🗣 ‘Lockdown was never on the agenda’
@AllisonPearson speaks to Sweden’s former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell on the controversial course they charted through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read their conversation here ⬇️
🇸🇪 The lonely and controversial course that Anders Tegnell charted through the Covid-19 pandemic became known as the “Swedish Experiment”.
By the end of the first week of March 2020, as restrictions deepened elsewhere, Tegnell’s approach came under fire
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/2…
🗣️ ‘I believe if you give people good information about what they can do and the possible threat that they might experience, they usually make good choices'
The PM and Rishi Sunak had held a secret Zoom meeting with Tegnell in September 2020 to hear his, and others, take on a potential “circuit-breaker lockdown”
His impression was that Boris and Rishi were “quite open” to hearing it was a bad idea
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/2…
🏫 With every other European country closing its schools, why was keeping them open so important to him?
“In all the discussions we had, mental health of children was very high"
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/2…
"We also knew that one of the major problems with public health in Sweden [before the pandemic] was the mental health among the young."
"So, we didn’t want to hurt that any more than we already did"
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/2…
❌ Of course, Tegnell wasn’t perfect.
A failure to act faster to protect care homes is among his biggest regrets - Health experts should have done more to stem the high number of deaths, he explains
'But, Tegnell’s approach in Sweden paid off,' writes @AllisonPearson.
'As I write, Sweden has the lowest rate of excess deaths of any European country'
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/2…
“I don’t really like to be called vindicated"
“This is not a competition. This is about public health. It’s about trying to do your best to keep your population as healthy as they possibly can be during a health crisis.”
Read the conversation in full ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/2…
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