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Comment by jlundborg | Hacker News Reader

I think this is decidedly unfair critizism, and is based on cherrypicking statements out of context especially regarding timing. The statement about the Alps/Southern europe has for sure been shown to be false in retrospect, but when it was made nobody knew there was an outbreak brewing there, so it was very much based on what was known at the time. I don't think any epidemiologist could have predicted the big outbreak in the alps/northern Italy specifically, and as far as I know, the advise from Tegnell was not different from that of the German authorities at the time. Basing your judgement of Tegnell only on this statement seems very ill-advised.

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"nobody knew there was an outbreak brewing there" How do you know that? It's 2020, a globalized world, heavy exchanges between China and Italy, supercomputers, complex models. Wouldn't one expect from experts in virology that they actually do have means to foresee these scenarios? I personally do. I was monitoring the coronavirus situation at that time due to personal travel plans. And by mid February I saw a high probability (70 % - 80 %) that we would have significant outbreaks in Europe. Thus, I do expect more from a state epidemiologist than such a display of false certainty.

Apart from that, Tegnell has been wrong in so many regards (how often hasn't he claimed that the outbreak is near a peak, or that there is reason for optimism??! I don't have enough fingers to count that). One would rather have to cherrypick in order to find a specific prediction/claim/statement which turned out to be correct.

In the end, it comes down to what we expect from our leading experts. The experts who in fact decide about many people's lives, in this case. Particularly in a country in which most people follow the state experts' recommendations without any questions asked.

What I expect from leading experts is to give clear opinions and recommendations based on their best assesment of the situation given available data. I also expect them to quickly and humbly adapt to new evidence when it is found, while keeping in mind that new is not always better.

I don't expect experts to always be right, sometimes the best prediction turns out to be incorrect. This does not change the fact that it was the best prediction at the time it was made, given the available data.

I personally feel that this is exactly what Tegnell is doing in public discourse, he is very quick to point out when there are uncertainties and what the nature of it is, but is still able to present clear advise. He has also demonstrated willingness to change when new evidence is found. This is a far cry from what I see many politicians are doing, and I think this is the reason he is enjoying very high trust from the Swedish general population.

Thank you, that’s insightful. An honest (not cynical) follow up question: Would that in consequence mean that in your perspective, an expert who in mid February somewhat speculative had pointed to a possible outbreak in Italy or elsewhere in Europe - based on predictive scenario modeling and probabilities - had done a worse job than one who ruled out such a possibility, by relying exclusively on that moment’s available data (despite virus data lagging a few weeks)?

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