experiment in the lab.
And the ratio is many orders of magnitude (stronger binding) in humans. I suggest that many of the unusual clinical characteristics of this “bug” have to do with the DEFAULT hypothesis that this virus did not evolve in the wild.
c. There is virtually no role of humoral immunity in a healthy and efficient and fast suppression of (or response to) infection by this virus. This contrasts starkly with flu. The role of innate immune response is predominant for CoV-2. This requires healthy cells, both immune (e.g. leukocytes) and epithelial (e.g. lung). This virus has exposed how metabolically/cellularly unhealthy large swaths of modern populations are. There is absolutely nothing modern medicine can do to provide a quick fix for this. People are overly reliant upon public institutions/policy rather than their own wherewithal (e.g. diet) to maintain something like evolutionarily normal/expected health vs. age.
d. Autopsies on those who have died from CoV-2 infection show complete failure of generation of germinal centers in the lymph nodes. This is related to (c), likely, but is remarkable in any case. Seems absolutely seminal to me. Do we hear so-called “virologists” like this guy (or immunologists) talking about it?
e. How about the idea of disseminating O2-supplementary devices widely to those who progress to ARDS, and keeping them at home and out of the hospitals? Ventilators seem to rarely prevent death, but they generate a tremendous burden on the hospitals during outbreaks/surges. Keep the hospitals running for normal purposes, and let people either recover or die at home. How’s that for effective public policy? I suspect this is something like what the CCP policy in mainland (i.e. Red) China actually is.
f. This is a weak pathogen, except for those who are metabolically unhealthy (including the aged who are simply near end of life with no comorbidities). Reaction, especially in Western countries, has been absurdly excessive. We are all going to die sooner or later. What’s the big deal? This is another respiratory virus, fundamentally less virulent than flu. Why is this virus so important, in comparison to lung cancer for example, which also causes patients to die of asphyxiation, or any of the other common causes of ARDS and pneumonia such as seasonal flu?
g. I notice that in US the northeast seems little affected by a 2nd season of CoV-2 specifically. There has been a buildup in ICUs, but even local news acknowledges that this is largely from non-CoV causes.
On the other hand, California (which never really had a proper first season due to excessive lockdowns and other factors) is maybe the worst of all states wrt CoV-2. It is full of T2DM and truly 3rd-world (illegal-alien) residents and conditions, in the Central Valley (agricultural region) for example. This was predictable, and I was only surprised that it did not happen earlier. But these people work outdoors, and the weather is fine year-round.
Pretty interesting comment from this guy, suggesting that large increases of CoV-2 in sewage should be predictive of an impending surge in infections.
Really? Albeit that there is some “incubation” lag of a few days, he was talking of data taken over a period of many weeks. This is reflective of what “has been”, and not what is “to be”, in terms of actual levels of infection.
Maybe this is too difficult for a virologist to comprehend, but it seems pretty basic to me. Or does the prof think that the sewage is the primary source of infection by CoV-2, rather than human exhalation?
No, it should not be predictive, but rather it is reflective of high levels of population immunity. The virus continues to be spread around, but if a large percentage of the population has sufficient immunity to suppress it without developing symptoms/illness, then we should expect to see it in the sewage nevertheless.
And intestine is one of the most ACE-2 receptor rich tissues in the entire body. An abnormally high amount of CoV-2 will show up in sewage, relative to those infected but without symptoms (i.e. immune). Does this virologist understand these basics?
Good news, not impending doom, seems to me.
Also, this virologist uses the phrase “herd immunity” in the most ignorant manner, as if it is like a light switch — either we have it or we don’t; ON or OFF.
Again, this is ignorant and seemingly idiotic for a guy in his field. Herd immunity is an “analog” (as opposed to “digital”) quantity — it might be expressed, very crudely, in a range of 0% to 100% in a “herd” or population. What he is incorrectly alluding to is termed “endemic equilibrium” by Prof. Gupta, and this is a good phrase for it.
Giesecke and Tegnell are intelligent and knowledgeable public policy leaders who understand and recognize tradeoffs. This guy is not worth mentioning in the same realm, or really at all, IMO.
He is, typical of the modern-day, self-important and selfish and vicious bureaucreat, avaricious for himself only while dismissive of the interests (including livelihoods) of most of society.
Another great interview – to me, Tegnell/Giesecke make more sense but it’s good to hear all perspectives and love how Freddie politely and firmly asserts the facts.
Interestingly enough the swedish government announced a 4 week lockdown at a press conference taking place at the same time as this video was released!
The vaccine is not guaranteed to stop the spread so the notion of herd immunity with the vaccine is not relevant – only 100% uptake will prevent further cases (subject to the 10% who the vaccine fails).
Until the hysteria stops, we will keep being exposed to these ludicrous statements from people who should know better. Hey Professor, Covid has been a disaster since the beginning of March. For everyone. You aren’t heading for a disaster, you’ve been in one for nearly a year. If tough lockdowns worked, why is everyone in phase two now? It’s a virus.
Well contrary to the predictions of Giesecke and Tegnell, Sweden has NOT “achieved” sufficient immunity through infection to stop the epidemic. So we retreat from the nonsense about the beneficial Swedish approach and return to the central one – health and economic harm through NPI’s versus harm through uncontrolled spread of the virus. No-one has yet presented a robust demonstration that one is better than the other (oh – except maybe countries like New Zealand and South Korea – but they had a little luck along the way).
The Swedes all along have voted a little bit with their feet, as have their geographic neighbours. Thus the harm is unavoidable whether their government mandates further NPI’s or not.
Their best option now is to get as many people as possible vaccinated asap – which is what they will do, regardless of any minority opinion.
Please don’t hold up NZ as a good example. We are a sparsely populated island nation that has virtually incarcerated its citizens for the foreseeable future and is essentially denying its citizens abroad the freedom to return. This is causing enormous distress, although the smug attitude of our government and 60% of the population which voted for them is to just ignore this. In the same way they ignore the massive debt that has been incurred for this one health measure ie that of “keeping Covid out”. It won’t be long before we become insignificant as far as the rest of the world is considered – except in terms of being able to cite it as some pandemic response “success” story.
Thank you always good to hear alternative opinions 🙂
I’m feeling for the people of Northern Ireland today. Not only are they facing a six week lockdown starting on boxing Day..
Arlene Foster then goes and blames ‘society as a whole’ for the need to impose the ‘draconian style measures’
It’s breathtaking, but if you give such unlimited powers into the hands of people like Arlene Foster its unsurprising.
Opinions on the focussed protection vs lockdown policy might be more diverse than assumed. See covidConsensus.org. And here is a blog summary
Expert opinions on focused protection vs lockdown might be more diverse than commonly assumed. They may vary by discipline, country and even gender, according to a preliminary analysis.
See blog summary “‹”‹ (The equation should actually read k=1-H(Y)/log(5), but never mind the details).
All data can be seen at “‹http://covidconsensus.org
It is some time ago I watched Lockdown TV.
My first comment is that Freddie whom, I have always thought of as an extremely professional interviewer, was taking a definite stand here. Hence, this became more of a debate than an interview. I was not very keen on that I am afraid.
Second comment is that I am surprised (and irritated!) that these discussions in general are so extremely eurocentric. The only country which is ever brought into the discussion outside Europe is the US. And the conclusion then is of course that lock downs dont work very well.
I was in Singapore (and Japan) dec to mid february this year and saw already in mid January how they were getting prepared for what was coming. Wise from the Sars. Arriving Sweden 13th of February: there was not even a sign at the airport about this.
Europe had at least 4-6 weeks to learn from Southeast Asia and prepare for the situation before the virus came here. Nothing was done.
I am currently spending my second 14 day quarantine in Singapore but feel extremely lucky to have left Sweden for at least four months given the current situation. (People crowd in shops and restaurants regardless what the authorites say, never a thought to the health care workers who are crying out now, ‘please listen to the authorites!’) And no masks (don’t get me started on that one 🙂 ) Here, there is now NO community spread. Lock downs, test track and isolate strategies in Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand have worked. I believe Singapore has had around 30 dead people of Covid sofar. Why not bring this up instead of just saying lock downs dont work? And discuss what these countries apparently did more than the European countries which locked down. As prof Elg said, you need to take measures quickly. But the Swedish strategy has never been proactive, trying to prevent things. Instead, we have been reactive, waiting for numbers to go up and then introduce new measures. Letting the virus lead.
I totally agree with prof Elg (and he is certainly not alone among experts here, we have many who say the same things), I believe Tegnell, Carlson and Giesecke made the early prediction that it will take 2-3 years before the vaccine comes, “we can’t have lock downs for that long”, and now when the vaccine is here they have too much prestige in their strategy to change anything. (My belief is that it is the government now who wants stricter meaures rather than FHM, but that’s just my guess.)
BTW we also have prominent professors of economy who are very critical to the ways things have been handled.
Anyway, tomorrow I am let out from my hotelroom quarantine and will spend a normal Christmas with my family, with no worries about getting ill. Thanks to a society who has good governance, a good health system and a large amount of societal trust, the tripod that needs to be in place in a situation like this. (and Singapore IS a democracy so don’t go there please 🙂 )
Merry Christmas to you who actually read all this 🙂
I posted this yesteraday but was classified as spam for some reason?? So I try again. But would like to add that I am surprised over the aggressive tone here re prof Elgh who is a wellknown and well thought of scientist here in Sweden and who have a great number of other scientists who agree with him about the Swedish strategy. And he does not discuss from hindsight perspective. He was out there in the beginning of March.
It is some time ago I watched Lockdown TV.
My first comment is that Freddie whom, I have always thought of as an extremely professional interviewer, was taking a definite stand here. Hence, this became more of a debate than an interview. I was not very keen on that I am afraid.
Second
comment is that I am surprised (and irritated!) that these discussions
in general are so extremely eurocentric. The only country which is ever
brought into the discussion outside Europe is the US. And the
conclusion then is of course that lock downs dont work very well.
I was in Singapore (and Japan) dec to mid february this year and saw
already in mid January how they were getting prepared for what was
coming. Wise from the Sars. Arriving Sweden 13th of February: there was not even a sign at the airport about this. Even at Moscow airport one was aware of the virus.
Europe had at least 4-6 weeks to learn from Southeast Asia and prepare for the situation before the virus came here. Nothing was done.
I am currently spending my second 14 day quarantine in Singapore but feel extremely lucky to have left Sweden for at least four months given the current situation. (People crowd in shops and restaurants regardless what the authorites say, never a thought to the health care workers who are crying out now,’please listen to the authorites!’) And no masks (don’t get me started on that one 🙂 there IS plenty of evidence that it adds to protection of others. What, you don’t care about other people? So OK don’t use it… )
Here, there is now NO community spread. Lockdowns, test track and isolate strategies in Singapore, Taiwan, SouthKorea, New Zealand have worked. I believe Singapore has had around 30 dead people of Covid sofar. Why not bring this up instead of just saying lock downs dont work? And discuss what these countries apparently did more than the European countries which locked down. As prof Elgh said, you need to take measures quickly. But the Swedish strategy has never been proactive, trying to prevent things. Instead, we have been reactive, waiting for numbers to go up and then introduce new
measures “when the time is right”. Letting the virus lead.
I totally agree with prof Elgh
(and he is certainly not alone among experts here, we have many who say the same things), I believe Tegnell, Carlson and Giesecke made the early prediction that it will take 2-3 years before the vaccine comes,”we can’t have lock downs for that long”, and now when the vaccine is here they have too much prestige in their strategy to change anything. (My belief is that it is the government now who wants stricter meaures rather than FHM, but that’s just my guess.)
BTW we also have prominent professors of economy who are very
critical to the ways things have been handled.
Anyway, tomorrow I am let out from my hotelroom quarantine and will spend a normal Christmas with my family, with no worries about getting ill. Thanks to a society who has good governance, a good health system and a large amount of societal trust, the tripod that needs to be in place in a situation like this. (and Singapore IS a democracy so don’t go there please 🙂 )
Merry Christmas to you who actually read all this 🙂
That’s the end.
Expert opinions on focused protection vs lockdown might be more diverse than commonly assumed. They may vary by discipline, country and even gender, according to a preliminary analysis.
See blog summary “‹http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covi… (The equation should actually read k=1-H(Y)/log(5), but never mind the details).
All data can be seen at “‹http://covidconsensus.org
Dear UnHerd, I am new to the platform, and very disappointed so far. Why does my comment keep being removed?
I am just trying to draw readers’ attention to data that, albeit preliminary, suggests that expert opinions on focused protection vs lockdown might be more diverse than commonly assumed. They may vary by discipline, country and even gender, according to a preliminary analysis.
See blog summary “‹http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covi… (The equation should actually read k=1-H(Y)/log(5), but never mind the details).
All data can be seen at “‹http://covidconsensus.org
Expert opinions on focused protection vs lockdown might be more diverse than commonly assumed. They may vary by discipline, country and even gender, according to a preliminary analysis.
See blog summary “‹blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/202… (The equation should actually read k=1-H(Y)/log(5), but never mind the details).
All data can be seen at “‹covidconsensus.org
unhre
youtube com/watch?v=DAEF99EqpOA
Are We Being Played?… Lockdown 3 – The Madness Continues
Godfrey Bloom Official
He says he is giving facts but gives opinions. For example, he says that the increase in infection proves that masks don’t work. This is possibly rubbish because there are so many other possible factors. The same is true of saying that lockdown doesn’t work. It could be that the timing of lockdown renders it ineffective. When Godfrey Bloom says, ‘which proves . . . .’ he is incorrect.
I don’t support his main point at all but masks don’t work. Droplet theory is wrong. Virus is airborne. There are 4 decades of studies showing masks don’t work for airborne respiratory virus spread.
Great interview by Freddie. Professor Elgh don’t convince me that lockdown is the way to go. We should stop comparing countries because it’s so complexed. Just listen to Agnes Wold https://www.dn.se/sverige/d…
Remember Giesecke? ‘Some countries do this, some countries do that’…(while looking a bit bored :))…
He was right then and he is right now. This Elgh is clearly a clown compared to Giesecke:
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Remember Giesecke? ‘Some countries do this, some countries do that’…:) He was right then and he is right now. This Elgh is a clown.
He is right, we are heading for disaster. With now nearly 8 billion human beings on the planet, how exactly do we plan to “save the planet” if we keep stopping everything that kills us. I would feel differently if it were killing our kids or even their parents. But it isn’t. We have to learn to accept and even welcome the death of the old and the frail. Every death is not a tragedy. It is a process of renewal. We have set ourselves the wrong objective.
Is there a vaccine against this new strain of Super Corona, or the next one Super Corona II?
Roll on Armageddon!
The dumb stuck record now from a Swede.
Lockdowns don’t work, merely delaying the sweep of the virus through the population. Every epidemiologist well knows this. So if mortality is incredibly low, as is the case here, then there is no great problem doing nothing at all, generally; simply to isolate the small minority of the particularly vulnerable. The faster the virus sweeps through the population, the quicker the especially vulnerable can come out of isolation.
You also save the x£100billions you’ve pointlessly chucked down the toilet.
Take the steep increase in ‘cases’, just to compare it to the deaths. Peak was 81 in early December for Sweden, but then it fell to 3 last week. That is .007 deaths per 1000 people. That is not a 1% death rate. Not even close:
(81/10131152)*1000
~0.00799514211217046196
Even if all PCRs were all true positives, a positive PCR is NOT a ‘case’. Mulis would agree. In the case of CoV2, we face at least 50% false positives using PCR. To confirm the rate, the CDC reports that of the total covid deaths, only 6% died without other diseases. This is, as a direct result of CoV2 infection.
I still fail to see why a virus that kills only .0005% (CDC) of people under 75 years, is even worth to be mentioned in the news. Let alone all that we are doing!
For instance, Fredrik states that countries like Belgium have a much better curve, followed by a graph where Sweden is much lower than Belgium, UK,
France and etc. Compare the countries by stringency against TOTAL DEATHS per year. Last time I checked about a month ago, about 45 of the 50 countries with worst numbers in ‘cases’ and deaths, had strict lockdowns and/or mask mandates. Video at 6:35 shows the top 25 and among those, only 3 had no such mandates: Switzerland, Sweden and Brazil.
Then Fredrik begins to recommend contact tracing… Sorry but I tuned out there. I wonder if he even knows that even ‘harmless’ coronaviruses can kill up to 8% in the elderly?
I’d like to hear from Johan Giesecke again, now that Sweden are down the other side of the expected winter resurgence! Well done, Mr Tegnell. The pressure from Sweden deniers must have been immense.
How come that Vietnam with 96,5 million people up until today has only 35 dead and only 2311 infected persons??
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/viet-nam/
blob:https://outlook.live.com/ba1590dd-3d5e-4513-b1f0-6df2b1e5820b
Vietnam Coronavirus: 2,311 Cases and 35 Deaths – Worldometer
Vietnam Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.
http://www.worldometers.info
Check the link above and think of what are they doing that we arn´t doing.
Following information is uphand:
1) They use mouthwash.
2) They put out their patients in the sun and in fresh air on eg balconies and so fort.
3) They have open windows as much as possible.
These links below gets more information about mouthwash from Dr John Campbell and Lindsay from Friendly Pharmacy in Canada with good information how to fight the virusload better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOkIkSGYCmw&ab_channel=Dr.JohnCampbell
Theraputic mouth wash, allergies and stomach acid – YouTube
So much interesting stuff Lindsay, thanks you. Link to Lindsay’s channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVguCNBFXsPhtalox mouthwash Actascientific: https:…
http://www.youtube.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFRt-i3QzY&ab_channel=Dr.JohnCampbell
Mouth wash, Colchicine and Vitamin D – YouTube
Friendly Pharmacy 5 Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/FriendlyPharmacy5Colchicine youtube link: https://youtu.be/uwm-1SQuzRUColcorona trial: https://www.co…
http://www.youtube.com
Viktig information från en mycket kunnig läkare som rapporterar dagligen om läget med coronaviruset och hur skydda sig bäst.
Hoppas detta kan vara till nytta för alla att snarast få veta att sol dvs dvitamin och att skölja munnen är av betydelse tillsammans med de övriga åtgärderna som vi vidtager.
bästa hälsningar
Christer Poijes
By any measurement Swedish policy (if there was one) has been a failure. To pretend otherwise is absurd.
What about Belarus? The other country there which did not lockdown.
You are absurd
Excellent interview, thank you.
One key to comparing and contrasting national experiences is, of course, to compare like with like. Sweden’s neighbouring countries are pretty good comparators, far better than the UK, Belgium, France or Germany. The Swedish experience is far, far worse than its neighbours on pretty much any measure. As is repeatedly stated by most experts in this field, the “Barrington” approach is flawed, and Sweden demonstrates that rather compellingly.
It is to be regretted, if true, that intervention by its advocates in September delayed (again) the introduction of suitably strict lockdowns in the England, repeating the catastrophic error of March.
I look forward to watching more of these interviews. So refreshing to listen to an intelligent and respectful discussion, well done.
Well, it is imbecilic isn’t it? We can drive up the numbers with false positives using PCR testing, we don’t know in how many cases the virus is the main cause of death or even in how many cases the virus has even been isolated. The government has just wanted to make sure everyone was in a state of panic. It was shown in September that Vallance and Whitty had used false projections and again in October: they keep on raising stakes. If we always act on the worst case scenario (furthermore a trumped up worst case scenario) we will never ever be able to function again as a society (and everyone will probably die sooner rather than later anyway).
Just a little comment on causes of deaths for people who die “with” or “of” Covid-19. The Hamburg university hospital pathology institute performed autopsies for all patients who died after having been diagnosed with Covid-19, a couple hundred for the city. For more than 90 % the cause of death had been Covid-19, the other group comprised patients who had died for other underlying conditions, but “with” Sars-Cov-2 infection.
Thank you – this is sort of interesting but I would suggest that even if this was trustworthy (and even the British government seemed admit early on that many who died had little expectancy, were >80 with multiple co-morbidities) that it would impossible to make wider projections on this data.