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Sweden's mortality rate (2.97) is significantly higher than Germany (0.78), South Korea (1.59) and the US (1.75) among others. As of 3/29/2020 https://www.stati

by dmh2000 7y ago

Sweden's mortality rate (2.97) is significantly higher than Germany (0.78), South Korea (1.59) and the US (1.75) among others. As of 3/29/2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-death-rates-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-deat...

paul_f 7y ago
can't really reach that conclusion. Mortality rate is too dependent on how many people have been tested, not the underlying mortality. Nobody knows the true denominator in these equations.
Gwypaas 7y ago
Sweden has since March 13th stopped testing except those who requires hospital care, so the numbers are not comparable in any way.
- chosenbreed37 7y ago
  I wonder why they stopped testing...
  - Gwypaas 7y ago
    Because the government figured that contact tracing wouldn't contain the spread, it was already too far gone. Based on that it was better to reserve the tests available to those who actually need them.
    - jariel 7y ago
      Yes. This is a pretty scary artifact of their program. The Swedish government has purposefully decided to obfuscate the facts, ignore the data, with the logic that a) it won't necessarily help and b) the data will only cause panic, etc.. Can you imagine the US government doing such a thing? This is deeply, deeply disturbing and it's hypocritical to defend their actions in light of authoritarian tactics around the world. The WHO and nations that have been successful (Korea) have been saying test, test, test test. It's a key to suppression.
      - jeltz 7y ago
        No, they did not. The Swedish government stopped testing to conserve resources due to a severe lack of test kits. I have some criticism of the lack of transparency from the Swedish government, but they did not stop testing to hide anything. The lack of testing resources was very real.
        jariel 7y ago
        In the face of the fact that the number thing the WHO is recommending, and which we know helps a lot, is testing - you are essentially saying that the Swedish healthcare pandemic response is incompetent. Testing has increased radically in almost every advanced country, in neighboring Norway, they have 4x more testing - do you not think that Sweden, a rich, advanced nation would somehow be able to figure out how to expand testing? The testing/capita figures are here [1] where you can see that Sweden is, in fact, testing quite a bit behind most other rich nations (though not far behind Denmark). So the question is, why are they failing so badly on this venue? Or have they actually decided to focus elsewhere? I find it easier to believe they are actually competent, but taking a different approach and they are obfuscating/lying about their ability to expand testing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing Edit: I am adding the official Swedish statement as reference: "Almost all those who get Covid-19 have mild symptoms and recover without requiring medical care. There are thus no medical reasons to test all those who have a cough, sore threat, fever or other symptoms that may indicate a Covid-19 infection, but may in fact be caused by another type of infection. The Public Health Agency of Sweden recommends testing of those people who have a very high fever or acute respiratory symptoms and require hospital care." [2] Unfortunately, they indicate that 'there is no medical reason to test for Covid unless high fever' which I think is a problematic statement in the context of a pandemic. Of course, there are 'medical reasons to test' beyond those factors. [2] https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disasters-and-incidents/2020/official-information-on-the-new-coronavirus https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disaster...
        cjblomqvist 7y ago
        In reply to jariel: Because they've said so, continuously and consistently from the start, with quite logical arguments. You could check the press conferences they hold every day if you want to see for yourself. It's way too early to say (which is also pointed out by the government), but ICU cases (which is the critical metric here, since it's quite reliable and comparable, and the metric that matters the most for the Healthcare system) is showing signs of decline (or at least stabilizing). In unsure if our approach is the right one (time will tell). It's clear that the government is taking this situation very seriously though, just using a different strategy. And honestly it seems to at least not be much worse than any other country at this point.
- lawn 7y ago
  The government announced today they want to increase the testing again, but how much or when is yet undecided.
  - Gwypaas 7y ago
    Wasn't the government generally simply approving of more tests as long as it doesn't implicate the care? The push was launched by the main opposition party to be able to open the economy earlier.
    - lawn 7y ago
      As I understood it the government tasked Folkhälsomyndigheten to hurriedly create a plan for how testing could be increased.

paul_f 7y ago

can't really reach that conclusion. Mortality rate is too dependent on how many people have been tested, not the underlying mortality. Nobody knows the true denominator in these equations.

Gwypaas 7y ago

Sweden has since March 13th stopped testing except those who requires hospital care, so the numbers are not comparable in any way.

chosenbreed37 7y ago
I wonder why they stopped testing...
- Gwypaas 7y ago
  Because the government figured that contact tracing wouldn't contain the spread, it was already too far gone. Based on that it was better to reserve the tests available to those who actually need them.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Yes. This is a pretty scary artifact of their program. The Swedish government has purposefully decided to obfuscate the facts, ignore the data, with the logic that a) it won't necessarily help and b) the data will only cause panic, etc.. Can you imagine the US government doing such a thing? This is deeply, deeply disturbing and it's hypocritical to defend their actions in light of authoritarian tactics around the world. The WHO and nations that have been successful (Korea) have been saying test, test, test test. It's a key to suppression.
    - jeltz 7y ago
      No, they did not. The Swedish government stopped testing to conserve resources due to a severe lack of test kits. I have some criticism of the lack of transparency from the Swedish government, but they did not stop testing to hide anything. The lack of testing resources was very real.
      - jariel 7y ago
        In the face of the fact that the number thing the WHO is recommending, and which we know helps a lot, is testing - you are essentially saying that the Swedish healthcare pandemic response is incompetent. Testing has increased radically in almost every advanced country, in neighboring Norway, they have 4x more testing - do you not think that Sweden, a rich, advanced nation would somehow be able to figure out how to expand testing? The testing/capita figures are here [1] where you can see that Sweden is, in fact, testing quite a bit behind most other rich nations (though not far behind Denmark). So the question is, why are they failing so badly on this venue? Or have they actually decided to focus elsewhere? I find it easier to believe they are actually competent, but taking a different approach and they are obfuscating/lying about their ability to expand testing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing Edit: I am adding the official Swedish statement as reference: "Almost all those who get Covid-19 have mild symptoms and recover without requiring medical care. There are thus no medical reasons to test all those who have a cough, sore threat, fever or other symptoms that may indicate a Covid-19 infection, but may in fact be caused by another type of infection. The Public Health Agency of Sweden recommends testing of those people who have a very high fever or acute respiratory symptoms and require hospital care." [2] Unfortunately, they indicate that 'there is no medical reason to test for Covid unless high fever' which I think is a problematic statement in the context of a pandemic. Of course, there are 'medical reasons to test' beyond those factors. [2] https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disasters-and-incidents/2020/official-information-on-the-new-coronavirus https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disaster...
      - cjblomqvist 7y ago
        In reply to jariel: Because they've said so, continuously and consistently from the start, with quite logical arguments. You could check the press conferences they hold every day if you want to see for yourself. It's way too early to say (which is also pointed out by the government), but ICU cases (which is the critical metric here, since it's quite reliable and comparable, and the metric that matters the most for the Healthcare system) is showing signs of decline (or at least stabilizing). In unsure if our approach is the right one (time will tell). It's clear that the government is taking this situation very seriously though, just using a different strategy. And honestly it seems to at least not be much worse than any other country at this point.
lawn 7y ago
The government announced today they want to increase the testing again, but how much or when is yet undecided.
- Gwypaas 7y ago
  Wasn't the government generally simply approving of more tests as long as it doesn't implicate the care? The push was launched by the main opposition party to be able to open the economy earlier.
  - lawn 7y ago
    As I understood it the government tasked Folkhälsomyndigheten to hurriedly create a plan for how testing could be increased.