Concerned by the corona spread in Italy: Could just as easily happen here

The discussion was held after a weekend of rapid spread of infection in Iran and Italy and strong stock market declines around the world.

"What we have is basically uncontrolled spreading in two parts of the world, which is in principle a pandemic," said Björn Olsen, professor of infectious diseases at Uppsala University.

The rapid spread in Italy worries both Olsen and Anders Tegnell, state epidemiologist at the Public Health Authority.

- This shows what potential the virus has. If you don't catch the cases early, you can get a big spread if you are unlucky, Tegnell said.

Olsen drew worrying conclusions for Sweden.

- The problem is that it could just as easily have happened in Sweden. We may have a slightly different way of catching early infected than in Italy, but this turned out to be a bomb from clear skies, he said.

Anders Tegnell didn't really agree.

- You have to be careful about hitting your chest, but I think we could have done better. We have a better basic structure that is more organized and probably more attentive. Italy has invested a lot in setting flights and controlling borders, but not as much as we in Sweden in catching them inland, he said.

Olsen also called for clearer signals to the regions about increasing emergency preparedness in health care. The National Board of Health or the Public Health Authority must provide such directives, he said.

- What should we do if we get one case, five cases, ten cases, one hundred cases? You have to practice that, much like with fire exercises or heart-lung rescue, it should sit in the spinal cord.

Tegnell responded that the region's infection prevention doctors have already begun planning and developed their pandemic plans.

"Exercises in all honor, here's what we need to plan - what resources do we have, what are the patient flows we have that we can possibly control over elsewhere," he said.

Another question is whether the places of care are sufficient. An inventory among the regions shows that there are resources for around 1400 care days, or 100 patients if one assumes 14 days of care.

That's enough for an outbreak of the same size as in Italy, Tegnell said.

Olsen objected, saying that "unorthodox solutions" will be needed in the form of out-of-hospital care.

- Ten patients hit a hospital de facto. I base this on conversations I have had with doctors in different departments. They say that we all have corona patients to take care of, and we all have others.