How ice cool scientist saved Sweden from coronavirus WITHOUT lockdown – and now he’s a national hero
WHEN the rest of the world blinked as coronavirus took hold, ice-cool Swede Anders Tegnell refused to lock down his nation. As Sweden’s death count spiralled last spring at one of the highest global rates, this once faceless scientist was accused of creating a “pariah state”. Yet when I met Tegnell, 64, in the capital […]
WHEN the rest of the world blinked as coronavirus took hold, ice-cool Swede Anders Tegnell refused to lock down his nation.
As Sweden’s death count spiralled last spring at one of the highest global rates, this once faceless scientist was accused of creating a “pariah state”.
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Yet when I met Tegnell, 64, in the capital Stockholm he was being lauded as if he was the fifth member of Abba.
T-shirts proclaiming — in the style of the Carlsberg adverts — “Tegnell, probably the best state epidemiologist in the world” are best-sellers.
For it appears his decision not to lock down may have paid off.
On Tuesday, while Britain and other European countries were seeing uplifts in cases, he announced that Sweden had its lowest number of new cases since March.
In the dark days of April, Covid deaths in a single day peaked at 115. Now, some days, that figure is zero.
And while Britain’s economy shrank by 20 per cent in the first three months of lockdown, Sweden’s reduced by only nine.
Little wonder, then, that Tegnell is a hero to many in Sweden and to those across the globe who believe that draconian lockdowns are self-defeating.
A Swedish rapper has immortalised him in song and the epidemiologist has a Facebook fan club of 33,000 members.
In March, when the first wave of coronavirus swept through Europe, outliers Britain and Sweden had ignored the clamour to lock down.
Then Professor Neil Ferguson, from London’s Imperial College, released a bombshell study that claimed 500,000 could perish from Covid in Britain without tough restrictions. In Sweden it could have meant 85,000 deaths (so far fewer than 5,900 have died).
Panicked Britain locked down hard. Tegnell kept Sweden open — relying largely on public goodwill rather than tough new laws to fight the virus.
One recent survey found eight in ten Swedes say they are following official guidelines.
Gatherings of more than 50 were banned but Swedish schools for under-16s, restaurants, bars, gyms and hairdressers all stayed open. Tegnell said shutting borders was “ridiculous” and that there is “very little evidence” masks are effective.
So what is life like in Lockdown-free Land?
On the airport shuttle I rummage for a face covering but the unmasked guard says I needn’t bother. A poll found just six per cent of Swedes wear them.
Then, on one rush-hour Metro platform I see just one passenger in a mask.
Molly Robinson, 26, originally from Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorks, says: “Wearing a mask is your choice.”
Later, at a restaurant, I am shown to a socially distanced table by an unmasked, unvisored waitress. There is no direction arrow, no sanitiser station.
In pubs, joy of joys, you can sit at the bar and order a beer, as long as you remain socially distanced.
The restaurant manager at Nya Car- negiebryggeriet brew- ery pub, David Manly, 38, says: “We feel like we’re living in a different world to other countries. We’re incredibly grateful.”
At the Headzone salon, hairdresser Fay Botsi, 23, says: “We don’t want to wear masks or visors. We keep our distance and use disinfectant.”
Sporting one of the Tegnell T-shirts, student Isabell Håkansson, 26, says: “I’m happy everything is open and we’re not locked down.”
Junior doctor Sebastian Rushworth, 37, tells me he hasn’t seen a Covid patient on his emergency ward in two months.
And the country is well prepared. At the start of the pandemic it had 526 available intensive care beds, and within weeks that number had doubled.
Dr Rushworth, who works at a hospital in the capital’s northern suburbs, believes the reason for Sweden’s resilience is it has built up herd immunity.
‘CARE HOME MASSACRE’
“There’s no other reasonable explanation,” he adds. Sweden’s government has largely allowed non-elected bureaucrat Tegnell to lead its pandemic response.
But for all the success, there have been concerns, notably its care home crisis.
Until mid-May, half of Sweden’s deaths were in care homes, a situation Tegnell says has now been rectified.
Tegnell’s most vocal critics are the right-wing Sweden Democrats party, who described the care home deaths as a “massacre”.
Sweden has the fifth-highest death rate per capita in Europe, behind Belgium, Spain, the UK and Italy.
Its mortality is five times greater than that in Denmark and around ten times more than in Norway and Finland.
Critics say this alone is evidence that Sweden’s strategy was wrong.
Stockholm’s regional Sweden Demo- crats leader, Gabriel Kroon, 23, says: “We should have locked down. The disease spread into nursing homes and we had ten times as many deaths relatively as Finland. I wouldn’t say that’s success.”
Nicholas Aylott, a professor of political science at Södertörn University, believes cultural norms may have helped to combat the virus too.
The academic, 50, says: “Most Swedes don’t gather in big groups very often, they don’t go to church much, a lot of people live alone or in small households.”
A lot of Swedes avoided public transport and worked from home.
For many of his countrymen, Tegnell is a cult hero.
So what’s it like, I ask him, being as famous internationally as Abba?
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“I try not to think about it too much,” he says modestly. “I realise it’s going to pass very quickly.”
Sweden’s short summer is over and city dwellers are returning from their holiday cabins to their jobs and schools.
There may be more Covid spikes. Just don’t expect a lockdown U-turn from iceman Tegnell.
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