encouraging drops in the daily number of fatalities. in spain, the number has fallen below a hundred for the first time since before it imposed nationwide restrictions. italy has also reported its lowest figure since it entered lockdown. the uk government has insisted that primary schools in england will be safe when some pupils return at the beginning ofjune. but a leading minister acknowledged that risk could not be eliminated. teaching unions have safety concerns, in particular over how teachers and children can maintain social distancing. the mayor of ezell‘s largest city says the health system in this city is close to collapse as demand grows for emergency hospital beds to deal with covid—19. he said the cities public hospitals had reached 90% capacity. now on bbc news,

it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. much of the world responded to the covid—19 pandemic with a lockdown strategy and now the focus is on finding a way out of lockdown without prompting a second wave of infection. could sweden provide a model? my guest today is sweden's chief epidemiologist, anders tegnall. he was the architect of a controversial no lockdown strategy which continues to stir interest right across the world. has it worked? anders

right across the world. has it worked ? anders tegnall right across the world. has it worked? anders tegnall in stockholm, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. let's begin with the latest picture in sweden. your death figures every day from covid—19 go up, go down, sometimes by significant margins. it is hard to get a real sense of whether you are really in control of the spread of covid—19 in sweden or not. what do you say? we know the death toll is complicated because the registration of death is often a few days late. so we now collect data on date of death and we do it ina way data on date of death and we do it in a way that we do not worry too much about the last ten days because we know they are unsure and many things are happening and they fill out every day. instead we look at days before that and then we

followed the trend much better and we have a clear declining trend. i thinkjust under 100 cases a day and 110w thinkjust under 100 cases a day and now we're down to slightly more than 80 day on average. the trend seems to keep going that way. that trend is clearly very good news. but is not the brutal truth that you have had many more deaths in sweden than you would have had if, like your scandinavian neighbours, you had imposed an early and very strict lockdown policy? i think that is difficult to know. the death toll in sweden is mainly in the long—term facilities for long—term ill elderly people and we had very much and in fortu nate people and we had very much and in fortunate spread in those facilities in the way that some of the countries had but not all our neighbours. that is something trying

to investigate now. in respect, isn't that part of my point? that you probably would not have had that catastrophic spread of covid—19 through your care homes, particularly around stockholm, if you had run a more strict and less open policy for the general population? these people meet many people, even in lockdown so you cannot isolate them. in that way, lockdown would not have stop the spread into them and we can see now that when we start to look at these places, we see a decline incidences once we get them to focus on basic hygiene procedures. as the countries chief epidemiologist, the man, let's be honest, the man who is the architect of the swedish government's strategy for coping with covid—19, can you regard a

situation in which your country has almost 30,000 infections of covid—19 in the population, with a death toll thatis in the population, with a death toll that is significantly higher than your neighbours, standing at around 3500, can you regard that as success 01’ 3500, can you regard that as success or do you have to acknowledge that in some ways your strategy failed? that is true. when it comes to the death toll it did not work out. the way we hoped it. on the other hand, the connection between our basic strategy and slowing down the spread, if that is in the long run will affect the total death toll in the society or not. that is not yet clear. we know that our neighbouring countries by now have around 1% of the population who had some kind of immunity. investigations we have in sweden so far we have a major one

going on that will give us a better a nswer going on that will give us a better answer and it points that we have at least ten, maybe 20 times higher level of immunity in the population which means we are much further into the spread than other countries and if that means that other countries will reach similar death tolls to us 01’ will reach similar death tolls to us or not, i think that is difficult to judge. an interesting answer because you are inviting me there to consider the long—term significance of this notion, this concept of herd immunity. your own government says the strategy that you implemented, the strategy that you implemented, the more moderate less strict emergency response to covid—19 was not about establishing herd immunity but you seem to be suggesting that, actually it is about getting to that point where so many people in the general population have had covid—19 and therefore we assume have some resista nce and therefore we assume have some resistance to getting it again, that you have this concept of herd

immunity in your population. was that the working strategy or not? immunity in your population. was that the working strategy or nowm was not. i'm just pointing out one way that shows that you cannot make this kind of comparison at this stage because the epidemic has hit different countries in different ways. the point is about comparisons with your nordic and scandinavian neighbours. they took a different approach and were much stricter in their lockdown and the death toll, denmark has just over 500, finland over 200 and norway just denmark has just over 500, finland over 200 and norwayjust over 200. they are strikingly different from sweden's and the point is that they 110w sweden's and the point is that they now feel they are in a position to ease their strict lockdowns and bring some sense of normality back to their population to quote one of the senior ministers in denmark, they feel that there is very little chance of a second spike because of what they have achieved. so they are as far along the curve as you are

but they prevented hundreds and hundreds of deaths that you failed to prevent. i don't understand what you mean by being as far along the curve as we are. if only if you percentage points of their population has been infected they are not along the curve. but they are not along the curve. but they are not along the curve. but they are confident that measures that they took on the social distancing and the public consciousness that they now have means the disease will not spread and kill the numbers that have been killed in sweden. and only the future can tell. if you look at similar diseases, we have never really been able to stop anything. sometimes we can delay things. we have been successful in doing that, oui’ have been successful in doing that, our nordic neighbours, but to stop them forever i do not think will be possible with covid—19 just as it has never been possible with flu or any other viral disease. we were coming to your vision of future in a moment but i am interested in the

philosophical point that your approach has tested which is the notion of not conducting your emergency response through the heavy hand of government, through strict mandatory lockdown but talking to your people, placing trust in your own population and saying to them that we are relying on you voluntarily to adopt behaviour that we think will best control the spread of this disease. do you think your policy of trust has worked? yes. i really do. because we can really see the big impact and that comes back to a comparison with other countries and so on. if we look at some statistics that we have a gate related to travel patterns, travel during easter was only 10% of what it normally is, showing that people are really trying to minimise their social contact with an std we

can also see that some of our other viral diseases like flu which has the same kind of pattern every year suddenly stopped in the middle of the pattern and disappeared. also again showing that social distancing really worked and you can see trains running at 10% of capacity and domestic flights not running and so on so domestic flights not running and so on so people really took this on in a way that is more or less equal to people and countries who did it via legal measures. yours was not a mandatory crackdown. in that sense do you think some governments, particularly in europe, have infantilised their particularly in europe, have infa ntilised their populations particularly in europe, have infantilised their populations and therefore when they release the break, people may not act in the responsible way that you say the swedish continue to act.|j responsible way that you say the swedish continue to act. i cannot judge that but i can say one very important thing for us is what you are alluding to and that is

sustainability full these kind of measures, voluntary measures, with a big understanding among the population as to why we're doing this, have a liar level of sustainability. we know that this is something that we will have to handle for a long time and as you said, our nordic neighbours now believe they can handle it in the long—term, going over to something which is fairly similar to what sweden is doing today. but we really need to then have sustainable solutions. of course, there are signs of a reaction in some countries that when you turn things free then you lose your freedom to the maximum extent. here in sweden, evenif the maximum extent. here in sweden, even if people are getting slightly more mobile as we head into summer, we still have a great level of social distancing in place. ifi may, let me get a little personal with you. earlier i said you became seen as with you. earlier i said you became seen as the architect of a maverick

policy which went against the grain of the scientific consensus in many other parts of the world where scientists were backing very strict mandatory lockdowns. it did put you in the spotlight notjust in sweden but right around the world and is the death toll has mounted in sweden and you have been open about that, how has that affected you personally? do you feel any sense of personally? do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for those lives lost? this is not my decision or anything like that. we are a big agency and my director who supports this whole thing... you, you are a modest man but i think you would accept that much of the groundwork and strategy and the thinking behind sweden's policy came from you and it seems to me that that is quite a burden for you to bear when we see what has happened. 0f burden for you to bear when we see what has happened. of course, the death toll is highly regrettable. it

isa death toll is highly regrettable. it is a terrible thing that we are seeing. i think we have a number of explanations why this happened, not directly connected to our strategy. now when we are investigating these long—term facilities, there are many things that can be done to improve the quality of hygiene and, most likely would diminish the death toll over time in these facilities. it is highly regrettable that that was not seen highly regrettable that that was not seen by the people responsible before this happened but it did happen and, of course, it is terrible. 0n the other hand, we're not too sure a strict lockdown would have changed so much. it did not change very much in the uk or other places. what about the debate in the scientific very notable, in 2000 scientists of doctors scientists professors and wounded people signed

a petition curling —— calling on the government to reverse your policy backin government to reverse your policy back in late march and even in april, on april 22, back in late march and even in april, on april22, some back in late march and even in april, on april 22, some very respected scientists in sweden wrote a piece condemning, quote, officials without talent which undoubtedly included you, saying that the decisions were wrong and to quote one leading immunologist, she said we are not testing, we're not tracking the people behind this strategy are leading us to catastrophe. how did you cope with all that? i can cope with that because i know that the other 40,000 scientists in sweden, the majority are behind us. we have an expert group we talk to every week you are behind us blea kly group we talk to every week you are behind us bleakly in line with what we're trying to do and we are really trying to the best we can under the circumstances, that we are trying to sacrifice some of it to have an easier burden on the economy, that

is definitely false. the 2000 was a mixture of different kinds of scientists and a small group of 22 is not our leading scientists in the field. the leading scientist is behind us. so that doesn't worry me too much. the death toll worries me but that is more a group of interesting, and what about the public? because you have had a lot of support, you have even had people putting tatties of your face on their bodies and wearing t—shirts proclaiming their support for you. but you have had others, and i dare say some of those were the family members are people who have died, who have been very critical. that is tough. yes, but i think that also shows that the agency and the policy has strong support in the population. we have done several investigations, and not only us, many others have done investigations, and the level of people who are behind what we are doing is like 70, 80%, which is an

incredibly high number for any doing is like 70, 80%, which is an incredibly high numberfor any kind of measure from a public health agency, and only like five, 10% things that we should think more about the health of the population. another 10— 20% are worried about the economy, and i think that's... it's a great support for what we're doing, that the population is definitely behind us, and then we have some extremes with tatties and things like that, which i try not to think about too much. it must be a strange feeling when you see yourself on somebody else's body, i can imagine. but you say that you didn't do any of this, in terms of the strategy and the policy that you scientists came up with and that the government adopted, you didn't do it for economic reasons. but surely the truth is that, when it came to the crunch, and making these big decisions, people at the top of government in sweden did want to keep the economy functioning, as well as it possibly could. they wa nted well as it possibly could. they wanted to avoid long—term damage. and surely that was a very important

element in this strategy. not the way we delivered it. i mean, we didn't do those calculations. 0n the other hand, we did calculations on the broader public health impact. i mean, when it comes to closing schools, there is a lot of science behind that closing schools does a lot of damage to children, especially children who are vulnerable already from the beginning. being out of work is also very dangerous from a public health perspective. so i think you're onto something here. i mean, ourstrategy includes broader public health perspectives that may be many others in other countries. when it comes to the economic consequences, that's on the economic consequences, that's on the government level, and of course they will make adjustments to the things we suggest. taking the economy into account, but it is definitely not our part of the development of this strategy. right, so development of this strategy. right, so when you look across europe and the world that other countries in the world that other countries in the way they are doing things, and i am thinking of where i am, the united kingdom, where the lockdown is still pretty much in place, with

a very few minor evenings of it, and schools are still closed, and there isa schools are still closed, and there is a very great debate about whether any schools beyond primary age will open before september —— minor easings. it seems they won't. are you saying that is just plain wrong, it isa you saying that is just plain wrong, it is a mistake? it is getting the balance between tackling covid and wider public health and social issues, it is getting the balance wrong? yes, i mean, only the future can tell. and i think what is the science behind this and what is not the science behind dealings with covid—19 is definitely not clear. i mean, not anybody can claim that they have the science that lockdowns are good and the more open strategy in sweden is wrong, because there is no science really supporting anything. what is supporting what we're doing in sweden as we are following a long tradition of how we work in public health. we are also taking into account the public health effect of closing schools and other things would give you a lot of long—term problems in the area of

public health, and that needs to be taken into public health, and that needs to be ta ken into account public health, and that needs to be taken into account when you close schools, and so not doing that, i think, would not be ethical and not be correct public health way of working. i will tell you what is striking in this interview, and i would say honest on your part, is that you keep telling me that on many aspects of this covid—19 response, the science isn't clear. i wa nt response, the science isn't clear. i want to, in that context, bring you back to the notion of herd immunity. because you have said, you said it just a few weeks ago, that you believe by the end of may that they will be a form of herd immunity in play in stockholm. i think you suggested that by then you could imagine that maybe 30 or 40% of the population will have had covid—19, and will have therefore a form of immunity. but it seems to me you have no scientific evidence for that. you are not doing enough testing to know whether that 40% figure is real, and you also, frankly, don't know the science of covid—19. you don't know that having

had covid—19 gives you any long—term immunity at all. so where is your science? we are just now doing a major investigation in sweden, as they have done in other countries, taking a sample of the total population and looking at the level of immunity they are having right now, so of immunity they are having right now, so we of immunity they are having right now, so we get that data. what we are basing it on so far is a few minor investigations showing levels between 10% and 15% of different smaller groups have immunity, which supports the modelling that's been done by two or three different scientists in sweden. and when it comes to immunity, just recently i had a discussion with the top scientist on coronavirus and immunity in sweden, and everybody says of course there is immunity. we can measure antibodies, we can measure other aspects of immunity, and why should covid—19 be different than all other infectious diseases? but what about these cases, doctor

tegnell, what about these cases i read about from china to california of people who have had covid—19, recovered, test negative after they recovered, test negative after they recovered, and then two months later test positive again? apparently they have courted again. that is not a real infection. i havejust discussed this with the top people in sweden, some of them are what they call a recurrence. i mean, you can have part of this virus and carry it obviously for a very long time, which explains some of the cases. 0ther time, which explains some of the cases. other cases were obviously contaminations when they were tested the first time. there is no, as far as they knew, and i really trust these people, there is no confirmed cases of somebody really had the infection twice. we have a very good system of registers in sweden. among all the cases we have had in sweden, not one of them have had it all back more than once. well, to be really sure about how much immunity there is in the general population, you do need the antibody test. rauch, the

pharmaceutical giant in switzerland, has developed an antibody test that the us and the eu are saying they approve of. is sweden intending to test just about everybody over the next few months? we are doing, as i said, a test of a sample of the population to look at the level of immunity in the whole population right now —— roche. the samples have been tested, but in the next week we will be able to tell what is the level of immunity. and we are using a number of different methods to look at that, because there is a number of methods out there, and we have developed some of them ourselves, with the help of the top tea m ourselves, with the help of the top team in sweden doing this. so towards the end of next week we can say it better at what level of immunity we have in the population. i want to end, if i may, we are short of time, doctor tegnell, and i just want to end with some thoughts about the future, because throughout this interview have indicated that you don't think that, if we can

solidified, the fight against covid—19 will come to any sort of end until there is an effective vaccine that is deliverable to the world's population stops so we are talking, let's say, a year or 18 months at the best, in most people's you. in the meantime, how much normality can there be? if we take sweden is one of the more advanced countries, that has thought about this a lot, do you think that we, for example, can return before a vaccine to a world in which there is widespread travel, even between countries,, where widespread travel, even between countries, , where crowds widespread travel, even between countries,, where crowds can gather at music concerts or football stadiums, where hugs and handshakes can become routine again? where people do not have to wear facemasks on public transport? 0r people do not have to wear facemasks on public transport? or has our life fundamentally changed for the long—term? fundamentally changed for the long-term? nobody knows the answer to that question. i think certain things we can be quite sure about. i think for a long time we're going to need to protect our elderly in different ways. because they are

a lwa ys different ways. because they are always going to be susceptible to this disease, and they are always going to have a very high death toll to it, unless we find a vaccine that would work in that part of the population, or a treatment. when it comes to other things, this is not only one nation can decide about travel and so on. i think that we in sweden would feel rather confident to ease down on some of the things, may be travelling around could be 0k, may be travelling around could be ok, maybe a few other things could be ok. if we sometimes get an immunity test that works a bit better on an individual level, which u nfortu nately we better on an individual level, which unfortunately we don't yet, we don't have enough experience on that, we can probably ease a few other things as well. our main concern now is really the elderly, who have been very isolated, and we need to find different ways of easing that isolation, because that will also affect our health, both in the short term and in the long—term, and i think that is one of our main concerns right now. one and i am just very interested in one point.

do you go out— every time you go out now, do you wear facemasks? do you go out— every time you go out now, do you wearfacemasks? know, in sweden we don't wear facemasks. in sweden we don't wear facemasks. in sweden we don't wear facemasks. in sweden we stay home when we are sick. anders tegnell, it has been fascinating getting your insights. thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. hello. there is some wet weather and some warm weather in this weather forecast. first, most of the wet weather will be found across the northern half of the uk. further south, it'll be largely dry, and quite widely it'll become very warm for a time around the middle of the week. the end of the week will feel a bit different. it'll be cooler, windier and more unsettled for all of us. now, you can see frontal

systems which will be pushing across northern areas over the next few days, bringing cloud. yes, this cloud producing some outbreaks of rain, but it is to the south of those frontal systems that things will turn increasingly warm and increasingly sunny for just about all of us by wednesday. but, as far as monday goes, some rain to start off across northern scotland. that will increasingly become confined to the northern isles. the north of the mainland will brighten up, with some sunshine. we will see quite a lot of cloud persisting across southern scotland, north—west england and northern ireland. patchy rain here, which could become heavier from the west into the afternoon. further south, some spells of hazy sunshine. it will be a breezy day, quite a windy one, actually, across northern scotland. but as far as the temperatures go, well, 18 degrees in aberdeen, 17 in belfast, but a high of 24 across some parts of south—east england. now, as we go through monday night into the early part of tuesday, we'll see more splashes of rain at times across northern ireland, northern england and scotland. some clear spells further south, but look at those overnight temperatures — 11,12 degrees the minimum values for some.

so a very mild start to tuesday morning. again we see a lot of cloud across northern areas, with some patchy rain at times. it's likely to be quite misty and murky for some of these western coasts, as well. further south and further east, that's where we see the best of the sunshine, and once again the highest of the temperatures. 25 degrees looks likely in london by this stage. now, as we move into wednesday, high pressure firmly in charge for the middle of the week, these frontal systems being held at bay for the time being. so i think wednesday is going to be the sunniest day of the week, even northern ireland and scotland brightening up by this stage. the exception — shetland here. you'll hold onto a lot of cloud, some splashes of rain, temperatures topping out at around nine degrees. further south, though, a high of 27 degrees is possible. now, things do change for the end of the week. we could see some thunderstorms breaking out on thursday. it turns windy for all of us on friday, with some rain at times, and by this stage it'll feel a bit cooler.

this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: protests in brazil's largest city, opposing the state's lockdown, but the mayor warns the health system is about to collapse. the uk government says it's confident schools in england can safely reopen in as little as two weeks. daily coronavirus deaths in spain fall below 100 for the first time in two months. and, in fiji, the economic impact of the virus has hit so hard that some households are giving up cash and turning