Dr. Gabriel Scally, President of Epidemiology at the U.K.’s Royal Society of Medicine, said last week that he is concerned Britain may be trying to emulate the Swedish model in its approach during the second wave of infections.
Scally called the Swedish approach, under the leadership of Anders Tegnell, the country’s chief epidemiologist, “ineffective” and a poor model to emulate, according to The Independent newspaper.
The paper pointed out that Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with Dr. Tegnell earlier this week during a Zoom conference. Dr. Tegnell has been both praised and vilified for bucking the universal approach to the virus, which included economy-crushing lockdowns. Instead, he called on personal responsibility and likened other responses to trying to kill a housefly with a hammer.
Business Insider reported Johnson’s new restrictions amid the second wave of infections and after the Tengell meeting “stopped short of much tougher measures reportedly being pushed by his own chief medical adviser.”
Scally said that praise for Tegnell has been overstated.
“We believe it is ineffective,” he said, according to the paper. “Sweden has had an enormous number of deaths per head of population: 5,880 deaths, representing 580 deaths per million population. Compared to its neighbors, it has been unsuccessful in preventing deaths. Finland, for example, has had exactly 343 deaths, which equals 62 deaths per million population.”
The theory is that Stockholm has experienced a sufficient level of immunity to ward off a severe second wave but Scally called it “irresponsible and unethical to try.”
TRENDPOST: To date, Sweden’s coronavirus death rate per its population is 0.0573 percent compared to the U.K.’s, which is 0.0618 percent.
Scally and the media ignored this fact, as well as ignoring that Sweden, which did not lockdown and rob businesses and its people of their livelihoods and freedom, has a lower COVID-19 death rate than France, Spain, Italy, and many other nations.
Also absent in the Scally mouth-off is that Sweden’s COVID-19 infection and death rates have been low for weeks despite rising numbers in other European nations.
While pointing out Sweden had a higher virus death rate than neighboring Nordic nations, Scally did not mention that unlike most of the Western nations, Nordic citizens are not wearing masks nor is the government mandating they must do so.
TRENDPOST: As we have noted, in Sweden, as in much of the world, over half of its virus deaths were individuals in nursing homes. Dr. Tegnell has been criticized, as have many other epidemiologists and politicians, for their slow response to prevent the virus from infecting and killing the most vulnerable sector of society.
Indeed, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, as we have reported, demanded that elderly COVID-19 patients be taken out of hospitals where they were being treated and sent to nursing homes where they spread the virus.
What is not being emphasized in the COVID War is the lack of measures being taken by governments to quarantine and take health measures to protect those most vulnerable to the virus… rather than universal lockdown dictates imposed on all of society.
TREND FORECAST: The COVID War between the “Old vs. Young” has begun. Politicians and the media across the Western world now single out young people as a major threat to society when it comes to disease transmission.
For example, Reuters reported 3,000 students were in lockdown in the U.K. and the health minister left open the chance that they may be forced to stay on campus over the Christmas holiday to prevent the virus’ spread.
“We understand how difficult and stressful this situation is,” the University of Glasgow said on Twitter. “We are here to support you through it.”
Again, as we are forecasting, the “Old vs. Young” battle for freedom will ignite new social, artistic, entertainment, and business opportunities for OnTrendpreneurs® who will be building blocks for new anti-establishment third parties.
