https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/zg ... s-strategi
Tegnell was warned early on of high death rates: "Headless strategy"
New book reveals the game behind the scenes
Anders Tegnell had three alternatives: total shutdown, infection tracking or infection control to achieve herd immunity.
He chose the latter - despite strong warnings.
The new book "The Flock" reveals the game behind the so-called Swedish strategy.
By going through a lot of emails, the author Johan Anderberg has put together the birth of state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell's covid-19 strategy. Svenska Dagbladet has obtained an edited, as yet unpublished excerpt from the book that describes in detail the game behind what would be Sweden's probably most debated route choice in 2020.
On March 6, Anders Tegnell received a warning email from the mathematician Tom Britton who calculated the R-value of the virus. There he expressed his opinion that the Public Health Agency was too passive: “With as many infected people as there are now in Sweden, the spread of infection will take place. Our society is not very different from Italy, or for that matter China, so why should it not spread among us? ”
Shortly afterwards the same day, Jan Albert heard from him and said that he, Johan von Schreeb and Denis Coulombier, all prominent doctors, just had to meet Anders Tegnell. That was important. If Tegnell got a small gap, they could be there within 30 minutes, according to SvD.
Finally, the three men were allowed to come to the authority. And they had to deliver their warnings.
So in just a few hours, Tegnell was warned by four prominent people in the field.
But it did not end there.
On March 15, Peet Tüll, former head of the National Board of Health and Welfare's infection control unit, sat down and wrote an email to Anders Tegnell. When Tüll retired, it was Anders Tegnell who got his job, albeit with somewhat different tasks.
The email he formulated touched on the strategies he saw as possible to stop what would become a pandemic.
"Hello Anders. There are three strategies to stop the epidemic ", wrote Peet Tüll.
The first option was a total shutdown of society for four weeks.
The second option was to find as many infected as possible, track all close contacts and put them in a two-week quarantine.
The third option was:
"Allow the spread of infection, slowly or rapidly, to achieve a hypothetical 'herd immunity'."
Peet Tüll himself considered alternative two to be the best. The infection had still not become too widespread and no one then knew that SARS-CoV-2 had a completely different infection potential than previously similar plagues, such as the SARS virus from 2003.
Choosing option 3, on the other hand, would lead to thousands of deaths.
"It seems to me like a given and headless strategy, which I would never have accepted in my previous role."
A few hours later, in the early afternoon, Anders Tegnell replied:
"Yes, we have walked through this and after all landed in 3."
Today, almost eight months later, just over 6,000 Swedes have died in covid-19.
What was right or wrong - and what had worked or not - is hard to say. But it is certain that the debate will continue for a long time to come.