2/ Sweden never officially admitted following herd immunity as a strategy, but internal docs show this was a significant consideration in policy decisions
3/ Internally Sweden saw children and schools as a way of facilitating herd immunity whole publicity claiming children didn't play a role in transmission
4/ Remember Viners April systematic review?
"Schools don't play a significant role in transmission"
We had less likely to be infected, then less likely to infect, then "community transmission" then it was no need for measures as all the kids have been infected already
5/ Viners report is still quoted in the Green Book for LA, its also quoted in some of the Swedish documents
PHEs tame paediatricians still claiming its just "community transmission"
After writing this report Viner was brought into SAGE meetings
6/ FOI requests regularly denied and redacted
Plan focused on "not spreading fear" they persuaded themselves not telling the truth was in the public interest
Protecting the economy prioritised
6/ Very much like the "stop living in fear" "end of lockdown anxiety" articles we were flooded with by media.
This was the same time as eat out to help out...
7/Sweden relied almost entirely on their own studies ignoring international evidence just like the UK, eg
DfE on school transmission, their masks survey, air filters. Despite large amounts of evidence DfE only looks at their own often underpowered studies, often poor methods
8/ The sentence above
"Elderly people were administered morphine instead of oxygen despite available supplies"🤯
Horrific, sounds like a lot like a cull
9/ Sweden saw keeping any measures out of schools as an important part of the strategy, withholding testing means they could deny having any evidence of transmission, however now data on longcovid and harms of losing relatives is mounting
Took ages to get testing into UK schools
10/ Unlike most other countries school attendance remained mandatory, parents were fined for keeping children off to protect CEV kids/ family
11/ Swedish authorities misrepresented and manipulated the data they did have on children's role in transmission, so those using Swedish data to argue against measures in schools were using unreliable evidence
12/ Previously released internal emails show Ludvigsson and Tegnell finding an increase in child mortality and then deciding how to make this inconvenient fact go away
Schools not informing parents of outbreaks like UK
Outbreaks not reported, remember the UK cases vs outbreak reporting that fudged the scale of the problem particularly autumn/winter 2020
14/ Care home deaths cover up
15/ As I said earlier, lying to prevent fear and worry was considered to be for the greater good.
Thou shall not question your Government
16/ No gov evidence provided until April, like UK, lots of redactions and issues with FOI requests, hard to see how guidence was produced
17/ Hmm refusal to answer FOIs, I think Swedish journalists have now gotten a lot more information out of their government than we have in the UK
19/ In Sweden they deleted emails requested, in the UK the main deleting has been over contracts to chums, when it comes to pandemic strategy the UK just refuse
20/ In April Sweden set up a new committee that would oversee decisions in secrecy
21/ The UK did this in July
Remember the Joint Biosecurity Centre?They were apparently responsible for the chilli peppers alert levels
31/ Full strategy developed behind closed doors, never properly communicated to the public, Sweden continue with misleading information, talking points not followed up with action
"Doing all we can to..."
32/ The report has a certain repetitiveness regarding asymptomatic spread,masks,and schools
Also they downplayed scale of spread repeatedly while claiming herd immunity was close,which surely requires lots of infections?🤷♂️
UK has had Freedom day and living with the virus day now
33/ How many press briefings have we seen in the UK where we couldn’t get straight answers, when the advisors diplomatically talked around the facts
34/ Lack of meaningful political opposition means that citizens cannot change the pandemic strategy through their voting choices at the next election
35/ Intentional misinformation facilitated the spread of the virus, refusal to make changes to the influenza plan despite the evidence
36/ Authorities didn't trust the Public enough to be straight with the public
Recommendations makes legal protections more difficult
37/ Consequence of letting it rip was increased inequality of social justice
38/ Sweden knew about the inequality, they blamed foreigners
How many UK pundits have been overly focused on weight in regards to covid?
39/ In Sweden people were expected to take personal responsibility for their own risk, ignoring asymptomatic cases, if vulnerable ppl get sick its likely their fault
Bit like current UK thinking offering LFTs just to the vulnerable
40/ Essentially the Swedish strategy is one which accommodates middle/upper class
41/ That's the report, now a few extra considerations
Mid March Tegnell and UK were trying to persuade others to adopt herd immunity
From Italian ministers⬇️
42/ There is a pre pandemic link with Tegnell and Giesecke to the UK, both studies at London school of tropical medicine, Whitty was also there
48/ I would like to see more comparison threads like this for other countries, I'll compile them into threads to add to my pinned tweet, been working on the international perspective
Also, if you haven't already the JCVI minutes are interesting
While there are ppl in the BBC engaged in intentional minimising, I think a greater number of reporters are surrounded with misinterpretation and don't understand the nuances when scientists explain
Not enough journalists are scientifically literate
To be honest I think we have an issue with the science curriculum and exam structure as clearly intelligent ppl, well educated in others lack basic functional understanding of scientific principles
It feels like there is a hierarchy of the acceptability of ignorance
In English the inability to do the basics, bad grammar and poor spelling,are considered by many to be a source of shame or embarrassment
🧵Sunak on @LBC talking about how freeports will boost jobs, because business will get big incentives
How much do those incentives cost us? Because it looks a lot like hes paying businesses to set up an onshore tax haven with reduced employment rights
2/ Freeports are sold as areas where normal rules/taxes are suspended, however the libertarian think tanks see the end outcome as essentially the privatisation of a port/city, when you've got ppl like Peter Thiel involved in a project...
2/ First of all @sajidjavid made claims cases and hospitalisations were still falling, and wasn't pulled up in an interview that this wasn't true.
Then we are told rising cases are no cause for concern, the we are told to "brace", but at least we have more "freedom" than others
3/ Messaging is pandemic over, I thought the plan was to treat it like flu and other viruses, however the "Living with Covid" plan doesn't do this, instead it tries to pretend covid no longer exists
🧵Schools should be included as a vital part of an inquiry
I have kept a detailed timeline for exactly this purpose, children and staff have faced a reckless attitude to their personal health and due to dangerous ideology education suffered preventable disruption
2/ Mid March 2020 we were told schools need to stay open to help build up immunity
Then in April we were told children rarely get infected and are considerably less infectious