Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment The controversial epidemiologist believes lockdown is ‘using a hammer to kill a fly’. .......... At the start of this year, Anders Tegnell was just a low-profile bureaucrat in a country of 10m people, heading a department that collects and analyses data on public health. Today, he has become one of the best known — and most controversial — figures of the global coronavirus crisis. ................ a rational approach as other countries have appeared to sacrifice science to emotion ............... some on the American and British right have seized on Tegnell as a champion of freedoms they feel they have lost during lockdown. .............. The populist Sweden Democrats have called for him to resign after thousands of elderly in care homes died. That has given Sweden the fifth-highest death rate per capita in Europe, five times higher than neighbouring Denmark and about 10 times more than Norway and Finland........... a bit resistant to quick fixes, to realise that this is not going to be easy, it is not going to be a short-term kind of thing ............. We see a disease that we’re going to have to handle for a long time into the future and we need to build up systems for doing that ........... As coronavirus cases rise in pretty much all other European countries, leading to fears of a second wave including in the UK, they have been sinking all summer in Sweden. On a per capita basis, they are now 90 per cent below their peak in late June and under Norway’s and Denmark’s for the first time in five months. Tegnell had told me the first time we spoke in the spring that it would be in the autumn when it became more apparent how successful each country had been ............. Today, the architect of Sweden’s lighter-touch approach says the country will have “a low level of spread” with occasional local outbreaks. “What it will be in other countries, I think that is going to be more critical. They are likely to be more vulnerable to these kind of spikes. Those kind of things will most likely be bigger when you don’t have a level of immunity that can sort of put the brake on it” ................... he argues immunity is at least in part responsible for the sharp recent drop in Swedish cases and questions how its neighbours will fare without it. “What is protecting Copenhagen today? We will see,” he adds ............... Unlike in pretty much every other country, it is not politicians who take the big decisions but Sweden’s public health agency, due to its constitution giving big powers to independent authorities. ............. The only other country not to lock down in Europe was authoritarian Belarus, I say. He erupts in a burst of nervous laughter: “That’s no comparison.” ............. his approach has been about having a strategy that can work for years if needs be, rather than the constant chopping and changing seen in the rest of Europe ................ I barely see a single person with a mask. ............ masks — which Sweden is one of the few countries not to recommend wearing in public ............... Tegnell, in a few short months, has become the most famous Swede, both at home and abroad. “It’s hype,” he says. “And it’s completely surreal.” .................. he says his time just before that working on vaccination programmes in Laos for the World Health Organization was the most formative. “I really learned about the importance of broad thinking in public health. I think that’s also partly behind our strategy and also what the agency is doing. We are not just working with communicable diseases, we are working with public health as a whole” ........ In June, Tegnell described the rush to lock down in the rest of Europe and the US as “it was as if the world had gone mad”. ....... Sweden, in the local vernacular, had “ice in its stomach” whereas other nations had acted emotionally ........... Our conversation ends with Tegnell again swimming against the tide, and warning that a vaccine — if and when it comes — will not be the “silver bullet”.
‘I Feel Like I Have Dementia’: Brain Fog Plagues Covid Survivors The condition is affecting thousands of patients, impeding their ability to work and function in daily life. .......... After contracting the coronavirus in March, Michael Reagan lost all memory of his 12-day vacation in Paris, even though the trip was just a few weeks earlier. ............. Covid brain fog: troubling cognitive symptoms that can include memory loss, confusion, difficulty focusing, dizziness and grasping for everyday words. ............. “The impact on the work force that’s affected is going to be significant. .......... Scientists aren’t sure what causes brain fog, which varies widely and affects even people who became only mildly physically ill from Covid-19 and had no previous medical conditions. ............... A French report in August on 120 patients who had been hospitalized found that 34 percent had memory loss and 27 percent had concentration problems months later. .......... difficulty concentrating or focusing ............ the fourth most common symptom out of the 101 long-term and short-term physical, neurological and psychological conditions that survivors reported. Memory problems, dizziness or confusion were reported by a third or more respondents. ............. after overcoming a several-week bout with Covid-19 breathing problems and body aches. “I become almost catatonic. It feels as though I am under anesthesia.” .............. One morning, “everything in my brain was white static,” she said. “I was sitting on the edge of the bed, crying and feeling ‘something’s wrong, I should be asking for help,’ but I couldn’t remember who or what I should be asking. I forgot who I was and where I was.” ................ She resumed working in early August, but her mind wandered and reading emails was “like reading Greek” ......... In meetings, “I can’t find words,” said Mr. Reagan, who has now taken a leave. “I feel like I sound like an idiot.” ....... Inflammatory molecules, released in effective immune responses, “can also be sort of toxins, particularly to the brain” ........... Mr. Sullivan navigates a spectrum of cognitive speed bumps. In the mildest state, which he calls “fluffy,” his head feels heavy. In the middling phase, “fuzzy,” he said, “I become angry when people talk to me because it hurts my brain to try and pay attention.” Most severe is “fog,” when “I cannot function” and “I sit and stare, unmotivated to move, my mind racing.” ............... Recently, she couldn’t even recall “toothbrush,” saying to a friend “‘You know, the thing that makes your teeth clean.’” ......... at the grocery store with his wife, he developed “full-blown fog,” gripped the cart and “wandered around the store like a zombie,” he said.