Coronavirus lockdowns may be a waste of time because 50% of deaths are in care homes, Sweden’s top expert claims – The Sun
INTRODUCING a lockdown in Sweden is pointless because half of deaths are in care homes, the country’s leading disease expert claims.
State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said it was “hard to understand” how a lockdown like elsewhere in Europe and America would have halted the Covid-19 spreading into nursing homes.
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Sweden is the only country in Europe not to have imposed lockdowns — even though its death toll is actually worse than the USA, Iran and Germany per head of population.
Its government argues this is a better long-term strategy because people will accept the looser restrictions for longer.
Schools, bars, shops and restaurants remain open and parks have been packed during a bout of good spring weather.
But it is a move which has sparked criticism from scientists and medics who have warned it "will lead to catastrophe."
The Scandinavian country has so far recorded 2,021 deaths.
That is far higher than its neighbours Denmark (394), Norway (194) and Finland (172).
'LOCKDOWN WON'T STOP CARE HOME DEATHS'
When asked on BBC Radio 4 whether a lockdown would have prevented Sweden’s deaths, Prof Tegnell said it was a "very difficult question to answer at this stage".
He said: "At least 50 per cent of our death toll is within elderly homes and we have a hard time to understand how a lockdown would stop the introduction of disease.
"We already had a law making it illegal for visitors to come to elderly homes.
"They need constant care, they need a lot of people coming and going to take care of them.
"So it's a bit unclear to us if a lockdown really would have stopped this from happening or not.
"It's a difficult question and I don't think we have the answer and I'm not sure we'll ever get the answer completely."
We believe that we have an immunity level, if I remember rightly, somewhere between 15-20 per cent of the population in Stockholm
The professor also claimed as many as 20 per cent of Stockholm residents may already have had the virus.
He said: “We believe that we have an immunity level, if I remember rightly, somewhere between 15 to 20 per cent of the population in Stockholm.
"[This is] not complete herd immunity but it will definitely affect the reproduction rate and slow down the spread."
In a debate at the Cambridge University Union via video chat yesterday, Prof Tegnall said: "There are alternatives to closing down completely. I think we need to remember that this disease is here to stay. It cannot be compared to SARS because SARS was possible to get rid of.
"This disease will be here around and we need to find a way to live with it."
He added: "You will have a longer time to live with it but you will also have a time where your healthcare system can keep on functioning and the society can keep on in a functioning manner."
The UK, which now has had more than 18,738 deaths, initially toyed with the idea of developing herd immunity.
This is achieved when so many people are immune that even people who are still susceptible are protected from the virus because it will not spread.
But Downing Street changed its mind and introduced strict lockdown measures instead.
One theory about this u-turn was that the Government realised that letting the population catch the virus would overwhelm the NHS — something which is strongly denied.
The World Health Organisation has cautioned that virus patients may not become immune from the disease in the future.
But Tegnell said immunity tests in Sweden revealed people developing antibodies which would allow them to fight off the virus if it returned.
Asked about a possible 'second wave' of the disease later this year, Tegnell said the advantage of Sweden's strategy was that it can be maintained for longer.
It comes amid warnings that the world could sink into economic catastrophe on the scale of the 1930s Great Depression — with more lives lost from this than the epidemic itself.
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