[tsimionescu]

Sweden has one of the highest death rates in the EU. So they were wrong about their strategy.

They are also basing their strategy on the belief that getting the disease grants immunity, which, according to WHO, there is currently no evidence of.

Perhaps saying that they were "wrong about almost everything" is an exaggeration, but they were certainly wrong about a few very important things.

[logicchains]

>Sweden has one of the highest death rates in the EU. So they were wrong about their strategy.

There strategy is focused on the long-term. Obviously allowing a higher infection rate is going to lead to more deaths initially, but their argument is that eventually everybody everywhere else will be infected (it will keep coming back), in which case the death toll over the long run is the same.

>They are also basing their strategy on the belief that getting the disease grants immunity, which, according to WHO, there is currently no evidence of.

There's no direct evidence of but it's still incredibly unlikely it's not the case, given what we know of how all similar viruses behave.

[alkonaut]

> Sweden has one of the highest death rates in the EU. So they were wrong about their strategy.

Of course not having full lockdowns will give a higher Covid death rate (at least initially) than lockdowns.

If you measure that data point and use it to determine "success" then you are saying that a strategy known to be a failure was chosen, and it failed...

> the belief that getting the disease grants immunity, which, according to WHO, there is currently no evidence of.

That was a poor wording from the WHO. The reality is that scientists were always so sure that clearing an infection gives some (at least short term) immunity that it was never in question. It still isn't in question. Any policy can easily take that into consideration. What was (and still is) questioned is how long this immunity works, and how strong the immunity is for those with no or very mild symptoms. Luckily, signs are saying that even that looks positive.

[imartin2k]

I was specifically referring to Tegnell. I seriously am under the impression that he got almost everything wrong. I personally don't see anything he got right as an expert epidemiologist shaping the country's policy.

Tegnell seriously believed it would be possible to have the virus spread through Sweden's healthy population, having them build up herd immunity, while not infecting those in risk groups, and ending up with a very low number of fatalities while keeping everything else running.

This man has zero ability for system's thinking and intelligent forecasting. I'm not sure if this is something one would need as a epidemiologist working with virus research. But one surely needs it if one is the leading figure shaping a country's complex response to a new virus.

Thanks for the addition regarding immunity, I forgot that one. Will take myself the freedom to add this to the list.

[username90]

Tegnell predicted that though, actually he thought it would be much higher, between 8k and 20k. The numbers we are seeing now are much better than he initially thought.

> Uppskattningen att mellan 8 000 och 20 000 svenskar kan komma att dö av coronaviruset är inte helt orimlig.

https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/tegnell-om-dodstalen-har-sa...

[imartin2k]

No, that said someone else, he just commented on it and basically said it could become true. It wasn't his own prediction.

A few days later, in an interview he said that the country's elevated death toll "really came as a surprise to us." https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-lockdown-...