MORE DEATHS CAN BE PROFITABLE-

ŠVEDSKI "SLUČA"CORONE ANDERS TEGNELL Swedish corona strategist on strike over emails on herd immunity: 'More deaths would be profitable?' Tegnell denies that the authorities decided to leave the schools open in order to achieve the herd's immunity By: Damjan RaknićPosted: August 17, 2020 8:50 pm Jonas EXTROMER / TT News Agency / AFP Fa Anders Tegnell GOJKO DRLJAČA WRITES The Triumph of the Swedish Experiment: A Nation on the Road to Collective Immunity Sweden's strategy to fight the coronavirus epidemic has again come under fire after emails showed that the country's leading epidemiologist Anders Tegnell apparently asked if higher mortality among the elderly would be acceptable if it led to a faster acquisition of herd immunity, writes The Guardian . Speculation about the possible views of leading Swedish public health experts was further intensified after it turned out that Tegnell, the architect of a strategy to fight coronavirus that does not include quarantine, deleted some of his emails. Tegnell has repeatedly reiterated that the government’s goal is not to rapidly develop herd immunity, but to slow the spread of the virus to the point that the health system can deal effectively with the epidemic. However, email correspondence obtained by Swedish journalists through the Right of Access to Information Act shows that Tegnell spoke about herd immunity as a goal back in mid-March, in the days after the World Health Organization declared the Covida-19 pandemic. In one correspondence, Tegnell forwarded to his Finnish counterpart Miki Salminen and the director of the Swedish National Health Agency (FHM) an email from a retired doctor suggesting that the epidemic could be fought by allowing healthy people to be intentionally infected with the virus under controlled conditions. “One of the points would be to keep schools open to gain herd immunity faster,” Tegnell commented. Salminen replied that the Finnish Health Agency had considered this, but that it had given up because "children will pass the infection on to other age groups over time anyway". The Finnish model suggested that closing schools would slow the spread of the virus among the elderly population by about 10 percent. Tegnell replied, "Could it pay off by 10 percent?" Tegnell, who has repeatedly argued that children experience mostly mild symptoms of Covid-19 and that it does not spread to large populations, denies that authorities decided to leave schools open to achieve herd immunity. "I commented on the possible effect, not the expected one, which was part of the assessment of the appropriateness of the measure," Tegnell told Emanuel Karlsten , a journalist who came across the emails. - Therefore, keeping schools open in order to gain herd immunity has never been relevant, he added. Sweden subsequently closed schools for all students over the age of 16, but left them open to younger students and insisted on classroom attendance. Families who kept their children at home reported to social services and were threatened with fines. This was true even for families whose members belonged to high-risk groups. Sweden also banned gatherings with more than 50 participants, but only demanded that people stay away from home and work and work from home whenever possible. Distancing was not ordered. Shops, cafes, restaurants and gyms remained open. In one of the other emails, Tegnell asked one of his predecessors, Johan Giesecke, to create a model that would show what would happen if the virus were allowed to circulate freely among the population. Giesecke said high school seniors could return to classrooms after Easter. The daily newspaper Aftonbladet writes that Tegnell apparently deleted several emails from the period from January to April. Tegnell sent more than 200 emails during that period, which journalists wanted to access under the Right to Access Information Act. Aftonbladet claims that the deleted emails contained parts of his conversations with government employees, health experts and Giesecke. It is not clear when exactly the emails were deleted. The Public Health Agency claims that they do not keep all the emails and that some are missing because some of the employees rejected or deleted them. Tegnell said those emails probably concerned working conversations with various groups that didn’t have to be kept. - I delete a lot of emails that I do not consider relevant enough to save them, he said and redirected further questions on this topic to the Agency's lawyers. Although he denied that herd immunity was a strategic goal, Tegnell has repeatedly said that strict quarantines are unsustainable and that the Swedish approach, supported by much of the population and criticized by many experts, is a better preparation for the second wave of the epidemic. The number of those infected in Sweden has been steadily declining since June. The country recorded 84,294 cases of coronavirus infection and 5,783 deaths. The number of deaths per million inhabitants in Sweden is higher than in other Nordic countries, but is lower than those introduced by quarantines such as the UK, Spain and Italy. Authorities estimate that 40 percent of Stockholm's population was infected with the coronavirus by May, but national studies have shown that immunity to the virus is relatively low. A study published last week in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concluded that the herd’s immunity “is not in sight”. Students of all ages in Sweden are returning to their benches next week, prompting parents and some professionals to advocate for a ‘more responsible policy’, which would include mandatory wearing of masks and adherence to distancing measures. Tegnell opposes making masks compulsory in schools. Studies from other countries say that scientists still do not understand how children contribute to the pandemic, but that it is known that children who go to school can become infected with the coronavirus and can transmit it to other members of society. Professor of microbial pathogenesis Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér said the low rate of coronavirus spread among school children does not justify the conclusion that schools can be opened without restrictions.