9 ms·

I believe Tegnell is brilliant, but that is where my accolades stop. Scientists (which Tegnell is, effectively) are not meant to be politicians, and them getti

I believe Tegnell is brilliant, but that is where my accolades stop. Scientists (which Tegnell is, effectively) are not meant to be politicians, and them getting into political matters is an excellent way to corrupt science. Although Sweden is not a place where one would look to think of corruption, there are still serious ethical issues with this. This is also a form of experimentation in COVID-19 that is among the riskiest and most dangerous in the world. Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, the significant differences in death rates in developed countries for COVID-19 were attributed mostly to whether COVID-19 severely penetrated care homes, mostly designed for the elderly. We know that Sweden did not have proper PPE protection in these care homes to protect their most vulnerable, and it still does not. Sure, the death rates worldwide have been going down, at least in developed countries, because, perhaps we have become smarter at treating it, despite having no effective treatment for it. Still, it is not prudent to expose people needlessly to a virus that we know is deadly--and we know little about. A lot of these deaths could have been prevented, with relatively little pain, although it takes a lot of sacrifice. One of the countries I am sovereign to, Croatia, (the other being the USA) has not had any COVID-19 cases for 3 days in a row [1]. You know, a former war-torn Yugoslav country that is up and rising and just became part of the EU in 2013. This kind of stuff is not rocket science. Even war-torn, economically suffering countries can be successful at these sorts of endeavors. It just requires brave political leaders (along with a strong emphasis on public health--which a lot of ex-Yugoslav countries actually have) who can deal with crises (which Croatia has legitimately dealt with before). [1] https://koronavirus.hr/en https://koronavirus.hr/en

osrec 6y ago
Science, technology and politics have always been interlinked. If you look at history, it's how things have always been.
tathougies 6y ago
> with relatively little pain have you been paying attention to what's going on? I would not describe it as "relatively little pain"...
- rumanator 6y ago
  I would, perhaps because I've paid attention to the news showing army trucks racing around the city with people in biohazard gear and military units setting up emergency hospitals with capacity for thousands of beds and, in case of Madrid, commandeering an ice rink to serve as emergency morgue. Staying at home for a couple of weeks is easy least in comparison. All it takes is a dash of political leadership. So yeah, op is right on the money.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    There is no country where lockdowns have lasted for only a couple of weeks.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      There are countries such as Portugal where timely social distancing measures were enough to curtail infections without any major impact. Political leadership matters.
      - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
        What? We had 1.5 months of partly lockdown. We were blocked from leaving our cities of residence except for work for two weekends. We closed pretty much everything until a few weeks ago. And with all that, we had almost 1/2 the deaths of Sweden. Not 5% or 10%, but close to half (3800 vs 1450). And we 'reopened' the country and right now have more cases per day (yesterday 350) as at the beginning when gov. decided to shut down everything. (State of emergency was declared on 18 of March where our cases were around 200 per day)
        acqq 6y ago
        > we 'reopened' the country and right now have more cases per day (yesterday 350) as at the beginning That's probably the bigger problem for your country than the absolute number of deaths: the "reopening" happened too early compared to some countries of equivalent size where the cases per day became lower before the "reopening." Even after the "reopening" the war is not won. Also, looking at the graphs of daily cases and comparing it with some other European countries, the measures were obviously less effective than in these other countries. Given that 10 million of people are involved, it's much more nuanced than "we had X for Y days." Edit: To answer: "I don't know how we got the good press": deaths per million: Portugal: 142, Switzerland: 222, Sweden: 450, Spain: 580. It's easy to see that's how Portugal looks obviously better, statically. What I point to with "probably the bigger problem" (that it's not over) is that e.g. new daily cases in Switzerland are now 19, v.s. Portugal's 350.
perlpimp 6y ago
You align rate and methods in spreading testing among population to be the same and produce same numbers among countries - this is not true. There are alot of things about this virus and way it impacts populations are not certain except some relatively weak correlations like more D3 and more Selenium in diets might leads less deaths. Deriving explicit conclusions from highly irregular dataset between various groupings is about as dishonest and corrupt as one can be, this is what politicians do. Please don't do that.
rodgerd 6y ago
> This is also a form of experimentation in COVID-19 that is among the riskiest and most dangerous in the world. Sweden has a long and revolting involvement of medical experimentation and eugenics on its own citizens, such as unconsented sterilisations, or feeding mental health patients diets designed to induce tooth decay so they could study the teeth rotting in the victims (I will not describe those so afflicted as patients). In this context, the decision of a prominent Swedish scientist to "go it alone" and experiment on the population who have entrusted themselves to his care is unsurprising as well as tragic. (And an actual brilliant scientist learns from their results and modifies their hypothesis. He seems to have done very little of either.)
- gerikson 6y ago
  For English readers, the Wikipedia page for the Vipeholm experiments is a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipeholm_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipeholm_experiments
  - concordDance 6y ago
    Those experiments seem like a huge net positive for the world. Only a hundred people getting cavities rather than a million sounds pretty good.
    - hansbo 6y ago
      Human experiments often have a net positive, but that doesn't mean they're not highly unethical.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      Preying on the defenseless is not a net good. In case you haven't noticed, billions still get cavities.
- Moru 6y ago
  Ehm, going back to that time to compare what is happening today? You do realize that this is Hitler times right? How was black people treated in USA at this time? Can we please stay out of this type of discussion and instead keep to civilized matters? For example the argument that the high death in Sweden would not have been any different had we shut down completely because most deaths happened at old age care where the same people travel around the whole city thanks to state trying to cut down on costs. Tegnell did say that they expected the old age care to take steps to limit this travel when they set up the guidelines but this never happened in Stockholm apparently. I know that in my home-town they compartmentalized the care a lot after the outbreak, every person only sees the same two to three faces and the personell groups don't meet any more. And the death rate is no different to last years average in our state. We do not experiment on people without asking for permission in Sweden. We do expect people to treat us with some respect.
neilwilson 6y ago
The evidence shows that the virus has no effect on the death rate of the under 45s and very little effect on those under retirement age. [1] Those over retirement age by definition can choose where to go during the day. Quite a lot of this argument boils down to political philosophy: Personal Choice vs Nanny Knows Best. [1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-mortality-over-time-ons-update-2nd-june/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-mortality-over-time-o...
- viraptor 6y ago
  > Those over retirement age by definition can choose where to go during the day. Unless they are not able to. Or require basic resources. Or require medical attention they can't get at home. Or... It's not a great generalisation.
  - neilwilson 6y ago
    It's a very good generalisation. I talk about the majority you talk about exceptions and attempt to extrapolate them. Have you asked them whether they want to spend the few years and months they have left caged? If you did you may be surprised by the answer.
- blub 6y ago
  Looking exclusively at death rates is silly. There are many diseases which otherwise don't kill but make life terrible for those affected and result in huge costs to healthcare systems. This virus doesn't just kill or leave people unscathed, it also leaves people with long term damage or knocks them out for a couple of weeks. Sitting in bed for weeks is not appealing at all to most people.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    > This virus doesn't just kill or leave people unscathed, it also leaves people with long term damage That is merely a possibility and if it's actually the case, it happens rarely. > Sitting in bed for weeks is not appealing at all to most people. It beats social distancing for months.
alkonaut 6y ago
> This is also a form of experimentation People are quick to forget that the Swedish strategy was everyone's strategy in February. It was (most) other countries that changed strategy from "we must prevent healthcare from being overwhelmed" into "we must eradicate the outbreak at all cost". It was different to stay on the first strategy, but just because other countries changed doesn't make the first strategy any more an "experiment".
- mantap 6y ago
  Because countries in Asia did manage to arrest the outbreak, so that was the standard from then on once we knew it was possible.
  - kungtotte 6y ago
    Their success is, I think, highly correlated to their mass testing campaigns. South Korea had drive-through testing facilities up within 48 hours of the outbreak, so they knew exactly how the virus spread and who to quarantine or not. Add to this an existing culture of using face masks and gloves in public (i.e. supplies of those things were already in place), and you've got a very different scenario compared to most of Europe for example.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      > Add to this an existing culture of using face masks and gloves in public (i.e. supplies of those things were already in place), and you've got a very different scenario compared to most of Europe for example. This is a big one. Around these parts wearing a mask means people assume you're sick or immunocompromised.
    - nn35 6y ago
      Masks seem significantly more important than tests. Hard to make the argument that testing is of primary importance considering Japan did almost none and still didn't see a significant outbreak.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
nil-sec 6y ago
Why exactly shouldn’t scientists be politicians? It’s not like most of the people who are politicians have a formal education in political science. In an ideal world the ministers should come from exactly the background they are tasked with. This seems to fit in Sweden. I don’t know why you believe an economist or lawyer would make better decisions here.
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  I definitely think scientists should be politicians. Angela Merkel has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, and she is one of the most successful and respected politicians of our time. But I do think it is dangerous to try to play the two roles at the same time. Science demands an honesty that few politicians can afford, which the current discussion about Anders Tegnell so well demonstrates.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Science demands an honesty that few politicians can afford, which the current discussion about Anders Tegnell so well demonstrates. This varies across cultures though. Scandinavian countries have a bit of a different approach to many thing, the most recent example I stumbled across was Danish zoos honestly and explicitly saying that they can't keep all the animals, that they will kill some, and that they will feed them to e.g. the lions. They even make it a public thing where somebody will chop up the animal and explain stuff. Those things generate outcries - in other countries. We're very used to hide "how the meat is made" from the general population, but that's not necessarily the same in all countries. I find it very refreshing for politicians to not have "a public and a private opinion", and I wish it was more common.
- mongol 6y ago
  Of course they can be politicians. But a politician is elected and sits on a mandate from the people, and this comes with a clear accountability. A scientist that is not a politician is a scientist. It is a big discussion in Sweden, who really is in charge and who is ultimately responsible for the failures.

osrec 6y ago

Science, technology and politics have always been interlinked. If you look at history, it's how things have always been.

tathougies 6y ago

> with relatively little pain have you been paying attention to what's going on? I would not describe it as "relatively little pain"...

rumanator 6y ago
I would, perhaps because I've paid attention to the news showing army trucks racing around the city with people in biohazard gear and military units setting up emergency hospitals with capacity for thousands of beds and, in case of Madrid, commandeering an ice rink to serve as emergency morgue. Staying at home for a couple of weeks is easy least in comparison. All it takes is a dash of political leadership. So yeah, op is right on the money.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  There is no country where lockdowns have lasted for only a couple of weeks.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    There are countries such as Portugal where timely social distancing measures were enough to curtail infections without any major impact. Political leadership matters.
    - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
      What? We had 1.5 months of partly lockdown. We were blocked from leaving our cities of residence except for work for two weekends. We closed pretty much everything until a few weeks ago. And with all that, we had almost 1/2 the deaths of Sweden. Not 5% or 10%, but close to half (3800 vs 1450). And we 'reopened' the country and right now have more cases per day (yesterday 350) as at the beginning when gov. decided to shut down everything. (State of emergency was declared on 18 of March where our cases were around 200 per day)
      - acqq 6y ago
        > we 'reopened' the country and right now have more cases per day (yesterday 350) as at the beginning That's probably the bigger problem for your country than the absolute number of deaths: the "reopening" happened too early compared to some countries of equivalent size where the cases per day became lower before the "reopening." Even after the "reopening" the war is not won. Also, looking at the graphs of daily cases and comparing it with some other European countries, the measures were obviously less effective than in these other countries. Given that 10 million of people are involved, it's much more nuanced than "we had X for Y days." Edit: To answer: "I don't know how we got the good press": deaths per million: Portugal: 142, Switzerland: 222, Sweden: 450, Spain: 580. It's easy to see that's how Portugal looks obviously better, statically. What I point to with "probably the bigger problem" (that it's not over) is that e.g. new daily cases in Switzerland are now 19, v.s. Portugal's 350.

perlpimp 6y ago

You align rate and methods in spreading testing among population to be the same and produce same numbers among countries - this is not true. There are alot of things about this virus and way it impacts populations are not certain except some relatively weak correlations like more D3 and more Selenium in diets might leads less deaths. Deriving explicit conclusions from highly irregular dataset between various groupings is about as dishonest and corrupt as one can be, this is what politicians do. Please don't do that.

rodgerd 6y ago

> This is also a form of experimentation in COVID-19 that is among the riskiest and most dangerous in the world. Sweden has a long and revolting involvement of medical experimentation and eugenics on its own citizens, such as unconsented sterilisations, or feeding mental health patients diets designed to induce tooth decay so they could study the teeth rotting in the victims (I will not describe those so afflicted as patients). In this context, the decision of a prominent Swedish scientist to "go it alone" and experiment on the population who have entrusted themselves to his care is unsurprising as well as tragic. (And an actual brilliant scientist learns from their results and modifies their hypothesis. He seems to have done very little of either.)

gerikson 6y ago
For English readers, the Wikipedia page for the Vipeholm experiments is a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipeholm_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipeholm_experiments
- concordDance 6y ago
  Those experiments seem like a huge net positive for the world. Only a hundred people getting cavities rather than a million sounds pretty good.
  - hansbo 6y ago
    Human experiments often have a net positive, but that doesn't mean they're not highly unethical.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Preying on the defenseless is not a net good. In case you haven't noticed, billions still get cavities.
Moru 6y ago
Ehm, going back to that time to compare what is happening today? You do realize that this is Hitler times right? How was black people treated in USA at this time? Can we please stay out of this type of discussion and instead keep to civilized matters? For example the argument that the high death in Sweden would not have been any different had we shut down completely because most deaths happened at old age care where the same people travel around the whole city thanks to state trying to cut down on costs. Tegnell did say that they expected the old age care to take steps to limit this travel when they set up the guidelines but this never happened in Stockholm apparently. I know that in my home-town they compartmentalized the care a lot after the outbreak, every person only sees the same two to three faces and the personell groups don't meet any more. And the death rate is no different to last years average in our state. We do not experiment on people without asking for permission in Sweden. We do expect people to treat us with some respect.

neilwilson 6y ago

The evidence shows that the virus has no effect on the death rate of the under 45s and very little effect on those under retirement age. [1] Those over retirement age by definition can choose where to go during the day. Quite a lot of this argument boils down to political philosophy: Personal Choice vs Nanny Knows Best. [1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-mortality-over-time-ons-update-2nd-june/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-mortality-over-time-o...

viraptor 6y ago
> Those over retirement age by definition can choose where to go during the day. Unless they are not able to. Or require basic resources. Or require medical attention they can't get at home. Or... It's not a great generalisation.
- neilwilson 6y ago
  It's a very good generalisation. I talk about the majority you talk about exceptions and attempt to extrapolate them. Have you asked them whether they want to spend the few years and months they have left caged? If you did you may be surprised by the answer.
blub 6y ago
Looking exclusively at death rates is silly. There are many diseases which otherwise don't kill but make life terrible for those affected and result in huge costs to healthcare systems. This virus doesn't just kill or leave people unscathed, it also leaves people with long term damage or knocks them out for a couple of weeks. Sitting in bed for weeks is not appealing at all to most people.
- anoncake 6y ago
  > This virus doesn't just kill or leave people unscathed, it also leaves people with long term damage That is merely a possibility and if it's actually the case, it happens rarely. > Sitting in bed for weeks is not appealing at all to most people. It beats social distancing for months.

alkonaut 6y ago

> This is also a form of experimentation People are quick to forget that the Swedish strategy was everyone's strategy in February. It was (most) other countries that changed strategy from "we must prevent healthcare from being overwhelmed" into "we must eradicate the outbreak at all cost". It was different to stay on the first strategy, but just because other countries changed doesn't make the first strategy any more an "experiment".

mantap 6y ago
Because countries in Asia did manage to arrest the outbreak, so that was the standard from then on once we knew it was possible.
- kungtotte 6y ago
  Their success is, I think, highly correlated to their mass testing campaigns. South Korea had drive-through testing facilities up within 48 hours of the outbreak, so they knew exactly how the virus spread and who to quarantine or not. Add to this an existing culture of using face masks and gloves in public (i.e. supplies of those things were already in place), and you've got a very different scenario compared to most of Europe for example.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    > Add to this an existing culture of using face masks and gloves in public (i.e. supplies of those things were already in place), and you've got a very different scenario compared to most of Europe for example. This is a big one. Around these parts wearing a mask means people assume you're sick or immunocompromised.
  - nn35 6y ago
    Masks seem significantly more important than tests. Hard to make the argument that testing is of primary importance considering Japan did almost none and still didn't see a significant outbreak.
- alkonaut 6y ago

nil-sec 6y ago

Why exactly shouldn’t scientists be politicians? It’s not like most of the people who are politicians have a formal education in political science. In an ideal world the ministers should come from exactly the background they are tasked with. This seems to fit in Sweden. I don’t know why you believe an economist or lawyer would make better decisions here.

Ma8ee 6y ago
I definitely think scientists should be politicians. Angela Merkel has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, and she is one of the most successful and respected politicians of our time. But I do think it is dangerous to try to play the two roles at the same time. Science demands an honesty that few politicians can afford, which the current discussion about Anders Tegnell so well demonstrates.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Science demands an honesty that few politicians can afford, which the current discussion about Anders Tegnell so well demonstrates. This varies across cultures though. Scandinavian countries have a bit of a different approach to many thing, the most recent example I stumbled across was Danish zoos honestly and explicitly saying that they can't keep all the animals, that they will kill some, and that they will feed them to e.g. the lions. They even make it a public thing where somebody will chop up the animal and explain stuff. Those things generate outcries - in other countries. We're very used to hide "how the meat is made" from the general population, but that's not necessarily the same in all countries. I find it very refreshing for politicians to not have "a public and a private opinion", and I wish it was more common.
mongol 6y ago
Of course they can be politicians. But a politician is elected and sits on a mandate from the people, and this comes with a clear accountability. A scientist that is not a politician is a scientist. It is a big discussion in Sweden, who really is in charge and who is ultimately responsible for the failures.