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When DN interviewed state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell a week ago, Tegnell claimed that the development did not follow the forecasts that the Public Health Agency worked with.
– No, it has been a different development than we think. Developments in other European countries have been geared towards a much broader and more widespread spread of the infection than was seen in the spring. Sweden is now following that pattern. The whole country will likely be affected, more or less, Tegnell said at the time.
Now Örebro University Hospital doctor Jonas F. Ludvigsson says in an interview with TT that the reason for the error in judgment is the lack of knowledge about the virus itself.
TT: How can the Public Health Agency be so wrong?
– Because the Swedish Public Health Agency, like everyone else, is guessing. We know very little about this virus. I also didn’t believe in any other waves this spring. I was wrong and many with me. Of course, it must be possible to place higher demands on an authority than on an individual in terms of forecasts, but I can still understand that even an authority can end up wrong, because it is extremely difficult to see the future, says Jonas F. Ludvigsson, who is also professor of medical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Solna.
In the last pandemic, swine flu in 2009, it was the opposite. Many believed in a second wave and in Sweden a higher proportion of the population was vaccinated than in almost any other country.
– Then there were many who in a way stood with long noses, because there was never another wave. And in hindsight, Sweden’s decision to be so active, to vaccinate so many people, received harsh criticism, says Jonas F. Ludvigsson.
Furthermore, it appears that the countries that were hit the hardest this spring are now as well. Like Great Britain, France, Spain, Belgium and Sweden.
– This despite the fact that several of these lthey have taken extremely strong measures. In any case, it doesn’t seem to stop the infection. Belgium has roughly the same population as Sweden and has 1,500 intensive care unit patients at the moment, which is three times what Sweden had when it was at its worst this spring. This despite the fact that Belgium had strict restrictions, says Jonas F. Ludvigsson.
This, Ludvigsson believes, may be due to underlying factors that drive the spread of the infection, but which may not be affected by actions taken by authorities, in any case to a great extent. Something that the director general of the Swedish Public Health Agency Johan Carlson previously explained with countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Spain that receive a lot of infection from all possible directions: “Under the radar from areas where it has not yet been detected the infection”.
TT: What could be the factors?
– I do not know. It’s probably a combination of different things. For example, how big are the cities of a country, how close we live, the proportion of people with an immigrant background and multigenerational housing, how many people collectively travel to work and go abroad, what infections usually affect the population, etc.
– It can be a whole palette of, I suppose, ten, fifteen factors where the measures we take can affect some of them. In that case, it is not so strange that the same countries are affected now than in the spring, given that no country has achieved herd immunity, since the underlying factors remain the same. That may be one explanation, says Jonas F. Ludvigsson.
TT: But Finland and Norway then?
– There is still much that separates these countries, from Sweden. Not least in terms of the areas of Sweden where the infection was established in early spring, where overcrowding is high. Such areas do not exist in Finland. Finland also has few non-European immigrants, many of whom in Sweden were affected at the beginning of the pandemic, and very few Norwegians go to the Alps, while there are areas in Sweden where many go to the Alps, says Jonas F. Ludvigsson. .
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg has previously said they quickly discovered Norwegian sports tourists who were ill:
– We were a bit lucky because we received a large early influx of sick sports tourists who returned from the Alps and saw the high number so we could quickly stop it. Maybe it gave us another way in, Solberg said.
