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I enjoyed this paragraph: > Tegnell, who is sixty-four and tall, with round glasses, has often said that lockdowns are not supported by science and that the ev

I enjoyed this paragraph: > Tegnell, who is sixty-four and tall, with round glasses, has often said that lockdowns are not supported by science and that the evidence for mask-wearing is “weak.” His stance is a startling departure from the scientific consensus, but he maintains that if other countries were led by experts rather than politicians, more nations would have policies like Sweden’s. The world has been left gawking. American liberals were shocked that the country of Greta Thunberg could seem so scientifically backward. Right-wing activists in Minnesota held up signs during anti-lockdown protests reading “Be Like Sweden.” Within the country, Tegnell has become an icon of Swedish exceptionalism, believed to be excessively reasonable, levelheaded, and rational.

ketamine__ 6y ago
Why did you enjoy it? It's a complete lie. We are in a pandemic and scientific consensus should require randomized trials. I think we can rewrite this to say: "experts disagreed with other experts on mitigation strategies."
- medstrom 6y ago
  I agree the scientific consensus is debatable, but I enjoy the way the man turns the policy debate upside down. At the very least, he's helped to de-politickize the debate.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  > We are in a pandemic and scientific consensus should require randomized trials. The entire pandemic has been politicized, science be damned when it doesn't conform to a political narrative.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    What if I said the pandemic is more of a political issue than an epidemiological one? A year of restrictions (or not) for a .5%-1% IFR disease is a political decision.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Uberphallus 6y ago
      That's the expected IFR granted everyone gets proper healthcare access. Roughly 10% of those infected require hospitalization, and you can't just put anywhere close to 10%, or even 1%, of the population in the hospital at any given time. Those resources simply don't exist. It also affects IFR of anything else that requires a hospital. If I get severely sick with COVID-19 (or literally anything else) where I live at the moment, I won't get a normal healthcare access. I'll need to get airlifted elsewhere. We're at 120% ICU occupation rate. Most of the deaths here are happening during transfers to other areas. It's seriously concerning that we have to repeat this after a year.
- tzs 6y ago
  This isn't the first respiratory virus humanity has encountered that spreads through exhaled droplets, nor is it the first widespread outbreak of such a thing. Absent evidence that a new respiratory virus that spreads through droplets is in some way different from all those past ones in a way that would make already known ways of dealing with them not applicable, you shouldn't really need to stop and do randomized trials on those past methods applied to the new virus before you put them into effect.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    If you had asked any epidemiologist in 2019, they would have told you that respiratory viruses that spread through droplets can't be effectively controlled by lockdowns and that the evidence for universal masking is weak. If you remember the early controversy over the UK's response, this is what it was about; the government wanted to follow their pre-established protocols for handling respiratory pandemics, against their advisors' advice that this was completely different and couldn't be handled the same way as flu pandemics.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ketamine__ 6y ago

Why did you enjoy it? It's a complete lie. We are in a pandemic and scientific consensus should require randomized trials. I think we can rewrite this to say: "experts disagreed with other experts on mitigation strategies."

medstrom 6y ago
I agree the scientific consensus is debatable, but I enjoy the way the man turns the policy debate upside down. At the very least, he's helped to de-politickize the debate.
at-fates-hands 6y ago
> We are in a pandemic and scientific consensus should require randomized trials. The entire pandemic has been politicized, science be damned when it doesn't conform to a political narrative.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  What if I said the pandemic is more of a political issue than an epidemiological one? A year of restrictions (or not) for a .5%-1% IFR disease is a political decision.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    That's the expected IFR granted everyone gets proper healthcare access. Roughly 10% of those infected require hospitalization, and you can't just put anywhere close to 10%, or even 1%, of the population in the hospital at any given time. Those resources simply don't exist. It also affects IFR of anything else that requires a hospital. If I get severely sick with COVID-19 (or literally anything else) where I live at the moment, I won't get a normal healthcare access. I'll need to get airlifted elsewhere. We're at 120% ICU occupation rate. Most of the deaths here are happening during transfers to other areas. It's seriously concerning that we have to repeat this after a year.
tzs 6y ago
This isn't the first respiratory virus humanity has encountered that spreads through exhaled droplets, nor is it the first widespread outbreak of such a thing. Absent evidence that a new respiratory virus that spreads through droplets is in some way different from all those past ones in a way that would make already known ways of dealing with them not applicable, you shouldn't really need to stop and do randomized trials on those past methods applied to the new virus before you put them into effect.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  If you had asked any epidemiologist in 2019, they would have told you that respiratory viruses that spread through droplets can't be effectively controlled by lockdowns and that the evidence for universal masking is weak. If you remember the early controversy over the UK's response, this is what it was about; the government wanted to follow their pre-established protocols for handling respiratory pandemics, against their advisors' advice that this was completely different and couldn't be handled the same way as flu pandemics.

deleted 6y ago

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