More BBC propaganda?
“Sweden’s controversial decision not to impose a strict lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic led to too many deaths, the man behind the policy, Anders Tegnell, has acknowledged”.
“Sweden has counted 4,542 deaths and 40,803 infections in a population of 10 million, while Denmark, Norway and Finland have imposed lockdowns and seen far lower rates. Denmark has seen 580 deaths. Norway has had 237 deaths and Finland 321. Sweden reported a further 74 deaths on Wednesday.”
Comments: The heading and subheading gives the impression that Dr Anders Tegnell regrets not locking down Sweden, but the remainder of the article states that he regrets mainly not protecting the elderly in care homes better, which is the same problem that the government in the UK had. Also, by only comparing the numbers of deaths in Norway, Denmark and Finland, it mispresents the fact that Sweden has over twice the population of these countries, hence the greater numbers of deaths and also forgets to compare with the UK, which has a greater number of deaths for the ratio of population. Also, Sweden has more people in care homes than Norway et al, which would also skew the comparison and which, as Dr Tegnell stated, is his primary regret. Dr Tegnell is quoted in the article as saying “we basically still think that is the right strategy for Sweden”, In another BBC article on May 19TH, Sweden acknowledged that nearly 50% of all deaths were in care homes. This is about the same as in the UK and many other countries, including Italy and the USA and that is the real tragedy, not the lack of lockdown in Sweden, as the article implies. Of the total number of deaths in Sweden, 4,400 so far, over 2,000 were in care homes, leaving just over 2,000 other deaths. That is really not that high. Even the WHO complemented Sweden on its approach as other analyses were projecting disaster with 96,000 plus deaths in April.
Therefore, it looks like the BBC article is yet another example of a propaganda piece, in this time when believing much of the media is difficult. Perhaps it is trying to defend the UK’s tragic lockdown approach while neglecting their own elderly and not wanting Sweden’s approach to look like a better option. It should be remembered that the Imperial College’s modelling report emanated from the UK and which was a major factor leading to the disastrous global lockdown in the first place.