Thread by @DavidSteadson

Non-Swedish followers are probably not aware, but this week in a "cultural" piece, Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, when asked what the "Year's pandemic" was, answered "hobby epidemiologists".

https://twitter.com/janlotvall/status/1344987057530265601

So let's talk about Anders Tegnell and epidemiology.

Epidemiology is the study of patterns of disease (and health) in a society. While today we're all discussing it re a virus, it applies also to studies of things like alcohol abuse, obesity etc, not just communicable diseases.

What is the #1 field of skill and knowledge needed in epidemiology?

In my opinion, statistics. Now, statistics alone is not enough, but it is *necessary* to have a reasonably good handle on statistics to understand (or do) epidemiology.

This is the primary reason why there have been *many* excellent contributions to our knowledge - and the communication of it - by people who were previously outside the field of public health.

In my feed, people like @tomaspueyo, @zorinaq, @CovidXIX, @jocami_ca do not, as far as I know, have backgrounds in public health.

But they are *excellent* at understanding and analysing data and interpreting and presenting the relevant statistics.

Which takes us back to Anders Tegnell.

It became quite clear to me very early on that @Folkhalsomynd, or at least Tegnell and his boss Johan Carlson, do not understand their own data.

In short, they're bad at statistics.

https://twitter.com/DavidSteadson/status/1261453320738111488?s=20

How do you get good at statistics? A formal education obviously helps. For me, I did a lot of statistics as part of my science degree on the way to becoming a research behavioural scientist, and then later doing a masters of public health

But mostly I learned from doing it. Days and weeks and years on end working with software like SAS and SPSS (it was a while ago, today there's more options!) and then sitting down with a Professor of Statistics to understand what it all meant.

And I by no means considered myself an expert statistician. But I do think I have a pretty good handle on the basics, and on my limitations.

Now, when I look at Tegnell's CV, where does he get this training and experience in understanding statistics?
ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/…

Frankly, I don't see it. I'm not an expert on the Swedish medical training system, but in Australia medical students get some basic statistical training, but it's nothing as extensive as what I did in my undergraduate degree.

So what about Tegnell's MSc in Epidemiology?

Well it was a few years ago, but here's how it looks now -

lshtm.ac.uk/study/courses/…

It's a 1 year course. There's one compulsory module in statistics and a later optional one in advanced statistics.

Looking back I think I've taken at least 6 formal courses in statistics (some more than once!😬). Tegnell appears to have one, plus whatever he did in med school.

The advanced stats course in that MSc is where you learn how to calculate things like R0 and we know from released emails that early in this pandemic Tegnell did not know how R0 worked and was asking others, so I think we can be confident he probably didn't take that elective.

Now, as I said, formal education is just part of it. The rest is in *the doing*, as a scientist or data analyst.

People like @janlotvall, @frelg and the other infamous "22" are scientists. They're likely dealing with statistics virtually every working day of their lives.

They have many many scientific publications which incorporate a wide range of statistical analysis. Tegnell has very few, spread over decades.

Now, I have even fewer, but I also know I sat at a computer for nearly a decade in academia doing stats nearly every day.

Has Anders Tegnell? I don't think he is. I don't think he understands the statistics his very agency is producing. It's why he constantly fails in his predictions.

I believe he's missing a fundamental skill to be an effective epidemiologist - statistics.
tegnellcitat.se

Perhaps part of the reason behind Sweden's failed pandemic response is that the guy running it for the past year, Anders Tegnell, is the *actual* "hobby epidemiologist"?