No WHO job for doctor who was face of Sweden’s controversial coronavirus strategy
- Top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell had originally left his post to take on a new role at the UN health agency
- Before he stepped down last month, the doctor was synonymous with the country’s softer approach to the pandemic and its refusal to impose strict Covid-19 curbs
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Sweden’s former top epidemiologist who became the face of the country’s controversial Covid strategy will not take on a new job at the WHO as previously announced, Sweden’s Public Health Agency said on Wednesday.
The agency in March announced that Anders Tegnell, who gained global attention during the pandemic as the country’s state epidemiologist, would leave to take on an international position with the World Health Organization.
“After a process at the WHO it has proven impossible to reach an agreement,” the health agency said in a statement, without providing further details.
Tegnell became synonymous with Sweden’s softer approach to the pandemic, repeatedly defending health authorities’ refusal to roll out the kind of draconian virus curbs seen in neighbouring European countries.
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He consistently denied that so-called herd immunity was the aim of the approach, arguing that more restrictive measures were not effective enough to justify their impact on society.
According to the public health agency, Tegnell was to have joined the WHO as a senior expert in a new group coordinating efforts to supply vaccines to poor countries.
Instead, the 66-year-old doctor, who has passed Sweden’s official retirement age of 65, will return to the Swedish health agency to work on international issues, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
A government-commissioned inquiry into Sweden’s strategy concluded at the end of February that Sweden was correct not to impose containment to combat Covid-19, but said it should have introduced measures more swiftly at the start of the pandemic.
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Sweden did ban visits to elderly care homes and limit public gatherings, and in a later phase banned alcohol sales after 8pm.
With more than 18,000 deaths so far in a country of 10.3 million people, Sweden’s death toll remains far higher than in neighbouring countries, notably Norway and Finland.
Above average at the beginning of the pandemic, the death toll later fell below the European average.
