Regarding Imperial College London’s much-cited report, Dr Tegnell has previously admitted he was “a bit surprised that it’s had such an impact.” He added: “It’s not a peer-reviewed paper.”
Dr Tegnell’s strategy appears to have drawn support within Sweden. According to one poll, about three-quarters of the Swedish public is at least quite confident that the country is taking the necessary precautions to deal with coronavirus.
In line with a study publish by Harvard University, which shows that enacting harsh social distancing measures could lead to a resurgence of infections in the autumn, Dr Tegnell has said that “having a very abrupt stop of the spread now would actually move the problem ahead of us”.
However, others within Sweden have raised concern that the country’s current approach is dismissing scientific data and risking thousands of lives in the process.
A petition signed by more than 2,000 doctors, scientists, and professors has called on the government to tighten restrictions and enforce strict containment measures.
Cecilia Soderberg-Naucler, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: “I am a scientist. I don’t trust authorities, I trust data.
“I don’t see transparency of data that makes me calm and believe the right strategy has been chosen.
“We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we’ve let the virus loose.”
It is unclear how many people in Sweden have already contracted coronavirus.
Tom Britton, a maths professor at Stockholm University who has been modelling the spread of the virus, predicts 10 per cent of the population is already infected. “If I guess correctly about half the population could be infected by the end of April,” he told
The Times.
Although Mr Tegnell has avoided describing his strategy as ‘herd immunity’, he has spoken of the inevitability of the disease passing through a large proportion of the population.
He has said his goal is to slow the spread of infection to a manageable pace which would avoid straining the country’s healthcare system, and believes a strict lockdown is not necessary to achieve that.
“We put in a lot of effort trying to stop the disease from entering Sweden,” said Dr Tegnell. “We also did a lot of testing and contact tracing. This bought us time for the health service to prepare.”
Although Sweden’s figures lag behind the UK’s – to date, 6,433 cases and 373 deaths have been reported by health officials – the country is believed to be a number of weeks behind on the virus curve.
