Covid 19 coronavirus: doctors and scientists attack Sweden for ‘selected data’

Sweden’s laid-back approach to living with Covid-19 has come under international scrutiny, but now a group of 200 scientists, medical experts and professors are raising the pressure on the official version of events.

The group, of which Australian expatriate and former epidemiologist David Steadson is a member, told news.com.au they are challenging “unethical, uninvestigated and unsubstantiated reports on the disastrous handling of the pandemic in Sweden.”

They have opposed what they call “flawed and selected science” within the Swedish Public Health Agency, which is managing the response to Covid-19.

Keith Begg, the group’s founder, said a recent report from the agency comparing schools in Sweden and Finland was an example of misinformation.

The report aimed to compare the effect of different approaches on the rate of Covid-19 infections among schoolchildren. He noted that Sweden kept schools open and Finland closed them.

“In conclusion, whether or not school closings have had little or no impact on the number of laboratory-confirmed cases in school-age children in Finland and Sweden,” the report noted.

But there is a big problem with that claim.

As Science Mag noted in May, Sweden missed an opportunity to “definitively answer the question” about infections in schools because “officials have not tracked infections among schoolchildren, even as large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools.”

Begg says the report concludes that there is no difference in the overall incidence of laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases, but does not mention that Sweden’s top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell stopped collecting data from children because he thought that would create anxiety among the public.

“The problem with this report and others from the (agency) is that they are now being cited by policy makers and decision makers around the world as a way to open schools when the reports are seriously flawed,” he said Begg.

“They offer a tantalizing solution to desperate governments around the world looking for a way to get their societies back on track. But they are based on flawed and selected science.”

News.com.au saw an email sent to Begg by a Public Health Agency epidemiologist. It reads, in part: “I’m sorry the report seems to infuriate you so much, but this is just a report and not a peer-reviewed scientific study.”

He goes on to say, “This was just a quick status report and nothing more.”

Steadson, who joined the group after feeling dismayed by the handling of the pandemic in his new home country, told news.com.au last week that he is “disgusted” with the Swedish public health team.

“The Swedish strategy is not a success, it is a failure,” he said.

“Allowing a deadly virus to spread in the hope of eventual ‘herd immunity’ made no sense to me scientifically, given our then limited knowledge, and it made no ethical sense to me.

“People would die needlessly and he was frankly disgusted with what he was hearing from the Swedish Public Health Agency.”

More than 85,000 people have contracted the virus and 5,800 people have died. But in recent weeks, data from Sweden appears to show a reduction in the spread of the virus in a move that officials have called “vindication” of the Swedish approach.

Last week, only 1.3 percent of tests showed Covid-19 cases, compared with more than 19 percent at the peak of the pandemic. The number is less than in neighboring Norway and Denmark.

Covid-19 cases in Sweden peaked on June 24 with 1,698 infections, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University in the US Deaths hit 115 a day for several days in April.

By contrast, neighboring Denmark, which had a much tighter lockdown, only recorded a daily peak of 390 and 22 deaths.

However, Denmark, along with many other European nations, has seen cases spike again. However, infections in Sweden have remained at around 200 a day for several months. That’s still a lot, but it’s a big drop from where they were, and more importantly, it’s stable and apparently doesn’t lead to many deaths.

Daily deaths dropped to single figures in mid-July and have not increased since.

Despite that, the editor-in-chief of the Medical Journal of Australia, Dr. Nick Talley, says Sweden got it wrong.

“In my opinion, the Swedish model has not been a success, at least to date,” he told news.com.au.

“A clear goal at least from the start was to achieve herd immunity, but this was not achieved, not even close, and arguably predictable.

“Restrictions were put in place, but the philosophy was more voluntary than mandatory. There is evidence that there was a significant impact of this voluntary lockdown on behavior, as reflected, for example, in reduced mobility and spending. However, the spread of Covid-19 and the death rate was substantially higher in Sweden compared to its neighbors who were demanding closures. “