Tegnell: Denmark’s decisions political, not scientific.

2020-03-29 07_43_42-Svensk coronataktik ifrågasätts i internationell press _ SVT NyheterDanish Radio writes [sic] that in Danish eyes, it can almost look as though the Swedes were always a week behind with measures against the spread of the coronavirus. They also question whether Swedish authorities have understood the seriousness of the situation.

  – My impression is that the decisions that Denmark has made are governed more by political considerations than by scientific ones, says the Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell in an interview with the radio channel. [See Wolf Editorial below]


On April 6th post, I comment Tegnells claims that the deaths in the Nordic countries cannot be compared, because the countries are in different phases of the epidemy.  On the phase-adjusted graph on deaths, It is clear the measures taken by the Danish government have indeed had significant effect to slow down the spread of the virus *)  This diagram, based on ECDC data published on the 6th April, how the virus had been spreading up to around March 23rd:

We can clearly see that the Danish government made the right decision, be they political or scientific.  The number of deaths in Denmark (Light blue) was growing fastest among the Nordic Nations.  With the measures they chose to take, the managed to slow down the spread of the virus, save lives, and avoided the uncontrolled exponential growth in the number of deaths we are starting to see in Sweden (Dark blue).


Wolf Editorial –Always  Mind Your Manners!

The governments of the neighboring countries have respected the Swedish Way, despite the fact that all evidence points to it being ill-informed, based on false assumptions, not understanding the situation, and drawing false conclusions.  It would have been inconceivable for a representative of any other of the Nordic countries to openly and publicly criticize the way they have chosen to protect their citizens, or to accuse them of politicizing the epidemic.

The Swedes do not have such boundaries.

Just because the people on the street  or the media question you, you do not get back by attacking their government, especially if you are there representing your government. 

*) Until there is a large-scale testing, we are unfortunately stuck with the number of deaths as the most reliable measure on how much the virus had spread about 14 days ago. 

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