Swedish doctors and scientists criticise Swedish herd immunity strategy

25 Swedish doctors and scientists have published an open letter on USA Today: "We set an example on how not to deal with a deadly infectious disease. The strategy has led to death, pain and suffering and has not helped the economy."

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• The open letter to USA Today

The final goal of the Swedish doctors and scientist is to convince Americans (and others) not to do as their country did with the pandemic because, they say, “the ‘Swedish strategy’ did not work".

The herd immunity strategy “did not work well," and now, “Sweden is among the countries with the highest mortality rate in the world, so it should not be taken as an example by any other country.”

“Sweden also has a death toll more than four and a half times higher than the other four Nordic countries combined and more than seven times higher per million inhabitants. For a number of weeks, Sweden was among the first in the world in terms of deaths per capita. And yet, the strategy has essentially remained the same," scientists recall referring to neighbouring countries such as Denmark, Finland and Norway. “At the moment there are more than 78,000 contagions and more than 5,600 deaths, and according to the calculations of the authorities, there could be another three thousand fatalities in the near future".

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"The Swedish Public Health Agency insists on compulsory schooling for young children, the importance of testing has been diminished for a long time, it has also has refused to recognise the importance of asymptomatic spread of the virus and still refuses to recommend masks in public, despite overwhelming evidence of their effectiveness," the scientists write, remembering that the aim of the Swedish authorities was not to minimise the epidemic, but rather to slow it down.

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"Regardless of whether herd immunity is a goal or a side effect of the Swedish strategy, did it work?" the doctors ask. "Not so well," they answer, "it is estimated that the percentage of Swedes who have gotten the virus is less than 10% (on average, between 5 and 10% in Europe.) Yet Sweden has a higher death toll than the United States: 556 deaths per million inhabitants, compared to 425 on 20 July. For a number of weeks, Sweden was among the first in the world in terms of deaths per number of people.