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Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell believes that the high death toll during the corona epidemic may be due in part to a mild flu season in the country before the corona epidemic.
In an interview for Dagens Nyheter (behind the paywall), he says that there is a strong connection between a low excess mortality in influenza and a high excess mortality in covid-19.
Tegnell believes that one of the reasons Sweden stands out may be that the common flu, according to the EU infection control authority, hit Norway and Finland the hardest before the coronavirus reached the Nordic countries.
According to Tegnell, Sweden, Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands were countries that had several years of fairly low excess mortality from influenza before the coronavirus. It paved the way for a higher death toll in the event of a severe epidemic.
According to Dagens Nyheter, the last seasonal flu in Sweden was not very serious, with only almost 8,000 confirmed cases against 20,000 confirmed cases in 2017-2018.
Tegnell says that Sweden and other countries that have had a fairly low death rate from their flu epidemics in the past two to three years have a very high excess death rate from Covid-19.
At the same time, mortality in covid-19 is quite low in countries with high mortality from influenza, such as Norway. According to Tegnell, this may be part of the reason for the differences between countries.
“Finland had better conditions”
Dagens Nyheter mentions Finland as the neighboring country to Sweden that has perhaps best managed to protect both its elderly and the entire population.
When asked what Finland did so well, Tegnell says, among other things, that he believes Finland had minimal imports in the form of people traveling. Furthermore, according to Tegnell, Finland has almost no immigrant groups. They were badly affected both in Sweden and in other countries.
Other reasons for Tegnell’s rosters are the lack of a metropolis the same size as Stockholm and that the preparation was good, they tried a lot and worked hard from the beginning.
Tegnell believes that conditions were better in Finland.
