Chapter Five - *That* letter to the editor


During my own personal Twitter pandemic there were a few turning points, or perhaps "points of no return" would be a better description. The first one occurred on April 14, 2020. On this day, Dagens Nyheter published a letter to the editor with the caption "Folkhälsomyndigheten har misslyckats - nu måste politikerna gripa in" (The Public Health Agency have failed - now the politicians need to take the reins - https://www.dn.se/debatt/folkhalsomyndigheten-har-misslyckats-nu-maste-politikerna-gripa-in/), written by 22 Swedish scientists, academics and physicians. As the title suggests it was a full frontal attack on the Swedish strategy, the public health agency and its staff, the latter of whom were referred to as "civil servants without talent", a phrase which would take on a life of its own, but to avoid committing the same fallacy as Tegnell's critics (see last chapter), I will provide the entire context: "Med tjänstemän utan talang att förutspå eller begränsa epidemin måste de folkvalda gripa in med snabba och radikala åtgärder." - "With civil servants without talent to predict or limit the pandemic, our elected politicians need to step in with fast and radical measures", the implication being of course that the 22 signatories knew much better than the experts at the public health agency. The problem was that they didn't have a fucking leg to stand on.