Sweden’s lockdown-sceptic Covid chief given WHO role

THE World Health Organisation has recruited Sweden’s state epidemiologist who opposed strict restrictions throughout the pandemic.

Anders Tegnell, architect of Sweden’s pandemic response, gained notoriety and praise for resisting calls for a widespread lockdown during the first wave of infections in 2020 – in sharp contrast to the policies advocated by WHO.

The health agency has repeatedly urged governments to introduce Covid restrictions quickly to prevent spread.

The 65-year-old denied that the strategy was designed to reach herd immunity, instead arguing that restrictive curbs seen in neighbouring European countries were not effective enough to justify their impact on society.

While this approach won him widespread support from Right-wing US and UK groups, it also attracted criticism inside and outside Sweden – including from the country’s monarch King Carl XVI Gustaf – for failing to protect the elderly and vulnerable.

Dr Tegnell, Sweden’s epidemiologist since 2013, will leave his role at the Public Health Agency on Monday to join WHO, co-ordinating work on the global vaccine rollout with Unicef and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “The assignment involves, among other things, making Covid-19 vaccine available to countries in the world that have not been able to buy their own,” the health agency said in a statement.

Dr Tegnell added: “I have worked with vaccines for 30 years and at the same time have always been passionate about international issues. Now I get the chance to contribute to the extensive international work. It is still very important that the vaccines reach the countries that have not had the financial conditions to buy their own.”

Frode Forland, his counterpart in Norway, told the Financial Times it was “natural” for the epidemiologist to leave after “the worst of the crisis has passed”, suggesting he had been “under huge pressure” for two years.

According to the country’s official Covid commission, Sweden was correct not to impose a stringent lockdown, though it concluded that authorities should have “opted for more rigorous and intrusive disease prevention and control measures” in early 2020.

In autumn 2020, Sweden gradually tightened its pandemic approach. But with over 17,000 fatalities so far in a country of 10.3 million people, the death toll remains far higher than in countries such as Norway and Finland.