repulsewarrior wrote:The Swedes begin to have doubts,
https://www.dw.com/en/sweden-starts-to- ... m_ln=31525
...higher death toll than France.
...and Brazil?
No, not really...
Stop Telling Lies About Sweden
Great column by Fraser Nelson in today’s Telegraph which nails the lie that Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s coronavirus response, has admitted that not locking down the country was wrong. Worth quoting the first few paragraphs in full:Has Sweden finally repented of its error in rejecting lockdown? “Light touch cost us many lives, Swedish scientist concedes” ran an Australian headline.
“Swedish faith in Covid strategy plunges after errors revealed,” said an American newswire.
“Sweden’s Tegnell admits too many died,” revealed the BBC.
Only one country seemed to miss this story: Sweden. Anders Tegnell, its state epidemiologist, was quoted talking about other issues – but not renouncing his strategy. Which raises the question as to whether something was lost – or, rather, added – in translation.
Tegnell was asked if too many had died from Covid. “Yes, absolutely,” he replied. Hence the headlines. He went on to underline doubt, as he often does in his daily televised conferences. Everyone is learning all the time, he said, so if this happened again, of course he’d do things differently.
But it’s still too early to say what, he said. Perhaps he would not have closed down sixth-form colleges. He says he has still seen nothing to make him think lockdown worked – and points to Britain as an example of its failure. Will he have made mistakes? Certainly. Which ones? Only time will tell.
This is why scientists tend to stay out of the political arena: honesty backfires. Admit doubt, and it’s spun as a humiliating admission of failure. Admit regret, and it’s a declaration of incompetence. But science is full of doubt: positing a theory, inviting challenge and welcoming refutation.
See also:
Please Just Stop
As a lover of mathematics with an interest in all science I am writing to you to beg my case that you and the other epidemiologists who are obviously enjoying your moment in the sun need to stop engaging in hysterical scaremongering.
When I read your piece in the paper today I thought it was the typical ill-informed disaster fetishism that our journalists here in New Zealand, and others around the world, have been engaging in to their shame over the last few months. To say I was surprised when I saw it was produced by a Professor, let alone one specialising in epidemiology no less, would be understatement.
I also heard your interview on Newstalk ZB where you doubled down on the irrationality that the final death toll in Sweden will be ~60,000.
...
So, demonstrably, the likely final number of deaths in Sweden before steady state, which at this point can be essentially mathematically proven, will be an order of magnitude less than 60,000 death you’ve repeatedly claimed today. I cannot get over how absurd it is for you to claim this publicly. It requires an IFR of over 1%, which from the evidence from the Diamond Princess cruise ship alone, all those months ago, we know cannot be true, as its IFR was approximately this with a demographic at many times the risk of the general population in Western countries, let alone the developing world. (By the by, the Diamond Princess is also almost a perfect closed experiment. proving where the herd immunity is likely to end up, as even in this petri dish of 250,000 people per/sq km it peaked at 25%).
Do read it all...
