JOHN NAISH: Is this the real reason why deaths in the UK are so high?

Isn’t the mild flu season of the last few winters blaming the enormous sacrifice of the British Covid-19 dead?

It’s a controversial theory that has been hawked by responsible people SwedenLight touch response Coronavirus Pandemic.

Sweden’s leading epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, has won praise for his country’s low infection rate compared to other European countries.

However, he was cursed because of the high death toll among infected people.

Sweden’s Covid-19 mortality rate, which kills 5,685 people, is 10 times higher than neighboring Norway and Finland. The per capita population is the fifth highest in Europe.

Isn’t the mild flu season of the last few winters blaming the enormous sacrifice of the British Covid-19 dead? Sweden’s leading epidemiologist Anders Tegnell (pictured) was praised for his country’s low infection rate compared to other parts of Europe.

Unlike most Europe, Sweden was allowed to open shops, restaurants and schools throughout the pandemic.

Still, the infection rate remained low. This is also due to the impact of targeted social distance. This is easy in a country that has one-sixth the population of the United Kingdom but almost twice the land.

However, mortality has skyrocketed among infected Swedes. why?

Tegnell is due to the flu. Rather, the lack of influenza in recent years.

He said a normal flu epidemic kills many vulnerable (often older) people during the winter. If that doesn’t happen, fragility survives only to be killed by something else.

“If many people die of the flu in the winter, fewer will die of the heat wave next summer,” he told a Swedish newspaper.

Unlike most Europe, Sweden (pictured, Strambagen in Stockholm) has allowed stores, restaurants and schools to open throughout the pandemic.

This time, the pandemic killed instead of fever.

“In this case, it was Covid-19 that killed many,” he claims. Tegnell argues that the same is true in Britain.

“In countries where influenza mortality has been fairly low in the last few years, Covid-19 has a very high excess mortality rate,” he says. “It also explained the high mortality rate in the United Kingdom.”

But is this plausible? After all, Tegnell is just the latest in the parade of the virus emperors who tied the science to explain why the original scientific policies didn’t work.

Well, Tegnell is right about the high mortality rate in Britain. Our death toll per capita is 627 per million, more than 575 per million in Sweden.

Tegnell says a normal flu epidemic kills many vulnerable (often elderly) people during the winter

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that his mild flu theory tells the whole story.

Of course, the flu season has peaked in the UK in recent years, especially in the winter of 2017-18.

In the UK, from October to January, the number of people who died of the flu tripled from the previous winter.

This week, researchers in Public Health England warned that patients who receive influenza and Covid-19 at the same time are more than twice as likely to die than those who receive Covid-19 alone. Photo, London

Indeed, the winter deaths of the year exceeded 50,000, the highest since 1975/76. According to the National Statistics Bureau, it is due to the flu poison and the cold.

However, new evidence suggests that the actual influenza epidemic may actually help reduce Covid-19 mortality. But not for the reason Tegnell suggests. In addition to killing vulnerable people, influenza infections may help arm us against Covid-19. This is because a virus infection prepares the immune system to fight the next virus intruder.

In fact, researchers at Yale University strengthened their theory this month by reporting to The Lancet Microbe magazine that catching a cold could help prevent the spread of the flu.

And earlier, in June, researchers at the University of Tubingen in Germany even suggested that respiratory viruses such as the common cold could help strengthen defenses against Covid-19.

So Tegnell may be partly correct, albeit a false reason, for lowering the Covid-19 mortality rate of influenza.

However, if the theory of exposure to viruses that enhances Covid-19 protection is correct, there are still problems.

Lockdown restrictions not only reduced Covid-19 infections, but also reduced exposure to colds and the flu.

In normal summer, these viruses are available in very small amounts. Because they aren’t crowded together in an ambiguous room.

However, this year it has been physically isolated, and hospital doctors are reporting children and older patients with aggressive colds that are not prepared for protection.

So how do you defeat this? One way is to trick our immune system into fighting the hard flu season by administering the flu vaccine.

Dr. David Strain, Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Exeter School of Medicine, helping the British Medical Association develop guidelines for symptoms, said: positive. “

Not only is the NHS free access to flu jabs for infants over the age of 65, but the government aims to provide flu jabs to everyone over the age of 50, and hospitals if resources are available. Prevents you from being overwhelmed by demand.

Vaccinations, on the other hand, can also protect us from the threat of “cold” infections. This week, researchers in Public Health England warned that patients who receive influenza and Covid-19 at the same time are more than twice as likely to die than those who receive Covid-19 alone.

So even if the Swedes don’t understand why, exposure to influenza in the form of vaccination may be an important blow to combat the coronavirus pandemic.