event of the year — the national people's congress. the gathering in beijing was due to take place in march but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. among the subjects for discussion is a controversial new security law for hong kong. another 2.4 million americans have sought unemployment benefits in the past week. the new claims brought the total since mid—march to nearly a0 million — almost a quarter of the workforce. the latest total shows the ongoing painful economic impact coronavirus is having on the world's largest economy. president donald trump has travelled to the key us election swing state of michigan to visit a motor company plant. the president has traded verbal blows with the state's democratic governor during the coronavirus pandemic. he toured the factory, which has been re—cast to produce ventilators, without a mask. it's just after 4:30 in the morning. you are up to date

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

anders tegnell in stockholm, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. let's begin with the latest picture in sweden. your death figures every day from covid—19, they go up, they go down, sometimes by significant margins. it's 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? yeah, we know that the death toll is a bit complicated to follow because the registration of death is sometimes a few days late. so what we do is we now collect data on actual date of death, and we do it in that way that we do not worry too much about the last ten days because we know they are unsure, a lot of things happening and they fill out every day. instead, we look at the days before

that and then we can follow the trend much better and we have a clear declining trend. i think we topped just under 100 cases a day and now we are down to slightly more than 80 a day on the average. and the trend seems to keep going that way. that trend is clearly very good news. yeah. 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 very difficult to know. i mean, the death toll in sweden is mainly in the long—term facilities for long—term ill, elderly people and we had very much an unfortunate spread in those facilities in a way that some of the countries had, but not our nordic neighbours. why we had a spread in sweden and not our neighbouring countries,

that is something we are trying to investigate now. but with respect, dr tegnell, 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, a less open policy for the general population? yeah, i mean, these people meet a lot of people, even if you have a lockdown, so you cannot isolate them. so in that way, a lockdown would not have stopped the spread into them and we can see now, when we are starting to look at these places, we see a decline in the incidences in those places, once we start really focusing and getting them to focus on basic hygiene procedures and so on. let me ask you this — as the country's chief epidemiologist, the man, let us be honest, the man who, in many ways, is the architect of the swedish government's strategy for coping with covid—19, can you regard a situation in which your country has,

getting on for 30,000 infections of covid—19 in the population, has a death toll which is significantly higher than your neighbours, standing at around 3,500 — can you regard that as success, or do you have to acknowledge that in some ways, your strategy failed? yeah, that is true. when it comes to the death toll, this didn't work out the way we hoped it. 0n the other hand, i mean, the connection between our basic strategy in slowing down the spread, if that really, in the long run, will affect the total death toll in the society or not, that is not clear yet. i mean, we know that our neighbouring countries by now have around i% of the population who had some kind of immunity, has had the disease. the investigations we have had in sweden so far — we have a major one going on that will give us a better answer —

it points that we have at least ten, maybe 20 times higher level of immunity in the population, which means that we are much further into the spread than our other countries. and if that will mean that the other countries will reach similar death tolls to us or not, i think that's very difficult tojudge. that is a very interesting answer because you are inviting me there to consider the long—term significance of this notion, this concept of herd immunity. now, your own government says that the strategy that you implemented — the more moderate, the less strict emergency response to covid—i9 — 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—i9 and therefore, we can 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? no, it was not. i'm just pointing out one way that shows that you cannot make this kind of easy comparisons at this stage because the epidemic has hit different countries in many different ways. the point is really about comparisons with your nordic, scandinavian neighbours. because they took a different approach. they were much stricter in their lockdowns, as you've acknowledged, and the death tolls — well, denmark has just over 500, finland, over 200, norway, just over 200. they are strikingly different from sweden's, and the point really is that they now feel they are in a position to ease their strict lockdowns, to bring some sense of normality back to their populations, and to quote one of the senior ministers in denmark, they feel that there's "very little chance of a second spike in infections" because of what they have achieved. so they are as far along the curve as you are but they've prevented hundreds and hundreds of deaths that

you failed to prevent. but i don't really understand what you mean that they are as far along the curve as we are. 0bviously, they are not. if only, like, i% or 2% of their population has been infected, they are not very far along any kind of curve. but they are very confident that because of the measures that they took and the social distancing and the public consciousness that they now have, that the disease will not spread and will not kill the numbers that have been killed in sweden. yeah, and only the future can tell. if you look at other similar kind of diseases, we have never really been able to stop anything. we can sometimes delay things. like, they have been successful in doing that, our nordic neighbours. but to stop them forever, i do not think that's going to be possible with covid—i9, just as well it has never been possible with flus or any other viral diseases in this way. we'll come back to your vision of future in a moment but i am very interested in the more philosophical point

that your approach has tested, and that 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 "we are relying on you voluntarily to adopt behaviours 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 that we have big impacts and that comes back a bit to the comparison with other countries and so on. if we look at some of the statistics that we have, we can look at the travel patterns. travel during easter in sweden was only 10% of normal easter, showing that people really tried to minimise their social contact. we can also see that some

of our other viral diseases, like flu and so on, which has very — the same kind of pattern every year, suddenly stopped in that middle of that pattern and disappeared. also, once again, showing that social distancing really worked and you can see trains in sweden runs at 10% of capacity, domestic flights are almost not running any more. crosstalk. and so really, people really took this on in a way that is more or less equal to people and countries who did it by illegal measures. indeed, yours was not illegal — a mandatory crackdown. in that sense, do you think some governments, particularly in europe, where the lockdowns have been severe, have infa ntilised their populations and therefore, when they release the brakes, people may not act in the responsible way that you say swedes continue to act. i don't know if i canjudge that, but i can say one very important thing for us is what you are alluding to, and that is sustainability.

these kind of measures, voluntary measures, with a big understanding in a population of why we're doing things, have a much higher level of sustainability. and we all know that this is something that we are going to have to handle for a long time and, as you said, our nordic neighbours now believe that 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. and, sure, i mean, there are signs of a reaction in some countries that when you turn things free, then you really use your freedom to the maximum extent. here in sweden, even if people are getting slightly more mobile and so on now as we head into summer, we still have a great level of social distancing in place. let me, if i may, get a little bit personal with you. i said earlier you became seen

as the sort of 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 lockdown. it did put you in the spotlight, notjust in sweden, but right around the world. and as the death toll has mounted in sweden — and you've been open about that — how has that affected you personally? do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for those lives lost? i mean, this is not my decision or anything like that. we are a big agency. i have my director who backs this whole thing... yeah, but i think 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 does seem to me that that is quite a burden for you to bear when we see what has happened. i mean, of course, this death toll is highly regrettable. and it's 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, where there are obviously a lot of things that can be done to improve the quality of hygiene and other things there, and most likely would diminish the death toll over time in those facilities. it is highly regrettable that that was not seen by the people responsible before this happened, but it did happen and, of course, it's terrible. 0n the other hand, we're not too sure a strict lockdown would have changed so much. it didn't change very much in the netherlands, in the uk and many other places. and what about the debate in the scientific community? it's very notable that, you know, i think it was pretty much 2,000 doctors, scientists, professors, learned people signed a petition calling on the government to reverse your policy and impose stricter measures —

that was back in late march — and then 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, cecilia soderberg—naucler, she said, "we are not testing, we're not tracking, and the people behind this strategy are leading us to catastrophe." how did you cope with all that? yeah, i can cope with all that because i know that of the other 40,000 scientists in sweden, the majority is really behind us. we have an expert group that we talk to every week who are very much behind us, completely in line with what we're trying to do and we are really trying to the best we can under the circumstances we're in, that we are trying to sacrifice some of it to have an easier burden

on the economy is definitely false. the 2,000 was a big mixture of different kinds of scientists and the smaller group of 22 is not our leading scientists in the field. the leading scientist in the field is behind us. what about the public? so that part doesn't worry me too much. the death toll definitely worries me, but that small group of scientists does not worry me too much. interesting, and what about the public? because you've had a lot of support. you have even had people putting tattoos of your face on their bodies and wearing t—shirts proclaiming their support for you. but you've had others, and i dare say some of those were the family members of people who have died, who have been very critical. that's 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're

doing is like 70—80%, which is an incredibly high number for any kind of measure from a public health agency in sweden. and only like 5—10% think 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 tattoos 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 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's 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, our strategy includes broader public health perspectives. there may be many others in other countries. when it comes to 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's definitely not our part of the development of this strategy. right, so when you look across europe and the world at other countries and the way

they are doing things, and i'm thinking of where i am, the united kingdom, where the lockdown is still pretty much in place, with a very few minor easings of it, and schools are still closed, and there is a very great debate about whether any schools beyond primary age will open before september — it seems they won't — are you saying that is just plain wrong, it's a mistake? it's getting the balance between tackling covid and wider public health and social issues — it's 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—i9 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 is we're 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 which would give you a lot of long—term problems in the area of 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 a 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—i9 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 itjust a few weeks ago, that you believe by the end of may that there 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—i9, and will have, therefore, a form of immunity. but it seems to me you have no scientific evidence for that. you're not doing enough testing to know whether that 40% figure is real, and you also, frankly, don't know the science of covid—i9. you don't know that having had covid—i9 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 we get that data. what we're 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's immunity. we can measure antibodies, we can measure other aspects

of immunity, and why should covid—i9 be different than all other infectious diseases? but what about these cases, dr tegnell, what about these cases i read about from china to california of people who have had covid—i9, recovered, test negative after they recovered, and then two months later test positive again? apparently they have caught it again. that is not a real infection. i have just 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. 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 who really had the infection twice. we have a very good system of register in sweden. among all the cases we have had in sweden, not one of them have had it more than once. well, to be really sure, then, about how much immunity there is in the general population, you do need the antibody test. roche, the pharmaceutical giant in switzerland, has now developed an antibody test that the us, the eu, and now the uk governments

are all saying they approve of. is sweden intending to test pretty much everybody over the next few months? we are doing — as i said, we are doing a test of a sample of the population to look at the level of immunity in the whole population right now. the samples have been tested, a few of them have been random, but in the next week we'll be able to tell what's the level of immunity. and we're using a number of different methods to look at that, because there is a number of methods out there, and we have developed some ourselves, with the help of the top immunologist in sweden doing this. so, towards the end of next week, we can say better what level of immunity we have in the population. i want to end, if i may — we're short of time, dr tegnell. i'm sorry to interrupt, we're short of time. i just want to end with some thoughts about the future, because throughout this interview, you've indicated you don't think that, if we can call it the fight, the fight against covid—i9 will come

to any sort of end until there is an effective vaccine that is deliverable to the world's population. so we're talking, let's say, a year or 18 months at the best, in most people's view. in the meantime, how much normality can there be? if we take sweden as one of the more advanced countries, that's 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 crowds can gather at music concerts or football stadiums, where hugs and handshakes can become routine again, where people do not have to wear face masks on public transport, or has our life 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 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 will work in that part of the population, which is not going to be easy, or a treatment, and that's not going to be easy either. when it comes to other things, this is not only one nation that 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. maybe travelling around could be ok, maybe a few other things could be ok. if we sometime get an immunity test that works a bit better on the individual level, which they unfortunately don't do yet, we don't have enough experience on that, we can probably ease a few other things too. oui’ 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 the long—term, and i think that's one of our main concerns right now. and i'm just very interested in one point.

do you go out — every time you go out now, do you wear a facemask? nope, in sweden we don't wear face masks. in sweden, we stay home when we are sick. i think that makes a big difference. anders tegnell, it has been fascinating getting your insights from sweden. thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. most of us will have at least a little welcome rain through the day ahead, but it does look fresher for all. the south and the east held on to the sunniest weather and the warmth at 28 celsius, but for most it felt a little fresher during the day on thursday. this huge swirl of cloud will be responsible for the transition and for the rain. now, as that comes and it's really quite deep for this time

of year so it will bring some unseasonably windy weather, gales are being warned about all ready for part of northern ireland, scotland, met office warning in force here. and it hangs around, as you can see, for much of the weekend, bringing further strong winds and more rain. it looks as if parts of northern ireland and the north—west of scotland could see the highest rainfall totals. in fact, in some of the highlands we could have a months worth of rainfall over the coming few days. look at the strength of the wind, really, anywhere from north wales northwards, 50mph gusts of wind, which with the trees in full leaf is clearly a concern. very mild to start our friday and as you can see, cloudier with some rain. it clears away, there may be some thundery showers in eastern areas first thing and then the showers rattle in with sunshine in between but the showers will be frequent and heavy in the north and west and even thundery. and as you can see, those strong and gusty winds affecting all areas, 30—40mph even across the far south. so despite temperatures around about average for this time of year, add in those showers, add in the brisk to strong wind and it will feel much fresher for all.

but there'll be some sunshine and some drier weather around. the showers just keep coming though, as we go through the night. but temperatures will fall a little lower than the night we are currently in, slightly fresher air is with us, but still for most, 9 or 10 degrees will be the overnight low and that's because of the strength of the wind, which will still be with us on saturday. that low pressure still firmly in charge, giving further showers or longer spells of rain across scotland and northern ireland in particular. there'll be plenty of showers further south as well and they could well be on the heavy side, even the odd rumble of thunder. but here, across southern areas the sunny spells will be lengthier in between. another fresh feeling day, given the fact we've got atlantic winds and those showers and those brisk winds too, which will start to ease just a little in the south as we get into sunday but there will be further pulses of rain across scotland and northern ireland, as you can see. but just fewer showers in the south on sunday and lengthy spells of sunshine. temperatures a little higher

by that stage as well. there's more online.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and across the globe. i'm david eades. china's national people's congress begins in bejing. a controversial new security law for hong kong is expected to be voted through. brazil's coronavirsus death toll passes 20,000. scientists warn it's still weeks away from the peak of the pandedmic. an act of absolution — uk scientists think they've identified a coronavirus treatment, using cells from our own bone marrow to fight the virus. getting into greece. we look at how tourists will be screened this summer, as hopes rise of reviving the multi—billion pound tourist industry.