I just read an interesting article from the 9/10/20 Financial Times. The article was basically an interview with Anders Tegnell, the Swedish epidemiologist, and much of what I will have to say has been gleaned from this article.
I would recommend that everyone read this entire article.
I will not bore you with Tegnell’s life story, but rather just want to emphasize some of his basic tenets as they relate to the coronavirus pandemic.
A lot of the following is from the Financial Times article written by Richard Milne, who states at the beginning:
“At the start of this year, Anders Tegnell was just a low-profile bureaucrat in a country of 10m people, heading a department that collects and analyses data on public health. Today, he has become one of the best known — and most controversial — figures of the global coronavirus crisis.”
As I am sure that most of you are aware, Sweden, vis a vis, Tegnell approached the Covid pandemic differently.
Tegnell is a big believer in “sustainability.”
He said, “At the outset, we talked very much about sustainability, and I think that’s something we managed to keep to. And also be a bit resistant to quick fixes, to realise that this is not going to be easy, it is not going to be a short-term kind of thing, it’s not going to be fixed by one kind of measure. We see a disease that we’re going to have to handle for a long time into the future and we need to build up systems for doing that,”
I find it interesting that Tegnell seems more focused on the long term as opposed to the short term. Almost every other country in the world, except Belarus has lockdowned in some form, and has focused its policies on the short term. Lockdowns, universal mask wearing, online schooling, etc. are all short term “stick a finger in the dike” solutions. They are all short term fixes, as opposed to long term sustainable solutions.
How has Tegnell’s long term plan worked so far?
In general Sweden’s economic results are on par with the other Nordic countries, but due to its failure to protect those in nursing homes early on, Sweden’s mortality stats at this time are much worse than its Nordic neighbors.
As coronavirus cases rise in pretty much all other European countries, leading to fears of a second wave including in the UK, they have been sinking all summer in Sweden. On a per capita basis, they are now 90 per cent below their peak in late June and under Norway’s and Denmark’s for the first time in five months. Is it about herd immunity?
“Herd immunity is one of the most controversial concepts of the Covid-19 crisis. Tegnell is adamant that it was not Sweden’s goal to allow the virus to run its course until enough of the population had been exposed and the infection rate slowed. But he argues immunity is at least in part responsible for the sharp recent drop in Swedish cases and questions how its neighbours will fare without it. “What is protecting Copenhagen today? We will see,” he adds.”
In general, Tegnell is resistant to adopting “easy solutions for complex problems.” Lockdowns, universal mask wearing, school closures appear to be easy solutions, but are not sustainable over the long term.
What about a vaccine?
He warns that a vaccine — if and when it comes — will not be the “silver bullet”. He adds: “Once again, I’m not very fond of easy solutions to complex problems and to believe that once the vaccine is here, we can go back and live as we always have done. I think that’s a dangerous message to send because it’s not going to be that easy.”
Keep in mind that this fight against this coronavirus pandemic is going to be akin to a marathon as opposed to a hundred yard dash or even a 440 . . . “sustainability!”
