Passengers wait for a Stockholm ferry in July. Swedish health officials insist face masks offer a false sense of security and can lead people to forget about social distancing.
By Gretchen VogelScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.On 5 April, Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist for the Swedish public health authority, sent an email to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) expressing concern about proposed new advice that face masks worn in public could slow the spread of the pandemic coronavirus. “We would like to warn against the publication of this advice,” Tegnell wrote.