Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist and one of the architects of the country's COVID-19 policy, has said on Wednesday that Swedish public health officials should have done better to combat the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd June, 2020) Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist and one of the architects of the country's COVID-19 policy, has said on Wednesday that Swedish public health officials should have done better to combat the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
The Swedish government, unlike most countries in Europe, did not enforce a strict lockdown as COVID-19 began to spread across the continent. Schools, kindergartens, restaurants, and gyms were allowed to remain open, and public gatherings were only restricted to a maximum of 50 people.
"Sure, we will do it better next time. That is something we all have to think about. Anything else would be strange. But then we also have to know everything that we didn't know back then ... I am convinced that there are things that could have been done better if we were put in the same situation again, knowing a lot more," Tegnell said during an interview with the country's Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
The epidemiologist added that the country's Health Ministry could have enforced different measures if it knew the full scale of the outbreak and the danger of the coronavirus disease.
"We didn't know that there would be such a big potential for contagion in care homes, with so many deaths. We knew that group was very vulnerable and that we would have a high mortality rate if they were infected, but not that the infection would get in so easily and be so extensive," Tegnell remarked.
Despite admitting the shortcomings of Sweden's policy, the epidemiologist stated that the country made the right decision in not enforcing a nationwide lockdown.
"But I think the fundamental strategy has worked well. I can't see how we could have acted in a totally different way. Of course there are details which you can think about, and we do that continuously. We have also made small changes all the time, and will certainly continue to do so," Tegnell stated, adding that citizens should continue to adhere to the social distancing guidelines.
Since the start of the outbreak, public health officials in Sweden have reported 40,803 cases of the coronavirus disease and 4,542 deaths, including 74 fatalities over the past 24 hours. Sweden's case total and death toll are far greater than those in neighboring countries such as Norway, where 8,455 positive tests have been reported.
