Swedish Epidemiologist Dr. Johan Giesecke explains why coronavirus lockdowns policies are wrong and not evidence-based

Last week, we told you about World Health Organization (WHO) after the organization’s emergency expert praised Sweden for its response to the coronavirus. In a conference call with reporters, Dr. Michael Ryan says Sweden could be ‘future model’ for coronavirus policy.

“I think there’s a perception out there that Sweden has not put in control measures and just has allowed the disease to spread,” Ryan said. “Nothing can be further from the truth. Sweden has put in place a very strong public health policy around physical distancing, around caring and protecting for people in, in long-term facilities, and many other things.”

So, how exactly did Sweden do it and was it based on science? The answer may lie in the lead person behind the Swedish model. Professor Johan Giesecke was the State Epidemiologist from 1995 to 2005 and a leading consultant on the Swedish model. He worked as infectious disease clinical doctor working with AIDS patients during the 1980s and trained at the London School of Tropical Medicine in the 1990s before returning to Sweden.

Since then he has been chief scientist at the European Center for Disease Control, provided advice to the World Health Organization’s Director-General, and continues to serve as a consultant advisor to Anders Tegnell at the Swedish Agency for Public Health. Dr. Giesecke speaks out against draconian measures, which he said are not evidence-based.

Below is a video of his interview with UnHerd.

UnHeard: Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:

• UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based.
• The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only.
• This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product.”
• The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better.
• The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact.
• The paper was very much too pessimistic.
• Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway.
• The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown.
• The results will eventually be similar for all countries.
• Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
• The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%.
• At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available.