Scientific adviser to the government of New Zealand Michael Baker called the Swedish methods of dealing with the coronavirus ineffective. To defeat COVID-19 in the country should have from the beginning to introduce tough measures.
Swedish authorities made a mistake when he refused to impose strict restrictions for the epidemic COVID-19. In an interview with RBC said the scientific Advisor to the government of New Zealand, Professor Michael Baker. According to him, the Swedish approach to combating the virus was based on three incorrect assumptions.
“the First hypothesis was that even in the context of the spread of the virus [and the absence of large-scale lockdown you can protect citizens at risk, but the Swedes did not succeed”, — he said. Earlier, the chief epidemiologist of the country Anders Tegnell admitted that the authorities failed to prevent the emergence of foci of disease in nursing homes that claimed the lives of older people. In addition, deaths from the virus in Sweden is higher than in neighboring Norway, Denmark and Finland.
According to the second hypothesis, which was proposed by the advisors of the Swedish authorities, the population can quickly get herd immunity, said Baker. “However, much of the progress here too has not happened,” he said. According to statistics, only in Stockholm COVID-19 had less than 10%, and for the development of “herd immunity” is necessary to overcome the threshold in 60% of cases throughout the country. “The third hypothesis was that the absence of quarantine measures to avoid the economic costs, but such hopes did not materialize,” said Baker. As follows from the forecasts of the European Commission, Sweden GDP at the end of 2020 will fall by 6.1%.
Baker said that personally acquainted with Swedish expert epidemiologists and respects them as professionals. “At the beginning of the pandemic, no one could say for sure which way is right, and what is not, and the arguments of Swedish scientists had by some logic. However, it is recognized that Sweden has made a mistake,” he said, expressing hope that the Kingdom will adjust its strategy against the virus.
“It has allowed us to eliminate most of the chains of transmission of the virus and also increase the amount of testing up to 5-10 thousand of tests per day with a population of 5 million people,” he said. New Zealand have been able to crush all pockets of the country and lifted all restrictions related to social distancing.
Sweden was one of the few who refused to tough isolation measures in response to the pandemic. Scientific Advisor to the government of the country Johan Giesecke claimed in a conversation with RBC that the Swedish health care system cope with the influx of contaminated and hard limits would not help in the long run.
“All d��barks hard quarantine is delaying the solution to the problem that stands before you. But this problem is continue remains relevant in a couple of months,” he said in early may, expressing hope for the development in Swedes ‘ collective immunity for several months.
Later, chief epidemiologist Andres Rignell acknowledged that the Swedes hardly will soon be able to develop a collective immunity to the disease. In early June, Tegnell said that the number of deaths from COVID-19 in Sweden have been too large and taken measures could be better. As noted by Tegnell, it is not clear what changes would make them more effective, as other countries have introduced different measures to stop the pandemic, and that it finally worked, it is difficult to say.
as at 15 June in Sweden was 52 383 cases of infection with coronavirus and 4891 deaths in New Zealand — 1504 and 22 (according to Johns Hopkins University).
