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State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at a press conference in Stockholm
Photo: PONTUS LUNDAHL / AFP
As a department head in a government agency, Anders Tegnell was hardly known even in his Swedish homeland six months ago.
The 64-year-old doctor with the title “State Epidemiologist” is now so famous that every word he says is heard very carefully.
Tegnell is the man who, together with his colleagues, determines the Swedish strategy in the fight against the coronavirus.
In spring, at the height of the pandemic, the public health authority decided against a lockdown.
The government followed.
The Swedish special route has caused a sensation worldwide.
Proponents see the current infection numbers as confirmation that he was correct.
After the recorded Covid-19 cases in Sweden were for a long time many times more than in neighboring countries Denmark, Finland and Norway, the numbers have been converging since mid-August.
The Danes are currently experiencing a second wave with a steep curve.
Germany has been about the same infection level as Sweden in the past few days.
A brutal wave of Covid-19 deaths
However, the largest nation in Scandinavia still has a serious flaw.
In the months of comparatively great freedom, Sweden went through a brutal wave of Covid 19 deaths, and the virus raged almost uncontrollably in many nursing homes.
The Swedish corona death rate is around ten times higher than in Norway and Finland and around five times higher than in Denmark and Germany.
State epidemiologist Tegnell has long admitted that serious mistakes had been made in elderly care.
For him, however, there is no great concession, because his authority bears no direct responsibility for what has happened in the homes.
Tegnell believes it is unlikely that a lockdown in Sweden would have resulted in fewer deaths, he has said this several times.
The numbers challenge Tegnell's epidemiological approach
The gloomy statistics, however, are clearly gnawing at him.
Again and again he is presented with the numbers that call his entire epidemiological approach into question.
Now he has found a new exculpatory explanation for the high number of victims.
But is it convincing?
more on the subject
An interim balance sheet in figures: How well is Sweden getting through the crisis on its special path? By Holger Dambeck
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Citing a new scientific report, Tegnell now said that the mild flu season last year was to a large extent the cause of the many corona deaths.
In Sweden, the usual wave of illnesses has recently been significantly weaker than in neighboring countries, he said in an interview with "Dagens Nyheter", the largest Swedish newspaper: "There is a strong connection between low excess mortality from influenza and high excess mortality from Covid-19 . "
According to the epidemiologist, this ratio explains at least in part the high death rates in Great Britain and Belgium.
In both countries, relatively few people have recently died of the flu.
With the scientist's cold look at the risk groups, the old and the previously ill, Tegnell could have hit a relevant point.
His argument, formulated a little more harshly, goes like this: If you have just spared the flu, the corona virus will bring you to the grave.
According to a research by the online news portal "The Local Sweden", the study, which the Swedish state epidemiologist refers to, does not yet have any scientific conclusiveness, as it has not yet been subjected to a "peer review".
At the point in the paper that deals with the connection between flu and corona, three Twitter accounts run by bloggers are cited as sources: @EffectsFacts, @FatEmperor and @HaraldofW.
That doesn't seem very trustworthy, but the information can still be correct.
Colleagues from Norway and Finland not convinced
The question remains whether more people died from the flu in neighboring countries than in Sweden.
After reading Tegnell's interview, his colleagues from Norway and Finland said in "Dagens Nyheter" that both are not convinced.
Frode Forland, Norwegian Director of Infection Control, says, "As far as we can see, it's not the flu that makes the big difference between Sweden and Norway."
It is "easy to believe", but is not an explanation.
The recent flu epidemic was actually stronger in his country than in the Swedish neighbors, said Forland.
"But we cannot see that we have had particularly high death rates from influenza in Norway in recent years."
There should have been even greater numbers of easy victims there for the new virus, if Tegnell were right.
But it didn't exist.
Successes of the Finnish lockdown
Mika Salminen, director of the Finnish Institute for Health and Social Affairs, believes a connection between flu and corona mortality is at least possible.
"In part" this might explain the Swedish development.
"But I don't think that's the difference between Finland and Sweden because of that."
Salminen is convinced that the main cause lies in the Finnish lockdown: "It had a greater effect than we could have dreamed of."
He only hoped to slow the spread of the virus.
"In fact, the epidemic was almost completely stopped."
There were almost no new cases in Finland during the summer, now the numbers are rising.
The authorities in the country are concerned and are reacting to local clusters with temporary school closings.
In a European comparison, however, the Finnish infection rate is still at a low level - and a third below the rate in Sweden.
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