Swedish Professor Forced To Quit Research After He Finds Coronavirus Not A Threat To Children
A Swedish epidemiology professor was forced to quit his research on coronavirus after he faced radical backlash on his findings that the coronavirus doesn’t possess a huge threat to children. The professor also found that children were not using masks, while the other Swedish residents were simply encouraged to exercise social distancing. The findings directly undermines the political opinion on not to reopen the schools.
The professor of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute, Jonas Ludvigsson said he could not sleep because of the angry messages he has received on social media and emails that are questioning his research and somehow putting blame on him for Sweden’s contrarian coronavirus strategy.
His research was aimed at children from 1 to 16 years of age. He started his study while the first wave of the pandemic hit last year.
This research is including those with laboratory-verified or clinically verified covid-19 patients, also the patients who were admitted for multisystem inflammatory syndrome (in children) eventually related to the virus.
As per the reports, only 15 children went to ICU at a rate of 0.77 per 100000, four of them had an underlying chronic coexisting condition and none of them died.
As for the teachers, less than 30 went to ICU during the same period at a rate of 19 per 100000.
The professor also found that children were not using masks, while the other Swedish residents were simply encouraged to exercise social distancing.
As the professor faced the backlash over his findings, now Sweden plans to enhance academic freedom protection in law.
Matilda Ernkrans, the higher education minister of Sweden told the British medical journal that the government has plans to rectify the higher education act to make sure to provide protection to education and research to enable people to discover research and share knowledge freely.
Ole Petter Ottersen the president of Karolinska Institute told the journal that hateful and sardonic blames and personal attacks cannot be allowed, whether it is against the paediatrician or other researchers who have retreated from the public debate after facing harassment and threatening.
The professor said his letter to the editor, published on February 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, had gone through many revisions and “formal external peer review” including statistically.
Jonas is not the only one who was forced to quit because his research found something which went against the official narrative crafted over COVID-19.
- Source : GreatGameIndia
