[ad_1]
On March 15, just a few weeks after the first signs that the coronavirus had entered Sweden, Peet Tüll made a first email to state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
Tüll is a former medical adviser and head of the infection control unit at the National Board of Health and Welfare. Anders Tegnell assumed his post when Peet Tüll retired, at the same time that the post was expanded in connection with the founding of the Public Health Agency.
In the email, Tüll had some good advice to give Tegnell.
“Hello Anders, there are three strategies to stop the epidemic“He wrote in the e-mail correspondence that is reproduced in the forthcoming book” Flocken “, the excerpt of which has been published in Svenska Dagbladet.
The first strategy meant a total blockade in Sweden, for four weeks.
The second alternative, which Peet Tüll advocates in his email: track the infection as much as possible and quarantine those infected for two weeks.
His last alternative, which Tüll did not know at the time, would be Sweden’s controversial crown strategy: “Allowing the infection to spread, slowly or quickly, to achieve hypothetical ‘herd immunity’”.
“Abandoned and Headless Strategy”
According to Svenska Dagbladet’s text, Tüll believed that it could cause thousands of deaths. He wrote:
“It seems to me a given and headless strategy, which I would never have accepted in my previous role.”.
But the same day came an email reply from Anders Tegnell. Option number three had to be.
At the time, the word “herd immunity” was little known to the Swedish public, but soon it would be. The strategy has been criticized and debated around the world.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 6,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Sweden. Almost 142,000 have been infected by the virus.
Anders Svenska Tegnell comments for Svenska Dagbladet:
– It is not that we sacrifice many people to achieve immunity. This model was the only one that was passable.
He also believes that the forecasts made by the Swedish Public Health Agency in March were unfounded for which model it was chosen.
– We never adjust our strategies to any forecast. At such an early stage, the input values are very unclear. And if you look back now, all the forecasts turned out to be wrong, not just ours, he tells Svenska Dagbladet.
Expressen has searched for Anders Tegnell.
The man got sick this spring, got new lungs in Sahlgrenska.
