Brief Introduction to Video-40

The following video is an interview that took place, I believe, last April on BBC's HARDtalk in which Stephen Sackur, the host of the program, queries Anders Tegnell, Sweden's healh minister or State Epidemiologist, concerning that country's rather contrarian approach -- at least relative to much of the rest of the world -- concerning the COVID-19 crisis. In Sweden, facemasking is not required, there have been no lockdowns, schools have not been closed, and the economy has not been shuttered or decimated in an attempt to completely eradicate a virus that -- if it exists, and if is contagious, and if it is lethal -- cannot be eradicated anymore than the flu can be eradicated. Furthermore, Sweden has not engaged its citizens through Gestapo-like tactics and policies which, unfortunately, have been instituted in all too many other countries to such an extent that civil liberties have been completely ignored, constitutional provisions have been suspended, and virtual martial law has been implemtented. Instead, Sweden has pursued its policies through various recommendations and suggestions in which Swedish officials have sought the co-operation of its citizens rather than treating them as objects that can be abused in any manner that political authorities like.

Anders Tegnell admits that mistakes were made with respect to inadequaely protecting people who live in long-term care facilities and indicates that much of the country's death statistics vis-a-vis COVID-19 arise from those sorts of mistakes involving elderly individuals who are living in long-term care facilities rather than being generated from the general population which has been permitted to go about its day-to-day lives unhinderd by draconian government interventions. One of the more important points that was made -- on several occasions -- by Anders Tegnell during the interview concerns the importance of the issue of sustainability. Among other things, this means that one has to try to balance a variety of considerations when instituting health policies.

For example, authorities cannot restrict their focus exclusively to matters of containment or trying to flatten the curve through excessively stringent measures because, in the long run, this will not be sustainable. People might survive the disease only to be destroyed by the so-called "cure".

Achieving sustainbility also requires authorities to recognize that infectious diseases tend to follow certain kinds of long-known, well-established epidemeological patterns involving, among other things, the idea of herd immunity -- something that one cannot achieve by separating people from one another or trying to force those individuals tinto little existential bubbles that, supposedly, cannot be penetrated by infectious agents. In addition, one must also take into consideration issues such as the problematic ways that various stringent lockdown, masking, and excessive social distancing policies can have on the emotional, psychological, social, and economic wellbeing of individuals. There is a great deal of scientific and medical data indicating that stress kills, and, therefore, forcing unemployment on people, or destroying the businesses that people have taken years to establish, or imposing maximum security-like forms of isolation upon people can also generate devastating health problems of all kinds which also are capable of making people sick or susceptible to illenesses of all kinds (stress adversely affects the immune system) that also can have terminal ramifications. In many places where draconian, oppressive, government policies have been inflicted on citizens, there have been marked increases in suicides, domestic abuse, drug overdoses, and family breakdowns.

Although the issue of "vaccines" was touched upon toward the end of the interview, Anders Tegnell did not give any indication that if such a vaccine ever arrives that it will be forcefully imposed on Swedish citizens. Furthermore, he did not shy away from indicating that other treatments, beside vaccines, should be pursued.

Another important point that is made by Anders Tegnell during the interview concerns the issue of testing. While the host of HARDtalk seems intent on stressing the importance of, or the need for, doing more testing across the Swedish population, Tegnell indicates there is not necessarily any need to engage in such a process. One can obtain the same sort of information if one engages in properly done studies that are based on complying with a set of rigorous methodological principles which are capable of ennabling one to establish samples that are truly or fairly representative of the Swedish population as a whole. Moreover, through the use of statistical analysis and critical reflection concerning those sorts of analyses, scientists and health specialists are able to obtain a fairly accurate idea of what is happening in the larger Swedish population with respect to issues of possible immunity, herd status, and so on based on an analysis of what seems to be transpiring in smaller samples, and this statistical approach is less costly, less time-consumiing, and less intrusive than is a program which tries to test everyone ... even assuming, of course, that the COVID-19 tests that are being used are reliable.<

Since the foregoing interview occurred, some of the data that give expression to what is happening in Sweden have begun to emerge. For example, there was an August 9, 2020 article by Jordan Schachtel in The Mass Illusion which indicates that, so far in August, Sweden has had only one death of a person in which SARS-CoV-2 was, allegedly, present (and even if present, this does not prove that the person died from COVID-19). Moreover, during July, there were only 52 patients in various Intenstive Care Units in Sweden that -- rightly or wrongly -- were diagnosed as COVID-19 positive.

At no time during the last five months have Swedish hospitals been overrun with COVID-19 cases. Yes, there were a considerable number of people who were in long-term care facilities that passed away during the COVID-19 crisis, but although there are clearly things that need to be changed with respect to how Sweden -- as well as many other countries, including the United States -- look after the people in such long-term care facilities, one still is uncertain about from what, exactly, those people died ... was it due to COVID-19 or was it due to some other array of maladies that were presumed to be COVID-19 but were not, or, perhaps, one might ask if the deaths of so many elderly people was due to a set of interacting, iatrogenic factors in which people were being misdiagnosed becaue no one actually knew what COVID-19 was all about and, as a result, were being treated with medical protocols (such as intubation and ventilation) that undermined the health of patients rather than supported that health?

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