81. Capturing the undercurrent of covid policy discontent – Nils Littorin

A few weeks into 2022, the Covid policies are shifting dramatically in many countries. Restrictions are being rolled back. This conversation with Nils Littorin is a bit like a posterior assessment of what worked and didn’t work during this huge health policy experiment. Dr Littorin, a microbiologist, is the initiator of the so-called Doctors’ Appeal in Sweden (Läkaruppropet in Swedish), a manifestation against harmful restrictions and for the shielding of vulnerable groups. It is inspired by the Great Barrington Declaration, published in October 2020 by three professors at Oxford, Stanford and Harvard. As of February 2022 around 25,000 people have signed the former and almost one million the latter. Sweden has been the ”control group” in the global lockdown experiment, with far fewer restrictions than most other countries. But even here, many are frustrated. ”There is a pretty strong undercurrent of discontent with current covid policies also in this country, including vaccine passports”, Nils says. ”That tells you something. That tells you that these measures are not serving any good purpose.” ”I am for logical logical measures that protect the vulnerable. The measures that have been taken don't protect the vulnerable. No measures can stop the virus. It has been shown all over the world.” ”You cannot find any epidemiological studies that show that lockdowns or harsh restrictions work in the sense that they reduce the excess mortality. On the contrary, there is no correlation.” ”Unfortunately, a lot of politicians act and talk as if there is not only a correlation but a causal relationship between lockdowns and reducing the spread of the virus or deaths or hospitalizations”, he says. Aside from the brain, the immune system is probably the most complex thing in the body. It is not defensible, says Littorin, to force onto people preliminarily approved medicines that affect bodily functions with such complexity. But he is definitely not an anti-vaxer. ”I am not against these vaccines. Those who need them should take them. But it has to be by consent within a doctor-patient relationship.” ”I am worried that we are violating that trust now, that doctor-patient relationship. What will people expect from health authorities next time?” ”Because of the fear porn propagated by the mass media and careless politicians, many people believe that these vaccine passports protect them from transmission. If you look at the data, they don't, especially not now, with Omicron.” In Nils Littorin’s view, the vaccine passports should be ”thrown in the garbage bin of history”. ”And the leaders who advocated them should sit beside the bin and contemplate how they could do it.”