Interview with Anders Tegnell, architect of Sweden’s unique response to the Covid-19 pandemic
Swedish Covid-19 chief Anders Tegnell: judge me in a year
30-min vid
https://youtu.be/xh9wso6bEAc
>Anders Tegnell
above video goes with this story:
Why we aren’t wearing masks in Sweden
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“I think to a great extent it’s been a success. We are now seeing rapidly falling cases, we have continuously had healthcare that has been working, there have been free beds at any given time, never any crowding in the hospitals, we have been able to keep schools open which we think is extremely important, and society fairly open — while still having social distancing in place in a way that means that the spread of the disease has been limited.
The failure has of course been the death toll … that has been very much related to the long-term care facilities in Sweden. Now that has improved, we see a lot less cases in those facilities.”
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One type of intervention that does not appear to have adverse effects is encouraging, or mandating, the use of masks. This has become an intensely political issue in the US and more recently in the UK. In Sweden mask use is minimal in almost all settings. Why is he not even recommending use of masks?
“One reason is that the evidence base for using masks in society is still very weak. Even if more and more countries are now enforcing them in different ways … we haven’t seen any new evidence coming up, which is a little bit surprising. The other reason is that everything tells us that keeping social distance is a much better way of controlling this disease than putting masks on people. We are worried (and we get at least tales from other countries) that people put on masks and then they believe they can go around in society being close to each other, even going around in society being sick. And that, in our view, would definitely produce higher spread than we have right now.”
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https://unherd.com/2020/07/swedens-anders-tegnell-judge-me-in-a-year/
>Why we aren’t wearing masks in Sweden
Dutch government will not advise public to wear masks
Wednesday, July 29, 2020 2:02 p.m. EDT
https://twitter.com/DryburghDotCom/status/1288841789613408264
https://whtc.com/news/articles/2020/jul/29/dutch-government-will-not-advise-public-to-wear-masks-minister/1044325/
No Masks in Norway
No country for face masks: Nordics brush off mouth covers
As most of the world either orders or recommends the use of face masks, with even US president Donald Trump seen wearing one, Nordic nations are the remaining holdouts.
In supermarkets, on buses, and along the streets of capitals—such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and Reykjavik—face masks are a rare sight, worn only by a small minority, many of who are tourists.
According to a recent survey by YouGov, only five to 10 percent of respondents in the Nordic countries said they used a mask in public settings, a figure that has remained stable since the start of the crisis in March.
https://twitter.com/DryburghDotCom/status/1288904232284966914
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-country-masks-nordics-mouth.html