Merciless examination on the Public Health Agency: “It did not base its advice on scientific evidence, the Swedish people were kept in the dark about fundamental facts, to the elderly morphine instead of oxygen, the children used to spread the virus.” In the document the proof of the choice made between who to treat and who not
The Swedish approach to the epidemic of Covid it was a failure. This is what emerges from the first systematic scientific study on Sweden’s strategy in managing the pandemic carried out two years after the first infections and published in Nature Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.
As is well known, the approach of Sweden was aimed at avoiding a closure of the company in order to limit the economic damage as much as possible by trying a “natural” herd immunity and never imposing lockdown, nor restrictions on the freedom of trade and movement of citizens, but relying on individual responsibility (restaurants and schools for children under 16, for example, remained open and in attendance throughout the pandemic). “This Swedish laissez-faire strategy has had a great human cost for Swedish society“And” several studies have shown that human costs would have been significantly lower in Sweden if stricter measures had been implemented, without more damaging impacts on the economy“Write the study authors, scientists from universities in Belgium, Sweden and Norway, a” multidisciplinary group with a background in epidemiology, medicine, religious studies, history, political science and human rights “, which was” advised by several independent national and international experts “, reviewed all” relevant peer-reviewed scientific articles published on pandemic management in Sweden and other Nordic countries “and” tried to collect all email conversations, agendas of meetings, notes of meetings and press releases of interested parties involved in the decision-making process at national level “by appealing to the” laws on freedom of information “.
The Swedish government has delegated the management of the pandemic to the Public Health Agency, which, however, since 2014 had fired or transferred all of its most authoritative scientific advisors to the Karolinska Institute. “With this configuration, authority lacked competence and could ignore scientific factsThe report explains. “The Public Health Agency has not based its advice on scientific evidence but on preconceptions about influenza pandemics and herd immunity, relying mainly on a small advisory group with a narrow disciplinary focus and too limited expertise,” she was “Systematically incorrect in its risk assessments, and ignored scientific evidence on suppression strategies, airborne transmission.” He also “labeled the advice of national scientists and international authorities as extreme positions, causing the media and political bodies to accept their own policy instead. (Here the interview with the director of the Stockholm strategy: “We have no lockdown and now there is no second wave”).
The Swedish people have been kept in the dark about fundamental facts such as the airborne transmission of SARS-Cov-2, that asymptomatic individuals can be contagious and that face masks protect both the wearer and others “, the report continues. The practical consequences of this choice have been deleterious.
This is how the report published by Nature
:
• “Many elderly people have been given it morphine instead of oxygendespite the stocks available, effectively putting an end to their life ».
• “The decision to provide palliative care to many older adults is highly questionable; very few elderly people have been hospitalized for Covid 19. Appropriate (potentially life-saving) treatment was denied without medical examination, e without informing the patient or his family or asking for permission. Many officials continued to deny any responsibility, and there was only limited public outcry in Sweden when this came out, the common narrative being that those in nursing homes are doomed to die soon anyway.
• “During the spring of 2020, many individuals were not admitted to hospitals and they did not even receive a health examination as they were not considered to be at risk, with the result that individuals died at home despite seeking help. Additionally, there were triage instructions available in the Stockholm region, showing that the individuals with comorbidities, body mass index greater than 40 kg / m2, advanced age (80+) were not to be admitted to the intensive care unitsince “it was unlikely that they would recover” ».
• “Despite worrying signs from several hospitals that have overstepped their limits, the Public Health Agency and the government continued to argue that there were still ICU beds available in Sweden, and that their strategy is not failed because they were able to keep the infection at levels that the health system could handle. However, Sweden scored the lowest on the accessibility of ICU beds based on a study of 14 European countries which examined the impact on the death rate from Covid 19 ».
• «The Public Health Agency has denied or downgraded the fact that children could be infectious, develop serious diseases, or lead the spread of the infection in the population; while their internal emails indicate their goal of using children to spread the infection in society».
• “There have also been reports of inequalities and social injustice as a consequence of Sweden’s response, particularly with the elderly, people in nursing homes, individuals with a migrant background and socio-economically less advantaged groups (including young ) affected by excess mortality. This narrative of inequality was openly communicated by officials, including the Public Health Agency, arguing that “the coronavirus infection in nursing homes may have been spread by staff with poor command of the Swedish language“,” We have a greater diffusion due to the greater immigrant population “,”only foreigners get sick”,“ Only people who look like tourists wear face masks in public ”. No significant efforts have been made to reduce these disparities ”.
In addition to questionable health decisions, the study highlights the lack of transparency of the Swedish authoritiesand even speaks of “secrecy, cover-up and data manipulation“. “For example, even though many of the people involved have publicly stated that face masks were unnecessary, or even ‘dangerous’ or counterproductive, they then claimed to have always been in favor of their use. The Swedish Work Environment Authority and the State Epidemiologist have even begun to delete the e-mails requested by reporters. While this is illegal, the practice of withholding information and deleting emails has become widespread among official agencies during the pandemic leading to so-called “shadow management”, as apparently the risk of legal sanctions is very low for holders. of power “reads the report.
The conclusions are one uncontested condemnation of Swedish politics which also casts disturbing shadows on its democracy. “This pandemic has revealed several structural problems in Swedish society, at the political and judicial level, in health care, in the official media and in the bureaucracy, with decentralization, the lack of accountability and independence, and the denial of accurate and complete information to the public as recurring problems at different levels “. Again: “The critical questioning, also by internationally renowned scientists and experts, it became risky, even dangerous, in a country where conformity was encouraged by the national media ». According to the authors of the study, there was a “problem of evasive responsibility, autocratic governance, cover-up and secrecy” similar to the Political “Sovietization”. “The whole population was expected to have a one-way trust in the ‘authorities’,” they explain. “Protecting the “Swedish image” nationally and internationally appeared to be more important than protecting the lives of the inhabitants of Sweden., including health care professionals, the elderly, individuals with risk factors (e.g. comorbidities), minority groups and the socio-economically less advantaged. This is evidenced by the high excess mortality in these groups, the lack of adequate personal protective equipment and the denial of health care. Remains a lack of ethical conscience and the ability to include ethical reasoning in decision-making processes; and the lack of compassion for the victims of the pandemic ”.
The Nature report never explicitly names him, but as the architect of the Swedish anti Covid strategy is known, he is the former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, 65 years old. “Ex” because he resigned on March 9, shortly before the release of the study on the failure of his strategy. At the time, the Swedish Public Health Agency had stated that Tegnell had resigned to go to work as a “senior expert of the World Health Organization” to coordinate anti-Covid vaccination in poor countries. Then, after the publication of the report in Nature, he had to correct himself and explained that the communication of the appointment had been premature: “We thought the trial was over, but now we understand it was a mistake on our part,” spokesman Christer Janson told the agency Bloomberg
. “The WHO asked Sweden for technical support for this newly founded partnership, and since we appointed Tegnell in coordination with the Swedish government, we thought everything was fine.”