Did something go wrong with the Sars-Cov (2) vaccin? And are there other factors at play? The case for Finland's tribalism

Did something go wrong with the Sars-Cov (2) vaccin? And are there other factors at play? And are there other factors at play? December, 2019. A virus few people had heard about spread like a wild-fire across the globe. I early 2020, leaders of all 193 countries across the globe seem to have got the same information about the virus. In some cases, political leaders opted to look-down parts of their countries. In other cases, the decision making was decentralized to the level of operation (the experts). A comparison between Finland and Sweden show that tribalism seem to play the main effect for excess mortality and spread of depression.

Please support the blog via Swish (Sweden), MobilePay (Finland) or Wise.

Did something go wrong with the Sars-Cov (2) vaccin?

Link to source.

And are there other factors at play?

December, 2019. A virus few people had heard about spread like a wild-fire across the globe.

In early 2020, leaders of all 193 countries across the globe seem to have got the same information about the virus.

Two behaviors were observed:

1. In some cases, political leaders opted to look-down parts of their countries.
   
   
2. In other cases, the decision making was decentralized to the level of operation (the experts).

Sars-Cov (2) is the abbreviation for Severe acute respiratory syndrome, and it was not a new virus. And the number, 2, indicates that there's number 1. Wikipedia.

If Sars-Cov (2) travels through our species, it may cause Covid19. Mark the word 'may'.

Let's get back to lock-down and look at how culture influence the model.

Back in the days, most scholars believed that agriculture explained culture. Nowadays, common knowledge is that language explains culture (Reich, 2019).

And which I mentioned before, Finland and Sweden serve as a huge Randomized Control Trial (RCT). Here's why.

The republic of Finland (1917 –) and the kingdom Sweden (~500 AD –) share genetics, history, and the trade language around the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic sea.

In what is now Sweden, an entrepreneurial culture emerged ~3000 years before the present. They traded, in temporal order, with Mycenae in Greece, the Etruscan's (current day Italy), the Roman's, and eventually established a trade network – Svitjod – between Särkland (areas around the Caspian sea), Gårdarike (current day Ukraine which they also founded), and the Frankish king (now France, and Germany).

Chieftains in Satakunda (now Satakunta and Birkaland) in the northeast direction from Tiundaland, Svitjod, applied to become part of Svitjod's mighty trade network (Klinge, 1985).

What is now called Finland became the eastern part, a grand duchy (1581 – 1809), of Svitjod, later the Swedish kingdom; at least 16 trading places, including Helsingfors, was founded in the eastern part of the kingdom. Today these trading places constitutes Finland's largest cities. Because of our common language, the people in the eastern part of the kingdom shared a cultural marker with the people in the western part: entrepreneurial thinking.

But in 1808, Sweden's arch enemy Russia invaded the eastern part of the kingdom and then occupied it for 108 years. In 1863, after 54 years of occupation, tsar Alexander II (1818 – 1881) imposed a second official language.

The likely reason, probably inspired by the bible and the story about Nimrod and the tower of Babel, was military; Alexander II likely wanted to suppress the trade language around the Gulf of Botnia and the Baltic sea.

It seems that only a small percentage of the population thought it was a good idea. This is explained be the fact that the implementation was slow. Very slow. It took 62 years before the new language broke even (~1925), that is, 8 years after the people had declared:

1. independence from occupying Russia.
   
   
2. the republic of Finland (1917– ).

But even though the people was released from their occupiers, the culture in Finland had change significantly, that is, away from entrepreneurial thinking. But to what?

During his 3rd Gifford lecture (2019), Mark Pagel, a professor of biological anthropology, talked about tribalism. He mentioned two example. The second example was Finland.

And in organizational psychology, which I know something about (Österberg, 2012), common knowledge is that culture matters for a lot of things, like decision making.

So when the Sars-Cov (2) virus arrived, the Swedish government acted in accordance with Sweden's longstanding tradition – entrepreneurial thinking; decision making was implicitly decentralized to the level of operations – an expert working at the Swedish Folkhälsomyndigheten.

In Finland, which due to language change is marked by tribalism (Pagel, 2019), acting prime minister Sanna Marin (who refuse to speak Finland's and Sweden's trade language), together with Li Andersson, Anna-Maja Henriksson, Katri Kulmuni, and Maria Ohisalo, ignored the experts. Instead, they, a small group of non-experts, opted to lock-down Nyland, the county where the capital Helsingfors (founded 1550 by King Gustav Vasa) is located.

In the global research community, Sweden is considered the ideal example.

In Finland, more people per capita died compared to Sweden. Depression and suicide increased (YleNews, 2020; Finnish politicians during the municipal elections 2021).

Why did some people get more sick than other people, and why did more people per capita die because of the virus?

Complex issues like these are typically explained by a multi-factorial model.

Lock-down is one part of the explanation. Another is nutrition.

Finland, but not Sweden, was once one of seven countries where the diet-heart hypothesis was tested.

Diet-heart hypothesis is the idea that saturated fat will increase serum cholesterol, and the risk of contracting cardio-vascular disease (CVD).

In 1972, for that reason, the North Karelia Project was founded (they also took data från Åbo, but the people at the Institute for Welfare and Health ( THL) and University of Helsingfors never talk about that for some reason!?).

2006, in the largest and most expensive study on women's health, the diet-heart hypothesis was debunked But on page 661, there's a table showing that women who decrease their consumption of saturated fats by 10%, increase the risk of contracting CVD by 28%! (Howard et al. 2006). 🥶

Ten years later, the diet-great hypothesis was again debunked (Ramsden et al. 2016).

Finnish THL seems to have ignored that. Because sixteen and six years later, in March 2022, they bragged about having convinced the Finns to reduce their consumption of butter (animal saturated fat) and salt. Finnish media also allowed one nutritionist to reiterade that meat is bad for health. 🤔

In reality, animal source nutrients are crucial for physical and mental health (For example, Adesogan et al. 2019; Ede, 2019). So is salt (Mente et al. 2021).

In early 2020, international experts pointed out things like that, including to supplement vitamin B-complex and zink to be more resistant against virus in generell and the Sars-Cov (2)-virus in particular.

Here's my take on nutrients and Sars-Cov (2) (Österberg, 2020).

Also read: Österberg (2025). Finland's collapse is continuing, but no politician or public manager admits to having done anything wrong

Please support the blog via Swish (Sweden), MobilePay (Finland) or Wise.

More about my expertise:

Executive coaching for CEOs/managers and workshops to facilitate Organizational Performance, Learning, and Creativity for Problem Solving | Lectures: Nutrition for physical and mental health | Course/lecture: children's emotional and social adjustment and cognitive development | Language training - Swedish | Academy Competency | CV | Teaching skills and experience | Summary of research project | Instagram | Linkedin | YouTube-channel | TikTok | X