By Ben Kerrigan And Sheila Mckenzie-
The Covid Inquiry has been asked to examine the implications of a Swedish inquiry that lockdowns imposed across Europe to curb Covid-19 were neither “necessary” nor “defensible”.
Some members of The Eye Of Media.Com’s thinktank suggested that the findings of Sweden’s inquiry that lockdown’s were not needed be subjected to comprehensive analysis , and used to determine whether the UK was in error in imposing a lockdown.
Sweden’s final report in 2022 by the country’s Coronavirus Commission strongly supported Sweden’s pandemic strategy, concluding that the decision to rely primarily on “advice and recommendations which people were expected to follow voluntarily” had been “fundamentally correct”.
The decision not to impose mandatory restrictions meant that Swedes “retained more of their personal freedom than in many other countries,” the report concluded.
The idea was presented to the Covid Inquiry on Monday by this publication for consideration in their overall analysis.
The Covid Inquiry in the UK, which is in its second stage, has also been asked to consider the report in assessing both the appropriateness of lockdowns during the pandemic, and to examine if other alternatives were practicable.
On Monday, an epidemiology expert told the inquiry that nationwide lockdowns in the UK during the pandemic were a “failure” of public health policy as they were not considered a last resort.
Giving evidence at the Covid-19 public inquiry on Monday, Prof Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh – a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O) – said the group failed to adequately assess the negative consequences of a nationwide lockdown.
“The harms of the social distancing measures – particularly lockdown, the economic harms, the educational harms, the harms to access to healthcare, the harms to societal wellbeing … just the way we all function … mental health – were not included in any of the work that SPI-M-O did and, as far as I could tell, no one else was doing it either,” Woolhouse told the inquiry.
“I take the view that it would have been very helpful if the government said explicitly: ‘We don’t want to go into lockdown. What’s your advice?
How can we both minimise the health burden and stay out of lockdown?’ And we could have given a lot of advice and all the other things you could do other than lockdown.
“The question of how to avoid lockdown was never asked of us and I find that extraordinary.”
Sweden’s Final Report
The final report published in November 2022, which states that Sweden was correct in its decision not to impose a lockdown early on in the Covid pandemic, but should have introduced more measures earlier, makes mockery of other countries in Europe that imposed lockdowns unless it can be refuted.
The decision not to impose mandatory restrictions meant that Swedes “retained more of their personal freedom than in many other countries,” the report concluded.
The report did not explain why such personal freedom was absolutely necessary or how it established that the consequences of covid did not necessitate a lockdown.
In addition, the commission wrote that it is “not convinced that extended or recurring mandatory lockdowns, as introduced in other countries, are a necessary element in the response to a new, serious epidemic outbreak”.
Its final report on the pandemic response, the Corona Commission concluded that tougher measures should have been taken early in the pandemic, such as quarantine for those returning from high-risk areas and a temporary ban on entry to Sweden.
Sweden’s report stated that no-lockdown strategy was fundamentally reasonable, adding that ”the state should never interfere with the rights and freedoms of its citizens more than absolutely necessary”.
The commission also supported the decision to keep primary schools open and suggested that other countries had erred in their decisions to close down schools.
The focus of Sweden’s strategy was to reduce the spread of the virus, but also to consider other aspects of public health and protect freedom and fundamental rights.
While the Swedish strategy remains controversial, today most countries are taking similar approaches to the continuing pandemic, its report said.
Several countries which did impose lockdowns, it notes, had “significantly worse outcomes” than Sweden, while the restriction of individual freedom was “hardly defensible other than in the face of very extreme threats”.
”Looking back, it seems a bit unjust that the country that followed its pre-pandemic plan was the country accused of conducting an experiment on its population. Perhaps Sweden instead should be considered the control group, while the rest of the world underwent an experiment’, it said.
Nursing Homes
The report claimed that deficiencies in preparation affecting nursing homes were generally recognized early on but proved to be difficult to counteract.
Despite gradual improvements in protective measures in especially the nursing homes, there was a recurrent high mortality rate during the second wave. The high mortality among the elderly was, however, not unique to Sweden, it states.
The mean age of COVID deaths of about 83 years was for example similar in neighbouring Nordic countries.
The commission argued that higher community transmission was the main cause of the higher mortality in Sweden.
International data, however, suggest that both, deficiencies in the nursing homes and high transmission rates affected the high mortality rate in Sweden.
Another significant feature of the Sweden’s approach was the focus on voluntary measures and personal responsibility rather than mandatory measures and stricter community lockdown.
The Public Health Agency (PHA) did not favour the ‘precaution principle’, which is to introduce the highest rigorous restrictions possible.
The claims made last year are to be thoroughly investigated by academic analysts, The Eye Of Media.Com.
The assertion that the lockdowns were hardly defensible suggests that the inconvenience imposed on the British public and loss of revenues incurred by multiple businesses were avoidable, and served no real profitable purpose.
Its implication is also that schools that shut across the UK , France and other European countries, were misinformed in doing so.
The report suggests that by allowing people to take their own initiative, the spread of the virus would not have been any worse in the absence of lockdowns than in its presence.
The department of Health is yet to comment on the report which questions the wisdom of lockdowns across Europe, mostly on the advice of the World Health Organization.
The report by Sweden’s Commission announced early in the year calls for scrutiny itself, if its suggestion is that the virus should have been allowed to spread unchecked.
Instead, the report’s conclusion appears to be that the collective immune system of people is capable of responding to viruses like Covid-19 without the added concern of infecting those with pre-existing illnesses if those in that category isolated for as long as necessary.
The report’s reference to the application of common sense suggests allowing people to use their own initiatives as individuals and organisations, rather than being dictated to would have been preferable.
Crucially, it suggests that it would not have had any worse effect on people with pre-existing illnesses, if people that fall under those brackets had stayed at home and applied common sense, rather than whole populations being forced to stay indoors.
Health minister Lena Hallengren said: ‘The non-lockdown policy has been much-debated. I’ve had to answer a lot of questions during the pandemic about the “Swedish strategy”.
‘The fact that the commission concluded that the overall strategy, based on non-invasive recommendations… was the right choice. I think that’s good.
Sweden’s health minister Lena Hallengren at the time of the report’s release, welcomed the commission’s conclusions.
“The non-lockdown policy has been much-debated. I’ve had to answer a lot of questions during the pandemic about the ‘Swedish strategy,” she told the Telegraph. “The fact that the commission concluded that the overall strategy, based on non-invasive recommendations… was the right choice. I think that’s good.”
While the report’s authors said Sweden’s government was right to not shut primary and lower secondary schools during the pandemic, they wrote that other “indoor settings where people gather or come into close contact” should have been restricted.
These include shopping centres, restaurants, cultural and sports events, hairdressing salons, and swimming pools.
Face Masks
The commission also argued that face masks should have been encouraged in public places as soon as they were no longer in short supply, that the government should have stopped all inessential inward travel in March 2020, and that those returning from ski trips at the end of February should have been asked to quarantine.
The report was also critical of the way the government delegated responsibility to the Public Health Agency, its then director-general Johan Carlson, and state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.
“The Government should have assumed leadership of all aspects of crisis management from the outset,” it rules. “It should have been able to overcome the obstacles to clear national leadership that currently exist.”
Tobias Billström, group leader of the opposition Moderate Party, said that this amounted to scathing criticism.
“The commission is saying that the government has not done what a government should do in this situation, which is to lead the nation. They’ve dodged out of it,” he said.
The report also accused the government of being over-reliant on the Public Health Agency for expertise.
Ms Hallengren rejected this charge: “They can have their opinion about that. But the fact is, that the Public Health Agency is not one expert, it’s hundreds of experts. It would be very strange if I, as health minister, or the government, relied on specific or unique experts instead of this very big expert authority”.
Lockdowns were widely approved in most parts of the world during the pandemic, making it particularly interesting if indeed they were unnecessary and avoidable, as stated by the Swedish inquiry.
However, Sweden’s approach was also said to have let the elderly down due to structural shortcomings and insufficient staffing levels which left nursing homes ill equipped.