The warning calls, while not shrill, are in evidence. An epidemiological battle is taking shape, though it remains one dominated by parrying disagreements of expertise. Britain’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has much praise for the approach, having made similar suggestions to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the “herd immunity” phase of discussions. In contrast, a petition featuring over 2,000 doctors, scientists and academics, which boast among its numbers the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Prof Carl-Henrik Heldin, has called for more aggressive measures. “It is risky to leave it to people to decide what to do without any restrictions,” opines a paternalistic Joacim Rocklöv, an epidemiologist based at Umeå University. “As can be seen from other countries this is a serious disease, and Sweden is no different than other countries.”

Virologist Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, based at the Karolinska Institute, has not held back in her views, claiming with some punchiness that the government has committed all the big no-nos in responding to a pandemic. “We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we have let the virus loose.” In so doing, Sweden had been placed on the path to catastrophe. To avoid a lockdown, a mass-testing approach as adopted by South Korea would have to be adopted. Time will tell which one stacks up.

via The Swedish Alternative: Coronavirus as a Grand Gamble – » The Australian Independent Media Network