Stockholm – As the architect of Sweden's
unorthodox response to the coronavirus pandemic, Anders Tegnell
has got used to receiving death threats and being urged to
resign.
But he says he has no plans to step down or step back and
remains convinced that, over time, the anti-lockdown strategy
that has seen his country break ranks with much of the world
will prove its worth.
"I think a number of countries should have thought twice
before taking the very drastic measure of a lockdown," he told
Reuters in an interview. That's what's experimental, not the Swedish model."
While most countries have hunkered down behind closed doors,
Sweden has relied on voluntary curbs on social contact, keeping
most schools, restaurants, bars and businesses open.
Since March, its economy has outpaced the rest of Europe,
but at over 5 000 its Covid-19 death toll is jarringly high – many times the combined total of neighbours Denmark, Finland and
Norway.
Tegnell's supporters, praising what they consider a
forward-thinking approach to an unavoidable calamity, have
sculpted his image in soap and wood, and the wave of flowers
sent to the 64-year-old, a keen gardener, has been such that his
local florist has asked for deliveries to be staggered.
Meanwhile the populist Sweden Democrats have described
coronavirus deaths among the elderly as a "massacre" and
demanded his resignation, and police have investigated multiple
death threats against him.
Tegnell, his hair greying and worry lines creasing his
forehead, calls Sweden's death toll "horrible" but maintains
there is little evidence linking it to the absence of a
lockdown, pointing instead to conditions at nursing homes, a
decentralised health care system and travel patterns.
A veteran of anti-Ebola health campaigns in Africa, he also
argues that his critics have focused too little on the
consequences of shutdowns.
"It is fascinating how little we in Sweden have discussed
the very negative effects that lockdowns have had in many
countries. Domestic abuse... schoolchildren with very serious
problems in many other countries," he said.
"The effects of different strategies, lockdowns and other
measures, are much more complex than we understand today... This
disease is very difficult to understand."
The death rate among Swedish Covid cases has fallen about
70% from a peak in April and Tegnell says some countries that
adopted hard lockdowns, like Britain, Italy and Spain, have
suffered more.
For him, it is the actions of his Nordic neighbours that are
the more baffling. "The question is rather whether they had a
reason to shut down at all?" he said.
But his remains the minority view and as Europe gradually
reopens for travellers, Swedes have been excluded by many
countries, even within the usually tight-knit Nordic countries.
"Their strategy has failed," said Allan Randrup Thomsen,
professor of virology at the University of Copenhagen, where the
death toll per capita is a fifth of Sweden's.
"It's been a decisive factor for their high infection
number, that they didn't shut down to the same extent that
(Denmark)... did."