126 - Sweden (and COVID-19)
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2020
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sweden's approach to controlling the spread of COVID-19 has relied largely on providing guidance and expecting compliance. What's gone right? What's gone wrong? Anders Tegnell, Sweden's chief epidemiologist, talks candidly with Dr. Josh Sharfstein. He rejects the idea that the nation has been complacent, saying the goal has always been to reduce transmission, using mandates as necessary to achieve the goal. He also explains why Sweden has not hospitalized more older adults who contracted COVID-19 in nursing homes, a population that has accounted for a large share of deaths.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 2 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins |
| 0:11.6 | Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:13.6 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, |
| 0:18.8 | and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:21.9 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence and experience to the public health news of the day |
| 0:27.3 | through informative interviews with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health |
| 0:32.7 | officials, clinicians, and more. If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at |
| 0:39.8 | Public Health Question at jhhhu.edu. That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future |
| 0:47.2 | podcast episodes. Today, I speak with Dr. Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist in Sweden. |
| 0:55.0 | A lot has been said about the approach that Sweden has taken to addressing the coronavirus pandemic. |
| 1:01.0 | We went to hear from the source. Let's listen. |
| 1:06.0 | Dr. Tegnell, thank you very much for joining me. |
| 1:10.0 | A lot has been said and written about the Swedish |
| 1:13.7 | approach to COVID-19. I'd like to start by asking you to explain, in your words, the approach |
| 1:20.5 | Sweden has taken and how you see it is different from the approach followed by other countries. |
| 1:27.3 | I think in many ways it's similar because what I think we're all trying to achieve is as slow |
| 1:33.7 | spread of this disease in our society as we can possibly achieve. |
| 1:39.5 | And having a special attention to avoid the spread into part of the population that are more vulnerable than others, especially in the elderly. |
| 1:50.1 | And I think Sweden in that way does not differ from any other countries in this. |
| 1:55.9 | The way we differ is the way we have done it, I would say. |
| 1:59.6 | We have developed social distancing with a mixture of legal tools and voluntary advice, |
| 2:09.6 | which is very much based on the way we usually work with public health measures in Sweden, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.