An approach in the fight against the spread of Covid-19 that was a real “failure”. In these terms, Sweden’s anti Sars-Cov-2 policy was defined by the first systematic scientific study on the national strategy, carried out two years after the first infections and recently published in the journal “Humanities & Social Sciences Communications”. The study involved scientists from universities in Belgium, Sweden and Norway, gathered in a multidisciplinary group that included experts in epidemiology, medicine, religious studies, history, political science and human rights.
The theses emerged from the report
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Health decisions defined as “questionable”, lack of transparency of the Swedish authorities and even “secrecy, cover-up and manipulation of data”. These are some of the theses put forward by the researchers of the study, taken from the “Corriere della Sera”, and referred as mentioned to the anti-Covid strategies implemented in the country which, during the pandemic period, had chosen to avoid widespread closures to limit economic damage , attempting the path of the so-called natural herd immunity and without ever imposing lockdowns or restrictions on the freedom of movement of citizens. But, rather, focusing on individual responsibility and not on governmental impositions. The Swedish “laissez-faire strategy has had a great human cost for Swedish society”, argued the experts, underlining how different research works have shown that “human costs would have been significantly lower in Sweden if more measures had been implemented. severe, without more damaging impacts on the economy “. The assessments that emerged, reports the Corriere, came after careful evaluations on “relevant scientific articles, subjected to peer review, published on the management of the pandemic in Sweden and in the other Nordic countries” and also through the analysis of “all conversations via e-mails, meeting agendas, meeting notes and press releases of interested parties involved in the decision-making process at national level “.
The allegations to the Public Health Agency
What are the accusations raised by the report against the Swedish government? According to the study, the same would have delegated the management of the pandemic to the Public Health Agency, but since 2014 it lacks its most authoritative scientific consultants, who have moved to work for the renowned Karolinska Institute. In doing so, the scholars said, “authority lacked competence and could ignore scientific facts, with the Public Health Agency” not basing its advice on scientific evidence but on preconceptions about influenza pandemics and immunity. herd, relying mainly on a small advisory group with a narrow disciplinary focus and too limited competence ”. In essence, the Swedish body was “systematically incorrect in its risk assessments, and ignored the scientific evidence on suppression strategies, airborne transmission.” Totally inadequate practices would then emerge, including that for which the population was not warned that asymptomatic individuals could be contagious and that masks could protect both the wearer and other individuals. And then again, among other critical issues, that relating to the fact that many elderly people were given “morphine instead of oxygen, despite the available supplies”, leading them in fact to death. During the spring of 2020, according to the report, many individuals would not have been admitted to hospitals and would not have received a health examination as they were considered not at risk. Furthermore, according to the assessments of the Swedish Public Health Agency, the fact that children could be infectious, develop serious diseases, or drive the spread of the infection in the population, would have been denied or downgraded, “while their internal e-mails they indicated the goal of using children to spread the infection in society ”.
The role of Tegnell
The coronavirus pandemic, the report concluded, would therefore “reveal various structural problems in Swedish society, at the political and judicial level, in health, in the official media and in the bureaucracy, with decentralization, the lack of accountability and independence, and the refusal of accurate and complete information to the public as recurring problems at various levels ”. Never mentioned directly, among the main accused is the architect of the Swedish anti-Covid strategy, or the former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who resigned on March 9, shortly before the release of the study on the failure of the policy by him proposal.