There has been a lot written about Sweden's #COVID19 strategy, much of it claiming success for the 'light touch' lockdown free approach. But the country has suffered the worst death toll so far in Scandinavia. At last, an admission of mistakes made theguardian.com/world/2020/jun… 1/n
A telling quote from the article “Other countries started with a lot of measures all at once. The problem with that is that you don’t really know which of the measures you have taken is most effective” 👈🏽what is the goal? To find the perfect set of measures or save lives? 2/n
There are many things we still do not know about the best way to respond to the pandemic. 'Lockdowns' are a blunt instrument, but they cover the bases 3/n
Shutdown approaches reflect a situation where we just don't know enough about the transmission of the virus to get fancy about how we handle it. As we learn more, we should refine them and figure out which bits work and which don't 4/n
Sweden's approach was IMO the wrong way around. It sought to avoid taking unpalatable action, rather than responding to the threat. The light touch, applied early on, has likely slowed transmission in the community, but the consequences for the elderly have been catastrophic 5/n
Sweden reported the highest per capita mortality in the world in the week to June 2nd. The numbers of deaths are 10 fold greater than elsewhere in Scandinavia and half of them have been in care homes 6/n
If you are going to not work to exclude the virus, but allow it in to prey upon your people, you should work to protect the most vulnerable. I've said it time and again, we *knew* this already, both from experience with other respiratory viruses and early data from Wuhan 7/n
It's not just Sweden, look at the UK (and the deaths there among younger people working in care homes) or my own state of Massachusetts. wbur.org/news/2020/05/0… 8/n
The failure to in some cases, even try to protect those most at risk of the pandemic is shameful. But in Sweden, and briefly the UK, there has been the notion that a shutdown can be dodged by being clever. By outwitting the pandemic 9/n
I should note that we are still at the start of this pandemic, and the full accounting of how well different approaches to it work in the long run. But we don't know enough right now to be so cute. And as a result Sweden has ended up as the control arm in the shutdown trial 10/n
And all this for only ~7% immune. As we refine pandemic response with data (and we should for reasons of sustainability) we ought to remember some wise advice I once received...
If you start out too clever by half, you risk ending up too dumb squared.
Let's not do that 11/end
If you start out too clever by half, you risk ending up too dumb squared.
Let's not do that 11/end
